Links Between Look/I Ran/Song For Children and Time To Get Alone?

[The Song Of The Grange]

I have just recently become aware of the Hawthorne, CA version of Time To Get Alone referencing the Good Vibrations reference in Look/I Ran/Song For Children.  The part in Song For Children I am referring too is the carnival music break that is very similar to the vocal scale at the end of Good Vibrations.  The same melody appears in this alternative version of Time To Get Alone.

Was this just another case of Brian reusing defunct Smile pieces (something he did often in mid to late 1967), or is there a deeper connection between the two tracks? 

Related to this thought: a rough list of re-purposed Smile tracks.  Are there any I am missing?

Heroes and Villains became Heroes and Villains Smiley Smile style
Vegetables became SS Vegetables
Wind Chimes became SS Wind Chimes
Wind Chimes B section became Can't Wait To Long
Wonderful became SS Wonderful
Bicycle Rider became "party" break in SS Wonderful, as well as Chorus to SS Heroes
Fade to Vegetables became vocal riff in SS Wonderful "party" break
He Gives Speeches became She's Going Bald
Holidays Ending became Wind Chimes ending
Heroes and Villains Intro (and possibly Mrs. O'Leary's Cow) became Fall Breaks and Back to Winter
With Me Tonight section became SS With Me Tonight
Do A Lot section became Mama Says
Do You Like Worms Hawaiian Chant (arguably) became Whistle In
Child Is Father of The Man chorus became a slight part of Little Bird
Surf's Up became 1971 Surf's Up
Prayer became Our Prayer
Cabin Essence became (with just a few vox overdubs) Cabin Essence 20/20 version
Love To Say Da Da became Cool Cool Water
Look/I Ran section became middle part of early Time To Get Alone

Any others?  I have always wondered about Little Pad (and it's cousin Diamond Head), but found no links.

[Jay]

"Fire"/"Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" became "Fall Breaks and Back To Winter". I don't hear the H&V "intro" anywhere on "Fall Breaks...."

[Mr. Cohen]

Well, it could be that it was part of Brian's effort to make a 10 track SMiLE for release, as a famous memo following SMiLE's collapse stated (I think it was 10 tracks, anyway). "Can't Wait Too Long" (using the "Wind Chimes" riff), "Cool, Cool Water" (borrowing elements from "I Love to Say Dada"), and "Time to Get Alone" ("Look") were all cut around that time. Perhaps he was trying to make a more accessible SMilE, or at least was pursuing the idea for a few weeks? He might have been persuaded that Van Dyke Park's lyrics were too esoteric, but that the music was still good and needed to be released. "Holiday", "Surf's Up", "Child is Father...", "Our Prayer", "Barnyard Suite/I'm in Great Shape", "Cabinessence" (maybe that take from the SMiLE era where Dennis was described as singing like a 'funky mountain cat'?) were all still left in the vaults unused, either to be released as is or remade into new songs. Which neatly rounds out to 10 songs. I don't count "Do You Like Worms?" because the heart of it was gutted out for "Heroes and Villains".

[Jason]

Well, regarding Time To Get Alone, it apparently existed in early 1967. Now, if it was ever considered a Smile track, we have no idea, unless you consider the original setlist for BWPS that circulated (in 2003, before the official announcement was made) that has it as part of Smile. The first recording sessions were in October, when it was being given to Redwood. Of course, we all know what became of that, so Brian basically took the October track and made it a BB song. It does use some bits of Smile melodies, but if it was ever considered a Smile track by Brian in 1967, no idea.

Just to add to your excellent list -

H&V on Smiley Smile might very well just be called a Smile track as it was 95% constructed from Smile outtakes, with only a few vocal overdubs, and possibly the organ overdub (bootlegs offer conflicting data on the organ overdub, I have it labelled as being from early February of '67 or around that time).

The "fade to Vega-Tables" as you call it, might have been considered part of Wonderful in April of '67, as Brian did tape a fragmentary piano track for the song, around the same time he taped the fade for Vega-Tables. Mike overdubbed a bass vocal on it, and it was even double-tracked. But this was all that we know of. Perhaps Brian might have considered the piano Wonderful from April to intersect with the Vega-Tables fade.

H&V intro/Mrs. O'Leary's Cow bears only a passing resemblance to Fall Breaks and Back to Winter IMO, I only hear the Mrs. O'Leary's Cow bass line in Fall Breaks, and in Fall Breaks it's vocalized. Again, just Brian taking a riff. I don't think Brian ever considered it a "remake" of the aforementioned.

Ahhhhh, With Me Tonight from Smile. At one point it's a Heroes segment, another it's a Vega-Tables segment, yet again it's its own song. That's Brian's first Ol' Man River.

The "Hawaiian chant" from DYLW most definitely was recycled. The vocal line comes to mind.

Cabin Essence vocal overdubs? Everyone swears the lead vocal was done in '68 during the 20/20 sweetening campaign, but the vocal sounds 1966 vintage to me. I asked Steve Desper about it, and don't recall getting a response, but perhaps I missed it. We'll say it's a 1968 vocal. But in 1966, from a 3:35 acetate, the basic structure was there, but all it seemed to lack was a lead vocal. The vocal sessions for Cabin Essence remain unbooted; probably destroyed by Brian.

[Black Tiger]

A bit different from the others listed, but the Woody Woodpecker trumpet "laugh" in Surf's Up shows up again in Fall Breaks

[Jason]

Well, it could be that it was part of Brian's effort to make a 10 track SMiLE for release, as a famous memo following SMiLE's collapse stated (I think it was 10 tracks, anyway). "Can't Wait Too Long" (using the "Wind Chimes" riff), "Cool, Cool Water" (borrowing elements from "I Love to Say Dada"), and "Time to Get Alone" ("Look") were all cut around that time. Perhaps he was trying to make a more accessible SMilE, or at least was pursuing the idea for a few weeks? He might have been persuaded that Van Dyke Park's lyrics were too esoteric, but that the music was still good and needed to be released. "Holiday", "Surf's Up", "Child is Father...", "Our Prayer", "Barnyard Suite/I'm in Great Shape", "Cabinessence" (maybe that take from the SMiLE era where Dennis was described as singing like a 'funky mountain cat'?) were all still left in the vaults unused, either to be released as is or remade into new songs. Which neatly rounds out to 10 songs. I don't count "Do You Like Worms?" because the heart of it was gutted out for "Heroes and Villains".

The "10-track Smile", aka Brother 9002 (also given to Lei'd In Hawaii), was most likely Brian just being Brian and telling people what they wanted to hear. I highly doubt Brian ever even gave more than a microsecond of thought to it after the memo.

[The Shift]

Heroes and Villains Intro (and possibly Mrs. O'Leary's Cow) became Fall Breaks and Back to Winter

Cabin Essence became (with just a few vox overdubs) Cabin Essence 20/20 version

Any others? …

The melodies of H&V Intro, Bells & Whistles, Fall Breaks, MOLC and Who Ran The Iron Horse (from Cabin Essence) all have a lot in common in my ears...

[buddhahat]

I started a thread a while ago about Smile songs that show up elsewhere, either entirely or partially, and some other connections that were noted were:

Tones Tune X - slide guitar part similar to melody of Holidays

H&V - small ascending vocal snippet similar to start of Goin On

Dada - has similarities to Had To Phone Ya & Saturday Morning in The City

I Wanna Be Around - wood shop sounds in Do It Again

Admittedly some of these are a bit tenuous but I thought I'd throw them in anyway!

[Sheriff John Stone]

The "10-track Smile", aka Brother 9002 (also given to Lei'd In Hawaii), was most likely Brian just being Brian and telling people what they wanted to hear. I highly doubt Brian ever even gave more than a microsecond of thought to it after the memo.

Do you think so? Was Brian like THAT back in 1967?

I guess I STILL can't accept that he could leave songs like "Cabinessence", "Surf's Up", "Our Prayer", "CIFOTM", and others in the can. I don't think Brian intended for those songs to eventually trickle out the way they did, but, if he knew that SMiLE wasn't ever gonna be, why would he protest their eventual release? Isn't having them released for people to appreciate better than having them sit on a shelf where nobody can enjoy them? If Carl (or somebody) didn't push for their eventual finishing/release, all we ever would've had would be bootlegs. Time for more amateur psychology....

[Wrightfan]

Dada - has similarities to Had To Phone Ya

Cool, someone else who thinks the same.

I think Lines has some similarities to those songs as well. I'd love to see someone combine aspects of the three into one song.

[The Song Of The Grange]

buddhahat, thanks for the good additions to the list.  I totally forgot about the Do It Again ending, which I have always found kind of odd.  With such a big list of songs (the large share of which are from Smiley Smile), there is almost a second Smile album (maybe call it Shadow of Smile).

[Jason]

With such a big list of songs (the large share of which are from Smiley Smile), there is almost a second Smile album (maybe call it Shadow of Smile).

The Shadow of Your SMiLE.

Sorry, couldn't resist throwing the old chestnut in there.

[Jason]

Do you think so? Was Brian like THAT back in 1967?

I guess I STILL can't accept that he could leave songs like "Cabinessence", "Surf's Up", "Our Prayer", "CIFOTM", and others in the can. I don't think Brian intended for those songs to eventually trickle out the way they did, but, if he knew that SMiLE wasn't ever gonna be, why would he protest their eventual release? Isn't having them released for people to appreciate better than having them sit on a shelf where nobody can enjoy them? If Carl (or somebody) didn't push for their eventual finishing/release, all we ever would've had would be bootlegs. Time for more amateur psychology....

Amateur psychology dictates that Brian was systematically trying to screw up the band's career in the wake of the cancellation of Smile. For one, canning said release, the Redwood fiasco, all of Smiley Smile (he's DEFINITELY in charge despite the greatness of the album), refusing to give many songs to the Beach Boys, the "loss" of the Do It Again master...

Carl was the one trying to save Brian from himself by letting his music come out. If Carl had anything to say about it (and after Smile, he was pretty much the man in charge), he would get the songs out by hook or by crook. Carl pretty much took what was releaseable and got it out there, with a couple exceptions. I certainly believe he could have snuck out something like CIFOTM or Holidays or even Mrs. O'Leary's Cow on a later album. Perhaps Mrs. O'Leary's Cow would have found a home on KTSA?

But whadda I know? I'm just a fan. Brian sure won't tell us. He says he needed another year. I refuse to believe Brian was just the "victim" and the other Beach Boys were no-talents making money off of his, which is quite prevalent thinking even in the most objective discussions.

I love Brian's music, but come on.

[Mr. Cohen]

But whadda I know? I'm just a fan. Brian sure won't tell us. He says he needed another year. I refuse to believe Brian was just the "victim" and the other Beach Boys were no-talents making money off of his, which is quite prevalent thinking even in the most objective discussions.

Well, it's telling that the rest of the band never seemed to want to comment publicly on their attitudes towards Brian during the SMiLE period. If the band really was supportive, why didn't any of them come out and set the story straight? I'm sure the accusations had to bother them. How hard would it have been for Mike Love to say "well, I did what I could to support Brian when he was working on SMiLE, but it just didn't work out", if it were true? It seems that the general consensus became that Brian went "crazy" somewhere during the SMiLE period (Van Dyke even called Brian's behavior "regressive" towards the end of '66), and he just couldn't be dealt with. Stories have it that Brian's friends and family members who had been there for him before stopped showing up to support him at studio sessions (there is a lot of anecdotal evidence for this, enough that it seems true).  The redundantly high amount of "Vegetables" and "Heroes and Villains" sessions show that something was awry. And I'm sure that the band was more than a bit annoyed by having to do, for example, 70 takes a for a 5 second vocal clip, only to be told by Brian (who was probably on a bunch of amphetamines, acting impossibly perfectionist and overly paranoid about the strength of the material and of the performances) that it was no good. Very few people seem to have anything good to say about Brian's smoking tent and other eccentric remodeling projects (from Van Dyke to Al Jardine), such as slide that would go from his bedroom to his living room. Which let's face it, most people would just find ridiculous, even if you or I think it's cool.

Brian wasn't a victim, but it seems a lot of people started disapproving of his lifestyle. He was just too sensitive to handle it, and on top of the creative paranoia success gave him, it killed SMiLE. Like in sessions for "Fire", there is video footage of Mike looking at the camera and pointing to Brian and making swirly motions around his ear with his hand, you know, saying he's crazy. I think Mike even mouths something about Brian being high. I could see Mike saying, "Gee Brian, you obviously have a lot of talent, but why would you use it to compose this?" It was drugged out to Mike, and symptomatic of Brian's growing "insanity" to Mike and others. The band members were probably telling Brian that he was getting too far out, probably that he needed rehab, and that his new circle of friends were leading him in bad directions. And hey, say what you want, but it doesn't seem like the drugs and hip friends did him a lot of good in the end. By '68 he wound up in a mental institution, although it was just a brief stay.

[Sheriff John Stone]

Well, it's telling that the rest of the band never seemed to want to comment publicly on their attitudes towards Brian during the SMiLE period. If the band really was supportive, why didn't any of them come out and set the story straight?

I think you have to separate the issues into two areas - Brian's behavior and the music itself.

David Anderle has said, regarding Brian's eccentricity during SMiLE, (and I'm paraphrasing), "As long as the music was good, anything goes." Or something to that affect... I don't think the Beach Boys could embrace that attitude back then. It would've been hard for any friend or family member to see the changes in Brian and support that attitude. When they saw Brian consuming large quantities of drugs, gaining weight, living like a vampire, conducting bizarre sessions, with the tents and sandboxes, wondering which "drainer" was gonna show up next, and basically seeing Brian "change" - not for the better - right in front of their eyes, well, how can you come out and publicly support that? Unless you were full of sh--, you couldn't. I mean, what aspect of Brian's behavior were you going to support? I don't think it reached the heartbreaking stage yet, that would come later. But, it had to be scaring the guys to death.

And then there's the music. If you dig deep enough, you could probably find enough quotes from the guys praising the SMiLE music. Dennis' quote that "SMiLE makes Pet Sounds stink" immediately comes to mind. Could their actions be an indication that they at least respected the music? Did they protest the recording of Smiley Smile? Didn't they (or at least Carl) try to get the SMiLE songs on subsequent albums like 20/20, Sunflower, and Surf's Up? I've read a few articles where they (including Mike) said that "We're gonna finish it (SMiLE)." They didn't appear to be ignoring it or acting like it never happened; actually they were milking it for everything they could. They kept performing SMiLE tracks like "Good Vibrations", "Heroes And Villains", "Surf's Up", "Vegetables", and even "Wonderful".

If the point is, did they truly LIKE the SMiLE period, including the music, well, probably not. I would think Carl was the only one (maybe Dennis) who truly "got" it. But as far as not publicly supporting it, only Mike's comments about the lyrics and Bruce's goofy comments about it simply being "little fragments" that didn't connect, would be examples of not supporting it. One final point....in 1966-67 and the years following SMiLE, there weren't a lot of opportunities to publicly support SMiLE because IT DIDN'T COME OUT! They had moved on, in a hurry. Wild Honey was quickly recorded and released. Brian wasn't talking. There weren't bootlegs leaking the stuff. Would've it appeared pompous to praise music that nobody heard?   

[A Million Units In Jan!]

It seems to be true that the more we know about SMiLE, the less we really know about it.

Things don't  seem to add up to me. The thing that bugs me about Smiley Smile is this: If the BB's were so against the SMiLE material, why in the world would they think the SS stuff was any more accessible? You can't tell me that they would actually think Smiley would have a better chance of being a commercial success. And the stuff about Brian needing more time is crap, because he still could have been working on SMiLE stuff during the time he was working on Smiley. He conciously chose not to work on those tracks anymore. And if the other BB's thought that SMiLE was too far out, and Brian was doing all these drugs and getting spacey, why would they (even Mike a few times ) partake of the drugs during the SS sessions? SS is more of a 'drug' album than SMiLE is.
Did they really think that Smiley Smile and SMiLE were the same thing? While we have a clear cut idea of when SMiLE stopped, and when Smiley started, maybe the BB's didn't feel that way. It would seem that they thought they were the same album. However, at the same time, they seem to realize that there is a difference between the two. Sometimes I get the feeling that there are a lot of other things that went on that we have no idea about that would answer some questions.

[The Song Of The Grange]

Some great points made here, points that I have been wanting people to say for years.  I too agree that the evidence just doesn't add up.  It's a key reason Smile is such a big mystery.  Too me it's a 1960's mystery on par with the Kennedy assassination, only in the context of American popular music.  No one knows exactly what happened.  And it has always floored me that we can know so much about the textual history of the Bible, Shakespeare or the great Roman poets but we can't get the story straight on something that happened less than fifty years ago!

Things that don't add up for me:

1. In December Good Vibrations was #1 in US and UK AND it was their best selling single ever!  If that is not commercial success that would make Mike Love happy, then what is?  I just don't understand how some of the BBs could doubt Brian's new artistic phase in the face of such huge success.  Sure they might not personally understand the whole concept or where the whole project was going, but they were praised like kings in the UK that fall, they had the hottest single in the world.  It kind of deflates the argument that some of the group, including Mike Love, where too commercial minded.

2. And Smiley Smile.  If the BBs thought Smile was too drugged out and "fucking with the formula" then what the hell is Smiley Smile.  Like others have said in this thread, Smiley Smile is even more far out than Smile (one of the reasons I personally love the album!).  The myth suggests that Brian had nothing to do with Smile and that it was scrapped together by the other guys.  It wasn't that way at all.  Listening to the session bootlegs shows that Brian was in control.  His modular recording style is all over the place, though in this case in a more lo-fi DIY vibe.  I think there is a good argument to be made that the group saw no real line in the sand between the two albums, other than the change in location of recording.  The Smile re-use project started the moment Brian snatched Bicycle Rider out of Do You Like Worms for H & V.  It went on all spring.  Look at the Vegetables sessions snatching up With Me Tonight and Do-A-Lot while at the same time re-vamping the actual Vegetables song (which would happen yet again in June).  Plus, there is only about 2 weeks between the Da Da session and the first Cool Cool Water sessions.  Something continuous was going on.

3. The musicians at the Smile sessions claim that Brain was nothing but professional in the studio.  The sessions bootlegs show him clear and in control.  He might have had a wild personal life, but in the studio the myth of his crazy behavior just doesn't add up.  It can't be blamed for the loss of the follow up to Pet Sounds.

[Mr. Cohen]

When they saw Brian consuming large quantities of drugs, gaining weight, living like a vampire, conducting bizarre sessions, with the tents and sandboxes, wondering which "drainer" was gonna show up next, and basically seeing Brian "change" - not for the better - right in front of their eyes, well, how can you come out and publicly support that?

Well, the portrayal we get from those close to Brian, like Marilyn, is that Brian's hip friends were using him. Loren Schwartz openly admits that he found giving Brian drugs and introducing strange literature to him funny, stereotyping Brian as a 'bumpkin'. Watching Brian crack was funny to these people. Plus, Brian would probably pay for a lot of their drugs and throw parties. So, I can see how the band had a problem with his new "friends". In fact, these "friends" seemed to look very condescendingly towards the other Beach Boys, which probably just furthured the rifts in Brian's life. I don't think Van Dyke was completely innocent in that respect, for example...

Sure they might not personally understand the whole concept or where the whole project was going, but they were praised like kings in the UK that fall, they had the hottest single in the world.  It kind of deflates the argument that some of the group, including Mike Love, where too commercial minded.

"Good Vibrations", though, had Motown influences and boy-girl lyrics, which meant a more then we might realize now. On SMiLE, the classical musical influences became more prominent, and the lyrics were definitely more arcane. I could see the band feeling that you can only push things so far, and the SMiLE was "ahead of its time", as Brian has said so many times. I know people like to say that Sgt. Pepper's validated what Brian had been doing, but did it really? For every "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" there was a "Getting Better" and a "Lovely Rita". There had to be a balance, and I think most of the band felt (perhaps correctly) that almost all of SMiLE was too esoteric for the general public. "Heroes and Villains" was probably the only song with hit potential, and the band seemed pretty supportive of it until Brian had spent over a 1/2 year working on it obsessively. "Vegetables" is catchy, but let's face it, it's weird, really weird.

I think, in the end, the band was going to do whatever Brian wanted. He was the "goose that laid golden eggs", to quote Mike Love. All the power was in his hands at that point. After all, "Good Vibrations" was a smash hit at the time. The band would have released SMiLE, of course, tons of money had been spent on it and it definitely had hype. There was obviously technical merits to it, no one could doubt that, but would it fall flat when it came out, met with unlistening ears? That's what the band was deeply afraid of, although "Good Vibrations" had the same fear level around it, so who really knew?

And yes, the Beach Boys all smoked pot during Smiley Smile, except good ol' Al Jardine. I don't think it means much, though. By the end of the '60s, everyone in 'show business' was smoking pot (to loosely paraphrase Hugh Heffner). Just because you smoke pot it doesn't mean that you were implicitly affirming that you support weird modular avant-garde psychedelic music. A lot of pot smokers preferred folk music or straight rock 'n' roll. Maybe the band was trying to see things from Brian's perspective. Who knows? And that included writing music and performing stoned. I'm sure it was a lot fun, and made going along with Brian's warped muse a lot easier. Hell, maybe it even made them understand it whereas they had not before. And maybe they had an inflated view of the material, all being so high. Again, who knows? But I need to stop wasting my time writing this junk...

Oh yeah, another random factoid for people that might explain what the song "Good News", recorded during the Smiley Smile sessions, was:

Brian's surviving home tapes document his initial musical efforts singing with various buddies and family, including a song that would later be recorded in the studio by the Beach Boys, 'Sloop John B.' as well as 'Bermuda Shorts' and a hymn titled 'Good News'.

It definitely sounds like the kind of song Brian might revisit during the time, although maybe it's already been proven that it's not that song...

[Ganz Allein]

I agree that Smiley Smile is weirder than SMiLE on the whole, but I think that in between the fragments and minimalist SMiLE reworkings it has something that SMiLE lacks - a few songs closer to the old BB's hit "formula," like "Gettin' Hungry," the pared-down "Heroes & Villains," and maybe even "Little Pad" after the "stoned" intro.  Of course the first two were released as singles.

As far as the mystery of SMiLE goes, back in 1968 Brian stated that he didn't even know why it never came out.  You've surely seen these quotes before:

"Early 1967, I had planned to make an album entitled SMILE. I was working with a guy named Van Dyke Parks, who was collaborating with me on some of the tunes, and in the process, we came up with a song called "Surf's Up," and I performed that with just a piano on a documentary show made on rock music. The song "Surf's Up" that I sang on that documentary never came out on an album, and it was supposed to come out on the SMILE album, and that and a couple of other songs were junked... because... I don't know why... for some reason didn't want to put them on the album. And the group nearly broke up, actually broke up for good after that."

"[With] SMILE, I didn't think that the songs were right for the public at the time. I just didn't have a feeling... a commercial feeling about some of these songs, what we've never released. Maybe some people like to hang on to certain songs as their own little songs that they've written, almost for themselves. A lot of times a person will write...and will realize later...it's not commercial. You know, what they've written is nice for them...but a lot of people just don't like it. Maybe some people like to hang on to certain things..."

Maybe Brian's insistence in recent pre-BWPS times that the public wasn't ready for SMiLE was more than just an avoidance technique?  Maybe he really thought that for all those years?  And his statement about people liking to hang on to certain songs for themselves - that might explain why he never wanted to release (or finish, as the case may be) the SMiLE tracks, at least in their original forms.

Anyway, both of those quotes above are from the SMiLE Primer (http://www.geocities.com/psychedelismile/smprimer.html). Does anybody know the context of those quotes or if there's more?  Also, what exactly does the "broke up for good" quote mean?

[A Million Units In Jan!]

I've never understood that quote. On the surface it obviously seems to mean that the group broke up because the guys didn't like the songs Brian did. However, I never really heard any stories about this-later on, of course there were numerous times the guys 'almost' broke up, or actually did break up. I never heard anything about breaking up right after SMiLE's non-release, though. I've often wondered if that quote was closer to what Brian felt inside, and not what was actually said or discussed among the group.

[The Song Of The Grange]

Last night I was doing research on the films Beach Boys and the Satan and American Band.

In a more contemporary interview with Brian on Beach Boys and the Satan Brain says: [the smile era] That is the big mystery of my life.  I don't remember where I was, and I don't remember who I worked with--musicians and all that. 

And on American Band Van Dyke says: I wrote lyrics for Brian Wilson, most of them when an album was done called Pet Sounds, which readied us for the next record, which still is an unexplained event--I don't understand it. 

This might be both men's way of not discussion the project, but they both act like some unexplained event happened, as if they went out on a journey and when they were way far out there everything went crazy like in 2001 Space Odyssey or something.