So... why wasn't SMiLE released in 1967?

[Zenobi]

I just read a long thread on the subject in the "other forum" and I was almost totally disappointed. The "almost" is due mostly to the contributions of Dan Lega, both reasonable and readable.
I am sincerely curious to know whether there is any consensus about this matter, here in Smiley Smile, and whether any opinions have changed, after so many years.
Thanks in advance.

[Zenobi]

Here is what Dan just posted on that forum:

"I have to say I'm really confused as to what I'm hearing from many on this board.

I thought I was on a Beach Boy board, filled with lots of people who love the Beach Boys, especially their period from '66 to '74 when they were making great music that was nearly totally ignored by fans and especially the music press of the day.

I especially thought I was on board full of people who LOVED SMiLE.  People who had been dying to hear SMiLE ever since they first heard of its existence!  People who eagerly anticipated SMiLE's rebirth after 37 years.  People who BOUGHT TICKETS to the concerts, many for MULTIPLE NIGHTS, to finally REVEL in the nearest thing to an original facsimile of SMiLE that we'll ever get!

But no, I seem to be on a board that HATES SMiLE.  People who believe Brian HATED SMiLE!  People who think of Van Dyke Parks as some sort of evil trickster!  Not to mention a totally incompetent lyricist!


Where did the Beach Boys fans go???


As for me, I think Van Dyke's lyrics are the greatest lyrics ever written for the pop world!  And I will never believe Brian didn't think so, too!  


Love and merci,
Dan Lega


PS -- Here's a thought, but I don't have an answer and haven't looked into it at all -- why did Brian go back and start re-orchestrating and re-doing tracks that were already finished? Maybe it was because he was trying to come up with something the Boys could play on tour?  Probably not, but it was just an idea that came to me today."

This post by Dan is GOLD, imho. Neatly sums my "disappointment" with that thread (and, more generally, forum). It seems that, after everything that happened, after 2004 and 2011, after BWPS and the Sessions getting universal acclaim, the pendulum swung back to "SMiLE was an uncommercial mess anyway",  "VDP's lyrics were obscure and meaningless", and, practicallly, "Brian should not have tried f...ing with the formula". Gotcha!
It defeats comprehension. What's the problem with these guys?

[Zenobi]

And, for the chronicle, the idea that the responsability for the "demise" of SMiLE lies only with Brian is true only at the first layer of meaning: yes, Brian decided to scrap it in the end, we all know and agree about that. Fact. But it's like saying that the reason for World War I was Serbia not accepting Austria's ultimatum, and ending analysis there. Reality is never so simple.

By the way, though not trolling, I am being controversial (though sincere) on purpose. I understand that talking about what happens in the "other forum", and even quoting a whole post from there, is controversial, and somebody may not like that, even here. But this forum has been very "slow", and needs some debate, like the 20-pages thread on the Beach Boys documentary well showed.

[Robbie Mac]

What a lot of those people and Mike Love apologists don’t seem to get is that while everyone can agree that Brian and only Brian could have scrapped the album, no one seems to want to talk about what contributed to that decision. Because that would involve talking about a certain person in a way that they are uncomfortable with.

[Robbie Mac]

As far as AGD suggesting that Brian in the Jules Sielgel piece was just “parroting” what Van Dyke told him about the Surf’s Up lyrics is just preposterous.  Brian was much smarter than those people are giving him credit for.

But let’s just kinda go along with what Andrew is saying. It is documented that Brian was very much influenced by the reactions of other people. If people around him are jazzed about whatever project it was, he gets excited about the project. When someone expresses doubt, Brian expresses doubt. If we take Andrew’s suggestion, wouldn’t it make sense that because VDP and the Vosse Posse were excited about SMiLE, that Brian would share in that enthusiasm? And wouldn’t it also make sense that when a certain 1st cousin starts shitting on the lyrics and direction (Mike has never given a clue that he even understood what Brian and VDP were doing, which is odd for a guy who is very articulate and who fancies himself to be good with words), then Brian would start to question what he has been doing?

[Zenobi]

I think that what you said is very near the crux of this matter.
As somebody may remember, I am a big fan of Mike's (and of all the Beach Boys) and am annoyed by "Mike bashing". That does not make me a Mike apologist who thinks that he can never do anything wrong.
I think that the "pushback" from the "other Beach Boys", and probably particularly by Mike, WAS one of the reasons Brian ended scrapping SMiLE.
And... know what? I don't think Mike or any other Boy should be ashamed of that. Questioning some of Brian's artistic choices was well among their rights.
In fact, Brian was right and should have perseverated and completed SMiLE anyway, but sadly he was not in a mental state to do that. But this is not a murder case: nobody murdered anything. Searching for explanations of what happened is NOT the same as searching for one or more "murderers".
And that's the problem with a sizable section of the Beach Boys fandom, historians etc.: they are so keen on acquitting Mike, and any band member EXCEPT Brian, from that bogus accuse of "murdering" SMiLE, that they go to the deep end and PILE every and all responsabilities on Brian, Van Dyke and SMiLE itself.
And they end saying far worse than Mike, or anybody at the moment, probably said: i.e., the SMiLE project was deeply flawed anyway, Brian was deeply flawed himself (and in any case out of touch with the "public") and as for Van Dyke... just a self-important wannabe.

In a nutshell: there is something deeply flawed in this matter. But it's not Brian, nor Van Dyke, nor SMiLE, and no... not Mike either, nor any other Beach Boy.

[Dan Lega]

Zenobi, thanks for the kind words.  

That portion of the SMiLE thread started with people disparaging Van Dyke, because he apparently is a hugh falutin' elitist "artiste" and not-of-the-common-folk, for not trying to explain the lyrics to the Boys, and instead saying huaghtily to the Boys while simultaneously brushing off their poo-pooing of the lyrics, that they should just junk them.  They said that Van Dyke wasn't being sympathetic to the Boys worries.  I argued the opposite.  First I argued that Van Dyke was not in a position to convince the Boys of the lyrics worth and thus jeopardize their career, it was Brian's job.  Second I argued that Van Dyke was not being haughty, but instead being humble when he said that if they didn't like the lyrics they should just junk them.  I won't belabor every point I made.  But there's MUCH MORE I had to argue.  However, soon almost everyone started saying the lyrics really did suck, and that there was not a person on the earth who could understand them.  One said Van Dyke wrote them just to be elitist and make everyone else look stupid.(?!)  Then there was the implication that Brian was too stupid to have understood the lyrics!?

And, unfortunately, no one but me and one other person (maybe two?) said anything against these statements!!!  From there it went into their claim that Brian hated the lyrics himself!  

At the heart of it, it seemed they were all congratulating the Beach Boys for NOT releasing SMiLE!  So, yeah, I wondered where the Beach Boys fans, who I thought LOVED SMiLE and waited years for it to be revived and released, had gone to!  They all seemed to hate it and no one, except for one other brave soul, had one good thing to say about SMiLE!  It's like I was in The Twilight Zone!  <doo-doot-doo-doo doo-doot-doo-doo doo-doot-doo-doo!>



Love and merci,
Dan Lega

[Robbie Mac]

I think that what you said is very near the crux of this matter.
As somebody may remember, I am a big fan of Mike's (and of all the Beach Boys) and am annoyed by "Mike bashing". That does not make me a Mike apologist who thinks that he can never do anything wrong.
I think that the "pushback" from the "other Beach Boys", and probably particularly by Mike, WAS one of the reasons Brian ended scrapping SMiLE.
And... know what? I don't think Mike or any other Boy should be ashamed of that. Questioning some of Brian's artistic choices was well among their rights.
In fact, Brian was right and should have perseverated and completed SMiLE anyway, but sadly he was not in a mental state to do that. But this is not a murder case: nobody murdered anything. Searching for explanations of what happened is NOT the same as searching for one or more "murderers".
And that's the problem with a sizable section of the Beach Boys fandom, historians etc.: they are so keen on acquitting Mike, and any band member EXCEPT Brian, from that bogus accuse of "murdering" SMiLE, that they go to the deep end and PILE every and all responsabilities on Brian, Van Dyke and SMiLE itself.
And they end saying worse than Mike, or anybody at the moment, probably said: i.e., the SMiLE project was deeply flawed anyway, Brian was deeply flawed himself (and in any case out of touch with the "public") and as for Van Dyke... just a self-important wannabe.

In a nutshell: there is something deeply flawed in this matter. But it's not Brian, nor Van Dyke, nor SMiLE, and no... not Mike either, nor any other Beach Boy.

I absolutely get why that part of the fandom are so quick to defend Mike. After all, writers ranging from David Leaf & Dom Priore to Steven Gaines has not be very kind to Mike. But what we have seen is a complete over correction on the SMiLE narrative that’s as distorted as they claim the Brian Good/Mike Bad narrative is.

[Zenobi]

Zenobi, thanks for the kind words.  

That portion of the SMiLE thread started with people disparaging Van Dyke, because he apparently is a hugh falutin' elitist "artiste" and not-of-the-common-folk, for not trying to explain the lyrics to the Boys, and instead saying huaghtily to the Boys while simultaneously brushing off their poo-pooing of the lyrics, that they should just junk them.  They said that Van Dyke wasn't being sympathetic to the Boys worries.  I argued the opposite.  First I argued that Van Dyke was not in a position to convince the Boys of the lyrics worth and thus jeopardize their career, it was Brian's job.  Second I argued that Van Dyke was not being haughty, but instead being humble when he said that if they didn't like the lyrics they should just junk them.  I won't belabor every point I made.  But there's MUCH MORE I had to argue.  However, soon almost everyone started saying the lyrics really did suck, and that there was not a person on the earth who could understand them.  One said Van Dyke wrote them just to be elitist and make everyone else look stupid.(?!)  Then there was the implication that Brian was too stupid to have understood the lyrics!?

And, unfortunately, no one but me and one other person (maybe two?) said anything against these statements!!!  From there it went into their claim that Brian hated the lyrics himself!  

At the heart of it, it seemed they were all congratulating the Beach Boys for NOT releasing SMiLE!  So, yeah, I wondered where the Beach Boys fans, who I thought LOVED SMiLE and waited years for it to be revived and released, had gone to!  They all seemed to hate it and no one, except for one other brave soul, had one good thing to say about SMiLE!  It's like I was in The Twilight Zone!  <doo-doot-doo-doo doo-doot-doo-doo doo-doot-doo-doo!>



Love and merci,
Dan Lega

Yes, Dan, your synthesis of that thread is perfect. Its devolution from "discussing SMiLE" to "bashing SMiLE" really reminds one of a Twilight Zone episode.

[Zenobi]

I think that what you said is very near the crux of this matter.
As somebody may remember, I am a big fan of Mike's (and of all the Beach Boys) and am annoyed by "Mike bashing". That does not make me a Mike apologist who thinks that he can never do anything wrong.
I think that the "pushback" from the "other Beach Boys", and probably particularly by Mike, WAS one of the reasons Brian ended scrapping SMiLE.
And... know what? I don't think Mike or any other Boy should be ashamed of that. Questioning some of Brian's artistic choices was well among their rights.
In fact, Brian was right and should have perseverated and completed SMiLE anyway, but sadly he was not in a mental state to do that. But this is not a murder case: nobody murdered anything. Searching for explanations of what happened is NOT the same as searching for one or more "murderers".
And that's the problem with a sizable section of the Beach Boys fandom, historians etc.: they are so keen on acquitting Mike, and any band member EXCEPT Brian, from that bogus accuse of "murdering" SMiLE, that they go to the deep end and PILE every and all responsabilities on Brian, Van Dyke and SMiLE itself.
And they end saying worse than Mike, or anybody at the moment, probably said: i.e., the SMiLE project was deeply flawed anyway, Brian was deeply flawed himself (and in any case out of touch with the "public") and as for Van Dyke... just a self-important wannabe.

In a nutshell: there is something deeply flawed in this matter. But it's not Brian, nor Van Dyke, nor SMiLE, and no... not Mike either, nor any other Beach Boy.

I absolutely get why that part of the fandom are so quick to defend Mike. After all, writers ranging from David Leaf & Dom Priore to Steven Gaines has not be very kind to Mike. But what we have seen is a complete over correction on the SMiLE narrative that’s as distorted as they claim the Brian Good/Mike Bad narrative is.

Of course I agree, and tried to sketch a tentative explanation for this phenomenon, but at this point I can't claim to really understand it. Yes, it starts as over-correction, but then the level of the distortion becomes mind-boggling. What turns fans into haters? Beats me.

I admit that probably "haters" is too strong a word, but as Dan said, that is exactly the "vibe" one gets.

[HeyJude]

Many people seem to operate (in life, not just concerning "Smile") based on trying to place BLAME. It's not an exploration or study of understanding a topic, or an event. It *starts* with some people with a need to place blame. And also in some cases to reinforce one's personal politics.

So yeah, over the years with "Smile", I've run across people who seem destined to arrive at two main conclusions: It's solely Brian's fault that it collapsed, and then some variation on various degrees of implying "Smile" is bullshit because it was whatever (ego driven, faux-intellectual, pretentious, etc.).

These are both not coincidentally positions that Mike Love himself has tended to take. It's then not surprising that a lot of people who come to those conclusions tend to be apologists for Mike and/or more sympathetic to Mike. And it's not even necessarily about Mike. And that's where personal politics come into it sometimes, with "fans" who are very conservative socially and politically.

But even setting aside Mike and politics, the human penchant for needing to *first and foremost* BLAME somebody or something (often manifested as "I didn't do it, somebody else did" when it pertains to things personally involving such people) as opposed to understanding why something happened in an agnostic/objective fashion as a true historian would, is often what tanks "Smile" discussions among fans.

And, to be fair, this does sometimes manifest itself in the opposite direction, with people who (understandably) view the demise of "Smile" as a tragedy, never steering away from blaming Mike Love for its demise.

The demise of "Smile" does start and end with Brian I think. But it's OBVIOUSLY a layered, complicated topic with many players impacting the situation.

I've often run into a strain of BB fan who seem to have a chip on their shoulder about Brian being deified in general, and especially concerning "Smile", and argue the things I mentioned above (it's Brian fault, and questioning the worth of the "Smile" music, etc.) because what they're really doing is arguing against their perceived idea that Mike was overly-vilified concerning the project over the years, and/or Brian not blamed enough or being praised too much, etc.

[juggler]

We all have our own opinions and theories.  I personally believe that when Brian predicted that Smile would be as much of an improvement over Pet Sounds as that album was over Summer Days Summer Nights, he wasn't saying something crazy.  Ditto when Dennis said that Smile was so good that it'd make Pet Sounds stink.At the same time, I can listen to Pet Sounds and say that it's the greatest album ever released.  All of that can be true because, as a collection of songs, as collection of instrumental tracks, as a collection of lyrics... Smile is a work of staggering genius.  I mean, just look at the 12 tracks submitted for the album jacket in Dec. '66 and tell me that a collection of fully produced versions of those 12 songs didn't have the potential to blow away every album that came before and after.  And yet it was not completed and released as it could have been and should have been.

What went wrong?  I think that Abe Somer's Jan. '67 lawsuit against Capitol is a seriously underrated factor.  The litigation removed the pressure on Brian to finish the album in that Jan-Feb period.  By the time that Brian resumed work in April, the momentum was lost and VDP was gone.  Also, Brian was in period of rapidly going through "phases" (exercise, meditation, health food, religion, astrology, and many more).  When Brian and Marilyn moved to the  Bellagio house with its home studio, I suspect that there was a great deal of excitement about that new approach and that Brian was eager to do something there.  So, rather than finish "Smile: the studio album" the old way, Brian came up with the idea using the home-studio to remake the songs.  Some of the more orchestral pieces like Cabinessence simply didn't lend themselves to that approach, so Brian and Mike hatched a handful of new tracks like Gettin Hungry, Little Pad, etc.

[Zenobi]

Very good contributions by everybody, thanks! I agree with Juggler that even if Pet Sounds is arguably the best pop album ever, a fully realized SMiLE would have been even better. I'll go out on a limb and claim that if one could take Dae Lims' SMiLE and have it recorded by the 1967 Beach Boys and the 1967 Wrecking Crew, we'd get something very, very near to that mythical album. So much for the naysayers.

I think that one of the difficulties in unraveling the reason(s) of SMiLE's "demise" is that there is a very basic, but widespread, fallacy about the meaning of REASON.
I'll try to clarify. Some guys keep insisting that the reason was that Brian scrapped the project. Now, that's not a reason. It's a tautology. It explains nothing. Of course the project ended because it was scrapped by its author: SMiLE did not scrap itself. Thanks for participating, we'll call you.

Now, please consider a much more interesting reason which has been proposed, among others by Brian himself: he had to scrap the project because  at that point it was either SMiLE or himself. He had to sacrifice SMiLE to save himself. Very true, but, again, WHY? Why Brian found himself in such a desperate situation?

I think that we need something subtler than that.

[Zenobi]

Let's consider the 1967 context. It was not just any old year: much was happening besides Sgt. Pepper.
They were times of great creativity, and great chaos. This tends to happen when you are fueled by drugs (ANY drugs). In particular, pot does not kill you, but its excessive use surely tends to impair one's ability to focus and fully complete tasks. Though never using it personally, I used to know quite a few people who did (heck, there were years when it seemed EVERYBODY did), and always observed this effect.
And, sadly, people did not only pot in 1967, or afterwards. We all saw the consequences.

So, great creativity and great chaos. Does that ring a bell about SMiLE?

In a sense, the story of SMiLE in 1966/1967 is a microcosm of what happened to pop/rock at large. The loss of momentum. I was there: by 1970/1971 there was a sensation, among me and my friends... of deep disappointment. Great music was still being made, but the momentum had gone. We knew that we had left the halcyon times of pop/rock in the Sixties.
Brian, being a genius, traversed that trajectory in some months instead of some years.

So, maybe another layer of the SMiLE onion is peeled. A small bubble of creativity and chaos floating in a maelstrom of creativity and chaos. And drugs will carry you for a while, and then dump you.

And of course, being saddled with a story of childhood abuse and mental problems does not help.

[Zenobi]

Mike, in 1977 (courtesy of WillJC from the EHF):

"At that time something had happened to his whole ego drive. It had been very powerful until the time of Heroes and Villains' release – he was about ready to come out with the Smile album and he was feeling very dynamic and creative and then something happened… chemically that completely shattered that – that made him the complete opposite … that made him want to withdraw… But he was always shy; he was too sensitive. There was a fine line and he went over that line… He was still creative though. Instead of Smile he did Smiley Smile. It was light, mellifluous, laid-back. It was dynamic in a passive sort of way, it was a revelation of where his psychology had gone to. It dropped out. He dropped out of that production race – the next big thing after Sgt. Pepper. Brian had lost interest in being aggressive and he went in the other direction – still creative, and different, but it wasn’t competitive."
 
This is may not really explain why SMiLE was scrapped, but sure explains why Smiley Smile was born. "Dynamic in a passive sort of way"... Mike can really have a way with words when he wants!

[rab2591]

Zenobi, thanks for the kind words.  

That portion of the SMiLE thread started with people disparaging Van Dyke, because he apparently is a hugh falutin' elitist "artiste" and not-of-the-common-folk, for not trying to explain the lyrics to the Boys, and instead saying huaghtily to the Boys while simultaneously brushing off their poo-pooing of the lyrics, that they should just junk them.  They said that Van Dyke wasn't being sympathetic to the Boys worries.  I argued the opposite.  First I argued that Van Dyke was not in a position to convince the Boys of the lyrics worth and thus jeopardize their career, it was Brian's job.  Second I argued that Van Dyke was not being haughty, but instead being humble when he said that if they didn't like the lyrics they should just junk them.  I won't belabor every point I made.  But there's MUCH MORE I had to argue.  However, soon almost everyone started saying the lyrics really did suck, and that there was not a person on the earth who could understand them.  One said Van Dyke wrote them just to be elitist and make everyone else look stupid.(?!)  Then there was the implication that Brian was too stupid to have understood the lyrics!?

And, unfortunately, no one but me and one other person (maybe two?) said anything against these statements!!!  From there it went into their claim that Brian hated the lyrics himself!  

At the heart of it, it seemed they were all congratulating the Beach Boys for NOT releasing SMiLE!  So, yeah, I wondered where the Beach Boys fans, who I thought LOVED SMiLE and waited years for it to be revived and released, had gone to!  They all seemed to hate it and no one, except for one other brave soul, had one good thing to say about SMiLE!  It's like I was in The Twilight Zone!  <doo-doot-doo-doo doo-doot-doo-doo doo-doot-doo-doo!>

Love and merci,
Dan Lega

What is entirely bizarre about this viewpoint, is if Brian hated VDPs lyrics, why on earth did Brian revisit them from time-to-time for the next 40 years? Why did he allow Van Dyke to work on Sail on Sailor with him? Why continue to be in touch with VDPs for the next 40-50 years of your life? Pet Sounds is more famous, more commercial, more recognizable, and yet how many times did Brian and Tony Asher work together post-Pet Sounds compared to how many times Brian worked together with VDPs after the Smile collapse? Clearly there is something that Brian appreciates about VDPs - not only lyrically but in terms of friendship and workmanship.

As for people implying that Brian was too stupid to understand the lyrics - I think this is just a symptom of the anti-Brian rhetoric that has been constantly churned up from a certain sect of the fandom for the last 2 decades. Looking forward to the day, decades from now, when all the politics, cliques, and weird fan-behavior is a thing of the past. Where truth of the band and the beauty of the music won't be tainted by the current malaise of fandom/band infighting.

Also great posts, everyone.

[Dan Lega]

Someone on the other board also put up a quote where Brian was asked who his favorite collaborator was and he replies that it was Van Dyke Parks. (Surprise!) (Though no surprise to me!)

If Brian hated the SMiLE lyrics (or even the music) he would not have chosen VDP as the person he most enjoyed working with!

He also probably wouldn't have begun to attempt to revive SMiLE in 2003, nor asked Van Dyke to come back and help him, if he didn't love all aspects of the work they did together.

And he wouldn't have been so proud and happy after that accomplishment of finally finishing SMiLE!  (Though, yes, it was different than it would have been back in '66.  But we all know that.  And Brian knows that, too.)

[rab2591]

Oh wow. I just found the thread that is being discussed here. My hats off to you, Dan, for getting into that discussion with all those, *giggle*, fans.

Seriously, that entire thread is the perfect example of why this forum is a calm and collected place these days (since a lot of those same people were either banned or left here). For people to claim that Brian supposedly didn't understand the words to 'Surf's Up' based on him saying "maybe they work, I don't know" after explaining the damn lyrics to Jules is mind-blowing to me. And then the same poster later gets on your case because you supposedly read too much into Brian saying "I don't know"

I mean, we're talking some pretty obvious allegorical lyrics, these aren't trigonometry formulas. Also, look at the books Brian was reading at the time; to claim he wasn't able to understand these lyrics is downright laughable. Granted, when you're of the same sect of the fandom that doesn't bat-an-eye at calling Brian 'brain damaged', you're probably going to give Brian far less intellectual credit than he deserves.

To be honest, this may very well prove Brian's point: some fans may not get the words - even the words Brian says in a conversation with Jules. To those people, I say: stick to enjoying the music, leave the history and interpretations to the professionals.

[Dan Lega]

Yes, I meant to bring up the fact that Brian was supposedly very well read at the time, but it slipped out of my radar as I got bogged down in other things.

[Sam_BFC]

Nothing to add other than a reminder for context that Brian Wilson has said that he dislikes the lyrics to Sail On Sailor.

[Jim V.]

These are both not coincidentally positions that Mike Love himself has tended to take. It's then not surprising that a lot of people who come to those conclusions tend to be apologists for Mike and/or more sympathetic to Mike. And it's not even necessarily about Mike. And that's where personal politics come into it sometimes, with "fans" who are very conservative socially and politically.

Interesting to openly state something I have detected quite a bit in the last decade plus. That a lot of the Mike apologists tend to be the more conservative side of the political spectrum. But then you have "Mike apologists" like Cam Mott and AGD, who as far as I can tell, wouldn't be caught dead being associated with the conservative movement. So, it's tough but I definitely know what you mean. Good observation.

[WillJC]

What went wrong?  I think that Abe Somer's Jan. '67 lawsuit against Capitol is a seriously underrated factor.  The litigation removed the pressure on Brian to finish the album in that Jan-Feb period.  By the time that Brian resumed work in April, the momentum was lost and VDP was gone.  Also, Brian was in period of rapidly going through "phases" (exercise, meditation, health food, religion, astrology, and many more).  When Brian and Marilyn moved to the Bellagio house with its home studio, I suspect that there was a great deal of excitement about that new approach and that Brian was eager to do something there.

This is largely where I fall on it. On top of all of that (and the peril of Carl's draft), I think the biggest factor in the untangling was the fear of public failure. Carl, Jack Rieley, and Brian himself have all said as much. The pressure to live up to his speedily acquired public profile, follow the commercial success of Good Vibrations, and deliver (as Carl put it) a 'heavy art album' against the competition all became insurmountable under the weight of everything else that was happening.

Danny Hutton observed that Brian had spent so much time with the material that he lost the freshness to tell if it was any good or not - on a musical level, not just lyrical. He became self conscious about what he thought may be deemed his own indulgence. And he wasn't sure if he was still into some of it, the weirder non-melodic stuff and the vamps stuck on two chords. Without a direct collaborator (beyond Van Dyke serving his job description as cowriter) to provide that reassurance and direction, Brian needed to leave it all behind and move onto something radically new to enjoy making music again. He's always been a person who has trouble sticking with a project for a long time without losing connection to the original inspiration. Brian's natural state of being is to create fast and move on.

Vosse called drugs a big red herring in the story of Smile. While they're an easy villain for an oversimplified narrative, I don't think they can totally be discounted among the above swirl of bad things. Carl thought that they irritated Brian's existing anxiety over the situation, and everyone consuming truckloads of hash wasn't conducive to keeping focus under that pressure. Brian was clearly experiencing manic episodes and paranoia magnified by the amphetamines. By April (by which time Vosse etc. had gone), Mike was as stoned as the rest. Maybe even Al a little. Bruce found it all too weird and got out of there.

Now... I don't agree with some of the earlier discussion. I wholeheartedly believe Brian loved Van Dyke's lyrics. I think that can stay true while he was also stewing over worries about their commerciality and being associated with an 'important' artistic statement that might not connect to the public, in light of everything else. Certainly some of that doubt crept in due to Mike's vocal questioning of the words. That can't be struck from the record. Thing is, those teething problems seemed to happen pretty early in the project - Mike was singing about crows before Europe, one of the first vocal sessions in '66, right in the middle of a roll of productivity. He loved Wonderful, was down with Heroes and Villains (besides the "sonny down snuff" line that he's on tape sneering at, as Brian laughs), sang everything asked, and I think ultimately settled into what they were doing by the early months of '67. The tapes don't lie about his attitude to recording, which was basically upbeat and business as usual. I've never heard of Carl, Dennis or Al having anything but a glowing response to Van Dyke's work. Bruce wasn't sure about it, but turned up and did the job.

The chain reaction of uncertainty that Mike's crow problem might have set in motion months before the collapse is up for debate. Personally, weighed against all the other factors, I don't think it was one of the most significant reasons for the project not happening. But I can't go back in time and read Brian's mind.

[WillJC]

Nothing to add other than a reminder for context that Brian Wilson has said that he dislikes the lyrics to Sail On Sailor.

Those were by Jack Rieley, so Van Dyke has nothing to worry about.

[Zenobi]

WillJC, really thanks for your post. You "peeled off" two or three layers of the SMiLE admirably.

I agree 100% with everything you said, but would never be able to say it so well and succinctly.

What is clear: the "demise" of SMiLE was not any sort of short crisis, bug a long and convoluted process. Maybe it began right at the START of the project. There was all this forward momentum, and it gradually fizzled down, and out.
Yes, Brian needed to complete the project in at most a few months. He always functioned that way. But a project so hard, ambitious and experimental would have needed exceptionally favourable circumstances to get completed in a few months. We know that the circumstances were all BUT exceptionally favourable.

[Zenobi]

As a fan (NOT apologist) of Mike's, I have to talk about his role in this context.
Yes, I think the "crow problem" surely did not help the SMiLE project.
But... Mike was a good (at times great) lyricist himself, with a very different style from VDP's one. He had the right to question some of Van Dyke's lyrics. Of course he loved the easily understandable, easily relatable "Wonderful", liked the first sections of "Heroes", but found the "crows" and the "sunny down snuffs" questionable.
Said that, he did a great work in the sessions, including on "questionable" bits.

Did Mike harm SMiLE: possible. Was he a main reason: I think not. Is he to blame for whatever harm he did: I think not.

Again, Mike had the right to question, as every one of the Beach Boys. It's possible that those doubts grew in Brian's mind to the point of damaging his wonderful artistic relationship with VDP, resulting in the latter, in the end, abandoning the project.
One, besides Mike, could blame Brian for not defending VDP enough, and VDP himself for not soldiering through it. I prefer not to blame anybody.

However,  I don't think that if Mike had shut his mouth about the crows etc. SMiLE would have been completed. There were too many other problems.