My Last (?) Crack at the SMiLE Jigsaw
BJL:
This is an extremely astute analysis, Julia! I have some thoughts which I'm going to share now, and some thoughts which I'm going to share later today or this weekend!
Quote from: Julia on July 09, 2025, 02:49:10 AM
Lately though, I've started going into more "hard scholarship" (IE sources with no editorializing, just reporting the facts and documenting what happened with dated citations) about this topic and it's revealed to me some things that I think get lost in the discussion of the album as a whole.
I completely agree that now that we have a detailed timeline of all or at least very close to all of the sessions, and a pretty clear idea of what was recorded when, it is possible to reconstruct the recording and collapse of Smile with a clarity and precision that was just completely and utterly impossible back in the 80s and 90s when a lot of the older conventional wisdom and key sources like LLVS were put together.
On your "humor in between songs" section. We have very few vintage mixes that represented actually finished, mixed, completed songs. One of very few such mixes is the Cantina mix of Heroes and Villains, and the fact that it has a funny shouted interjection (Your Under Arrest!) strikes me as very significant. I am a very strong supported of the 12 discrete songs theory, mainly because (as I've said elsewhere), I think that Brian absolutely intended to use the track listing that Capital records *printed on thousands of record jackets*, and that encompasses the vast majority of songs Brian worked on during the period when he was actually seriously attempting to record an album (which, by March, he was, frankly, no longer doing, as you point out in your comment on Jasper Daily). But I don't see any contradiction between Smile having 12 basically discrete tracks and Smile including spoken interjections and interludes. Given that Our Prayer was intended to be unlabeled, and again the "Your Under Arrest" interjection, I think a huge variety of possible uses of that approach are easy to imagine, and would probably not have actually shown up until the end. The Rock With Me Henry version of Wonderful is also strong evidence for the seriousness of the humor concept in Brian's mind (albeit also strong evidence of an artist losing control of his creative judgement!)
Re: modular recording wasn't worth it -
I sort of maybe agree about Good Vibrations being taken to a point of overkill, but as someone else pointed out in the other long Smile thread from a few years ago (sorry, I can't remember who), for most of the recording process of Smile, before the project (in my view, at least) went off the rails in early 1967, Brian was dedicating each session to a single song, and working pretty efficiently. He was recording the different sections of the song separately, instead of running through the track from the beginning. But not to make work, but probably to save work. He obviously liked the sharp and exciting sound that resulted from tape splices. It also would have made it made it much easier to vary the instrumentation between sections. I think it's worth noting that much modern music is recorded this way and edited together, not because it's more work but because it's less work. With a song as complex as Heroes and Villains or Cabinessence, trying to record the tracks through like on Pet Sounds would have been madness! It would have taken so many takes to get the transitions. Honestly, I've heard modern musicians/producers on youtube absolutely marvel that a song like Wouldn't It Be Nice was recorded in a single take without overdubs!
Okay, I have more to say, but it will have to wait for another time because I have to get back to my actual job. But one last note before I go:
To this quote: "Also, it's a damn shame Phil Spector was such a piece of human garbage." True for so, so, so many reasons, effecting so many people across so many decades. Sometimes I think if Phil Spector had just been, you know, not even nice necessarily, but just a fine, good-enough human being, the whole history of popular music might look different. And, of course, at least one woman would be alive who isn't.
Julia:
BJL, youre probably right about the modular recording, actually. I may have let the insane Heroes sessions (all to produce a, in my opinion, very flawed presentation of the song) cloud my judgement. I might try to go through each track and count the different sections in each (I believe Worms and CE have three each, Child had two versions but the second is 3 including the bridge I think, Surf's Up is two, etc...) Still though, even just two tracks tinkered with the the extent GV was (Heroes was more, Veggies less but put together it about equals 2 GV worth of sessions I believe) put the album back 6 months.
I agree with you that a 12 track album is preferable to a BWPS or "We're Only In It For the Money" medley too, just saying that Brian felt different at least at one point and its worth noting.
Im trying to think of other instances of humor and coming up with:
Veggies is full of it, I dont think I need to explain that one.
Worms mabe the "east or west indies we always get them confused" was meant to be funny.
CE, possibly the reconnected telephone lyrics (that Badmaneven mentions and quotes in full)
CIFOTM the "wah wah" horn is both a baby crying but from the first time I heard it, it made me think of the "something bad happened but in a funny way" sad trombone esque sound effect.
Surf had the George Fell session implying thatd be an intro too or outro from the song.
IIGS (including workshop) has the "ow!" during the hammering.
Thats all I got for now. Its not something I have evidence for but I also think itsnot out of the realm of possibility that Taxi Cabber be linked to an Americana track since its literally a funny sounding, earnestly self-important cabby giving some stoners directions (trip across America) and its about the Chicago area (link to Mrs OLearys Cow). I used to think Smog mightve been meant for the Elements but its very late recording date probably precludes that.
If you listen to the entirety of the Disc 1 Psych Sounds, which were all recorded the same night, its obvious Brian was only interested in the "falls into Instruments" and "mock argument" thing he eventually got with George Fell and the Veggie Fight. The rest is chants/vocalization experiments and some other skits he doesn't initiate and shows no interest in (Ice Cream Man) plus the last few tracks are just his friends complaining about having to be there and not knowing what this is for
BJL:
Quote from: Julia on July 10, 2025, 08:26:12 PM
BJL, youre probably right about the modular recording, actually. I may have let the insane Heroes sessions (all to produce a, in my opinion, very flawed presentation of the song) cloud my judgement. I might try to go through each track and count the different sections in each (I believe Worms and CE have three each, Child had two versions but the second is 3 including the bridge I think, Surf's Up is two, etc...) Still though, even just two tracks tinkered with the the extent GV was (Heroes was more, Veggies less but put together it about equals 2 GV worth of sessions I believe) put the album back 6 months.
My opinion: Heroes and Villains and Vegetables - but really, the desire to find a follow up single to Good Vibrations out of the existing Smile material, something I'm convinced was not part of the original plan - didn't just put the album back 6 months, it put the album back forever. Which is why I think the point of no return was the decision not to put out the cantina mix in February. If that single had gone out, maybe somehow things could have worked out. Which is just one reason why I think you've absolutely hit the nail on the head with your last few paragraphs from the original post.
Quote from: Julia on July 10, 2025, 08:26:12 PM
It's infuriating reading the Badman book with Brian wondering "gee what can the B-side be?" and supposedly having Heroes: Side1 done (at least for a hot minute) but then worrying about a useless Part 2 that wouldn't even get any airplay. Someone needed to say "Brian, who cares about the B-side? You've got at least two perfectly fine instrumentals in the can you're never gonna release otherwise--Trombone Dixie and Holidays. Use one of those."
I've had that exact same thought reading those exact some quotes (which are also in LLVS, which is where I think I first encountered them).
On a different note, I love the humor element of the album, and I really do agree with you that all the humor stuff Brian was working with was absolutely part of the plan and would have appeared in a variety of ways in a finished album, whatever it looked like. I think it would have happened at the assembly stage, both for the individual songs and the album as a whole, which is why we don't see nearly as much of it in the surviving tracks as I think there would have been in a finished Smile, though of course it's impossible to know for sure.
Quote from: Julia on July 10, 2025, 08:26:12 PM
I agree with you that a 12 track album is preferable to a BWPS or "We're Only In It For the Money" medley too, just saying that Brian felt different at least at one point and its worth noting.
It's not that I think it's preferable, it's that I think there's a huge amount of evidence that it's what Brian was actually producing through January, though certainly various other ideas were floated now and then. I agree that it's certainly worth noting all the alternative ideas that did float around, some of which influenced proceedings in various interesting ways.
BJL:
Quote from: Julia on July 10, 2025, 07:24:11 PM
Yeah I agree Guitarfool. Theres no denying Brian was by far the most individually talented member of either bands operation. Absolutely. I criticized him a lot in my original post but the fact that he did so much for the group and they owed it to him to have faith in his muse is still dead-on accurate. Had Brian not been so sensitive and fragile, anyone else wouldve gone solo or threatened to and that wouldve shut the naysayers up real fast if they lnew what was good for them.
Ultimately though we gotta acknowledge that all Brian's partners in this era, creatively and maritally, felt disrespected by him and put off by his irresponsible behavior. Marilyn, Mike, Anderle, VDP ("victimized by [his] buffoonery") and even Asher will admit as much. I think Tony summed him up best, "amazing musician, amateur human bring" (paraphrased). Not trying to sound mean just being honest that even our hero was a shade of gray.
I 100% agree with this. But I also think it's worth reminding ourselves that Brian was dealing with a serious mental illness, almost certainly some kind of schizoaffective disorder (as he was officially diagnosed in the 90s), characterized by both schizophrenia symptoms including delusions and auditory hallucinations, and bipolar/mood disorder symptoms. That kind of mental illness is no joke. To be dealing with something like that without proper medical care and almost no support, no one in your life in any position to help you understand what you were experiencing or how to deal with those symptoms. I can't even imagine how terrifying and lonely that must have been. I say this not to absolve Brian of his bad behavior to the people around him (and I believe Marilyn did try to get him professional help, something he was resistant to). but I do think it's something that we need to keep in mind when we think about his behavior in this era.
BJL:
This is a kind of weird thing to do, but I want to copy into this thread a post sloopjohnb72 made on page 12 of the other Smile thread, almost exactly three years ago. Just because I think it's incredibly relevant to this conversation, and because I never felt like it got as much purchase in that thread as I thought it deserved.
Quote from: sloopjohnb72 on July 24, 2022, 07:45:15 PM
Quote from: BJL on July 24, 2022, 06:56:31 PM
Based on the session information posted above about how done everything was, I really think that until the end of December, 1966, Brian was making an album called Smile that was pretty damn close to finished and would have gone out in the jackets Capital Records had already printed. Yea, he changed his mind, he scrapped some things and moved some things around, but creatively, the project was working.
After December, 1966, that was no longer true. And the problem, in my view, was Heroes and Villains.
This whole message is very well said, but I'm highlighting this portion, as it rings especially true.
Like you said, things were sort of beginning to fall apart by Christmas, but there was still an album that could easily have been finished at any given moment, had the Beach Boys been given one week to complete the LP. Those 12 songs could have been finished in a rush if they needed to be.
But the big switch was David Anderle informing Brian that he needed a unique A and B side single to launch Brother Records. Brian was seemingly satisfied with Good Vibrations as the sole single for the project, until his decision to launch a record label for the Boys (which had been in the plans for about a year now) sort of snuck up behind him. There's sufficient evidence in the way that this story has been told for us to believe that Heroes had already been conceived, and maybe even recorded as a song for Smile when Brian got this news. Every session up until October 20 had not produced a piece of a song, but an entire backing track that was in need only of vocal overdubbing. So far, the process was no different than Pet Sounds, beside the fact that the tracks were not performed beginning-to-end live by the ensemble, as Brian used editing to highlight big dynamic and metric contrasts between verses and choruses that couldn't be achieved as well via a continuous performance. There's no reason to believe Heroes was an exception. On October 20, Heroes had only 2 long parts - the verse (which was originally much longer, and is cut down even on The Smile Sessions disc 2), and the Barnyard section, a fadeout which, like all of Brian's Smile fades, adds in new melodies and instruments with each round, rather than starting full steam ahead. With Brian and Van Dyke's 3 verses telling a cohesive love story set in the old west, without the "side quests" that later versions of the song will include, this works perfectly as a concise 2-part album track.
But when Brian was told he needed a single, he chose to rework this song as something both commercial and exciting, and that's when it began to consume parts of other songs. First I'm in Great Shape, then Do You Like Worms, then Cabin Essence, then My Only Sunshine... songs became unusable for the next project, as they were physically disassembled, and the focus shifted entirely toward the new single. It didn't help that for the first time for The Beach Boys (this had been the case for other artists, pseudonyms, studio bands, etc), Brian needed TWO new songs. Previously, he'd relied on material from released albums to fill out the B-side, but on a new record label, he couldn't just take something off Pet Sounds, for example. The entirety of the next 5-6 months is spent trying to get a single. That's not a sign of a stable and healthy mind, it isn't productive to constantly rework one song rather than 12 at once, and it is not going to produce both a single and an album without some big changes being made.
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