How do YOU think Smile would have went?

It's kind of surreal to see your intriguing synthesis here juxtaposed with several of the 13+-year old exchanges that previously dominated this subject on the board, Julia. (Readers please note I am not referring to the big thread we had more recently...)

I think you do indeed have a book's worth of material here that would serve as a searching re-examination of SMiLE that covers the myths, the misdirection, and the miraculous compromise that produced BWPS, but leaves room for a convincing reconstruction of what the LP would/could have been like in early 1967 if certain different circumstances had managed to occur.

It's just a question now, I think, of how you decide to order the material you've produced for an actual book (as opposed to the many components that are currently housed across half a dozen threads here.

It seems to me that all of the "SMiLE '67" versions hinge on whether Brian could have crashed through with a version of HV that he could live with (which also seems to be where he was at with GV, only to have his life further complicated by its immense commercial success). Maybe I missed it in tracking down all of the materials you've produced, but do you have a breakdown of how the 5m30s HV you include is put together? I'm just curious if any reprise of HV elements could recur in any of the "Dumb Angel" versions, since some of that was clearly on Brian's mind in January.

"Metatron" deals with the GV issue which almost certainly would have hit the wall once Brian submitted a version to Capitol without it. What about the possibility of opening the record with GV "to get it out of the way" of the two concepts? That would explain two drastically different track orders based on a probable real-life clash over the commercial viability of the LP.

If GV goes first, it might be possible to leave "I Ran" in on the second side as a "reprise," similar to what could be done with HV. I think it fits fabulously between Wonderful and CIFOTM, making Side 2 even better.

If we are talking about end of January as a delivery date, then I wonder if "Dada" would make the cut chronologically (?). I think "The Elements" remain rather daunting, "water" in particular because things are most fragmentary there, but the chant is still an intriguing way to start Side 2 (and I think we have to think about LP sides, as that was what was being worked with in 1967).

BTW I think it's still possible that some short chant/choral piece could open in front of GV on Side 1.

I don't think it hurts the overall thesis of the book if you have 3-5 possible song lineups--after all, the mix/match/rearrange game has been going on for decades...your scenarios just have to track with the timeframe and cover the various directions that post-production wrangling were likely to take. I strongly sense that Brian would have delivered an LP initially w/o GV and that would've prompted a 1-3 week skirmish which might even have involved some of the legal issues that emerged during Anderle's tenure. A finished product at that time could have expedited the resolution of those matters--because of the project going into limbo in March, those matters languished along with the LP and don't seem to have been resolved until July.

Hoping that these ideas aren't disruptive to your overall process of cutting through the received myths and the "third movement" compromise that gave us a fine "official" version in BWPS, but opening up a much better sense of how "SMiLE '67" could have beaten the odds against it. I think you have cut through so much of what has built up over the years as a kind of protective sediment over the bizarre peregrinations that dominated how the project was perceived in the aftermath of its collapse (including all the picking of the bones from its carcass that ensued).

All of that is most impressive and I hope there's a way to get it all into book form. It definitely deserves to become a prominent voice in the ongoing conversation...

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