smiley smile to soothe a hurt brain

[nobody]

i've had a weird day

about nine hours ago i smoked but one bowl of marijuana
and set out into the woods on a journey

in the valley of dirt i sat and meditated
after some time three monsters appeared

a guy and his two sons on quads
dirt and mud in the air, they got stuck in quicksand

at some point he drove up on to the hill where i sat
and while i spoke to him i melted like butter internally

i've experienced typical ego-death on other drugs
and ego-transcendence through meditation

yet this was more like an anxiety attack
plus the melting of my psychological self

for quite some time i have been coming to realize
that marijuana is spiritually deadly for me personally

today the realization came in full when i was shattered

nine hours later i feel as if i've been through a war

in an effort to find peace and to try and seduce back the inner lucidity
that i began my day with sober

i searched for appropriate music

i hadn't listened to the beach boys in a while
but i remembered what carl said about smiley smile

being used in some rehab clinic to help people chill after intense drug experiences

i have it on now - it is indeed very soothing for this purpose

because it's carefree in a childish way
a temporary relief from crippling psychic demons

it's an isolated world of controlled cheerfulness

[nobody]

actually, i'm switching to lou reed's metal machine music
it's a better choice for destroying the demons in a cathartic way

the sound of metal machine music is the sound of my mind all day today
absolutely horrific, shrunk to an atomic point

[nobody]

i was toking with some friends the other night and they were playing early beach boys songs and, guess what, admiring mike love's voice

they were like teenage girls

"hear hsi voice? it's so great, so perfect, it fits the music so well"

we were cracking up at mike's lead in to the post-solo chorus on rhonda

"abowbowbowbow"

out of nowhere

they said brian's voice at the end of fun, fun, fun was "obnoxious"

[Magic Transistor Radio]

I wonder what it is like to listen to Fall Breaks and Back to Winter on repeat while stoned. I wonder what it's like to be stoned.

"no you don't" says little Nicola

[Chris Brown]

I wonder what it is like to listen to Fall Breaks and Back to Winter on repeat while stoned. I wonder what it's like to be stoned.

I've often wondered those things too.  Smiley must sound so trippy while "under the influence."

[nobody]

sounds like you guys need to get high and do it

actually, despite the common belief that "20 seconds of music is like 2hrs" or whatever that brian said...
the shortness of most beach boys albums don't really make for good stoned listening

i mean, it's just over too fast. half the songs seem more like whiffs of clouds drifting in the sky
when i'm high, or when i'm sober, i like to be immersed in a sound environment

two minutes is like two breaths to me

it can be good, has been good, but you have to know when to put it on

if you're going to listen to them while high, put them on right after or while smoking

because a marijuana high goes from pure to impure, the pure being more lucid and joyous and the impure being dull and deadened

if you play it in the middle, if you're too high, you might start analyzing your own thoughts too much until you find yourself in a web of your own creation and then it will all pop like a bubble - wait, what was i saying?

i don't know, drugs are bad for the spiritual life if you are so inclined

the pleasantness of certain drugs is actually their greatest binding factor - if they gave terrible experiences they would be less harmful spiritually

all of my favorite music is best enjoyed sober, anyway. listening to music while intoxicated is listening to music while dreaming.

i think brian wilson was more into the feels he played at home than what ended up on the record.
the record was for the public, the basis of the music was for him.

we get a few minutes or whatever of "whistle in" but brian gets two hours plonkin on his piano

that's when drugs and music mix - when you get in a zone with yourself and locked in a rhythm and you enjoy it fully

actually, if you listen to things like smiley smile you expose yourself to the weird vibes brian was releasing into the world when his head was up his metaphysical butt and run the risk of treading that path yourself. you know you feel saner when you get off the re-occuring obsession with Smile.

[Aegir]

Listen to In Concert. 7 minute Leaving This Town.

[Shady]

The OP takes his getting high very seriously

[Magic Transistor Radio]

In the 1977 concert where all the Wilsons are messed up, they do a very long version of Feel Flows.

[buddhahat]

you know you feel saner when you get off the re-occuring obsession with Smile.

too true

[Magic Transistor Radio]

I wonder what it is like to listen to Fall Breaks and Back to Winter on repeat while stoned. I wonder what it's like to be stoned.

"no you don't" says little Nicola

Well, I thought it was funny...

[nobody]

having another go at it tonight
 
had a few leary biscuits

smoked a little

i'm surprised more of you smile fanatics (otherwise known as melted butter faced stoners locked into perma-smile) don't listen to the beach boys under the influence

consider brian's friends around the time of smile and smiley. hip cats with good connections. smiley smile is a drug record. smile would've been a drug record. but not in a darkly mystical way - in a buoyant, silly way. the sort you listen to for simple joy.

smiley smile should perhaps be animated as a cartoon or done with puppets like sesame street. one of you should get to work on this like... now, because don't you see what a great idea that is?

here i am, giving you my golden ideas, for free,

take them, they are now yours

yes, go animate smiley smile. each song is like a comic. or like a 2 minute cartoon. looney tunes. brian wilson wrote songs that had a spatial sensitivity. he didn't write in 2d.

it's still weird as sh*t music though. really, you don't really realize how weird something like smiley smile is until you're high or tripping. i mean, to sober ears it might sound strange, but you don't have access to the same state. while high, you can configure your state t othe smiley smile state. then you have no idea why you did that because it's fucking bizarre! have you heard the baseline in "fall breaks"? that's a cartoon nightmare. the sort of madness that is actually terrifying due to its complete loss of rational and logical thought. total dominance of subconscious impressions. a creative mind.

but it is madness on tape. brian wilson was in a weird place. even in the happy campfire-vibe songs, it's there. like everything is about to crack. reality about to disintegrate revealing, behind the veil of illusion, something like a raisin.

the ascending tape thing on "she's going bald" is a musical mimickry of a nitrous high. the beach boys used to use nitrous more than oxygen. a daily diet of weed, nitrous, lsd. and brian wilson. he was also a drug.

 

[Magic Transistor Radio]

having another go at it tonight
 
had a few leary biscuits

smoked a little

i'm surprised more of you smile fanatics (otherwise known as melted butter faced stoners locked into perma-smile) don't listen to the beach boys under the influence

consider brian's friends around the time of smile and smiley. hip cats with good connections. smiley smile is a drug record. smile would've been a drug record. but not in a darkly mystical way - in a buoyant, silly way. the sort you listen to for simple joy.

smiley smile should perhaps be animated as a cartoon or done with puppets like sesame street. one of you should get to work on this like... now, because don't you see what a great idea that is?

here i am, giving you my golden ideas, for free,

take them, they are now yours

yes, go animate smiley smile. each song is like a comic. or like a 2 minute cartoon. looney tunes. brian wilson wrote songs that had a spatial sensitivity. he didn't write in 2d.

it's still weird as merda music though. really, you don't really realize how weird something like smiley smile is until you're high or tripping. i mean, to sober ears it might sound strange, but you don't have access to the same state. while high, you can configure your state t othe smiley smile state. then you have no idea why you did that because it's friggin' bizarre! have you heard the baseline in "fall breaks"? that's a cartoon nightmare. the sort of madness that is actually terrifying due to its complete loss of rational and logical thought. total dominance of subconscious impressions. a creative mind.

but it is madness on tape. brian wilson was in a weird place. even in the happy campfire-vibe songs, it's there. like everything is about to crack. reality about to disintegrate revealing, behind the veil of illusion, something like a raisin.

the ascending tape thing on "she's going bald" is a musical mimickry of a nitrous high. the beach boys used to use nitrous more than oxygen. a daily diet of weed, nitrous, lsd. and brian wilson. he was also a drug.

 

I take you for your word, but it makes me wonder why this album wasn't more of a success in 1967 when everybody was dropping acid.

[donald]

Not pretentious enough.  Thats why.

[nobody]

the demonic "it's so peaceful close to a lullaby..." HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR har har is far more psychedelic than any of the other contrived things other bands were doing at the time

but it's the "this will make your head spin" sort of psychedelia. the edgy side of it where it could send you into psychological places you had forgotten about. not a "cool music to listen to while taking bong rips". more of an artists' record i think.

in a way, smiley smile is actually cooler. smile might've appealed to the heads of the time into unconventional stuff, but it barely touches the realm of brian wilson's quirky sense of reality. it seems more like a product to establish the beach boys as hip as f***, bag new intellectual fans, then brian wilson could really live up to his potential

i think his brothers held him back somewhat. we always think of the beach boys as this inseparable unit which without one would not be the whole

and yet, can you imagine brian fronting a different band? one not comprised of family members with their nails dug in your psychological back already, but friends who come and go as friends do. can you imagine a brian wilson, prolific composer through 1960s and 1970 dubbed "greatest and most relevent songwriter of our times". it could've happened. instead he became the beach boy who lost the plot and stayed in bed.

smiley smile seems more brian than smile does. smile is the public ego brian wilson. smiley is his subconscious.

smile, where its parts are finished, has a complete feel to it. take "wonderful". the smile version is like a fairy tale book with classy writing and drawings in the magins illuminating the story for the child. on smiley smile "wonderful" is more real, less fantasy, but still its own brand of unconventional derangement.

the difference is almost like the plot for a film being produced by a major picture company and given full treatment and a more low budget recording with less grand statements and more off-kilter, warm, anti-humor.

[A Million Units In Jan!]

Once, in my younger days, I smoked some weed while listening to Magical Mystery Tour.  The song 'Blue Jay Way', while already a bit trippy as it is, took on a whole new meaning. And the song  did seem to  last for about an hour.

[nobody]

ha, i put on MMT today just for kicks after smiley smile

the beatles are like pop-psychedelia

the spirit of it is there but in a very commercialized form

part of the key to their success, really, but from another perspective it was also a key to their limitations

[nobody]

we have to stop meeting like this

huge storm here, house rattling storm, and my high is nearing the fine line

the first chorus to heroes and villains bursts out, like a huge leap on the mixing board. it's so big an effect yet so hardly ever realized until it throws your mind off

i have read a bit about brian's interest in zen. this is particularly interesting because while the beatles were getting involved with hindu spiritualism, brian wilson was getting into zen spiritualism. two very different words. both have meditation and recognize the need to transcend mind, but they have very different techniques.

zen has a long warm history of smiley smile like dialogues and scriptures. often only a few words to crystallize a profound thing

there is also lots of subtle humor involved. it is thought that the unconscious continuity of thought that surges on from both ends of the day can be intercepted rather stopped by sudden flashing moments like sneezing or laughing. several of brian's smile-related significant things was his strong, strong grasp on this concept

so for example as i mentioned before, the HAR HAR HAR-ing accordian or whatever it is on Wind Chimes after the "it's so peaceful close to a lullaby part". that's so Zen it should immediately be added a a collection of their important texts. don't you see it? it's a cosmic finger pointing out the cosmic joke.

the rawness of smiley smile is at times striking. consider carl's voice at the end of Wonderful over a jaunty piano that sounds like it's at the other end of the saloon.

at other times it's religious psychedelic like the end of Wonderful "na na na na na na na naaaa" is very hymn like in a traditional sense, thomas tallis like, and yet has that unmistakable drug-tinged color to it. very dreamy. this album is a fantasy land. a work on par with lewis carroll's perhaps, just in music. and wasn't brian part pedophile as well? everything is divine

some of the most bizarre vocal parts on smiley are from mike. his playful ba ba ba ba's are like dancing mushrooms up and down

i think that, actually, what i just said, which is not my original thought but a conditioned one, is the best understanding of brian wilson post-1966 in full but glimpses a plenty before then (brian's quirky humor pervades their music and history), that he was like a zen trickers, either writing musical haikus ("wake the world", "i went to sleep", "wind chimes", etc) but with a brilliant LSD-tinged twist. you HAVE to see it for this, this is what was in brian's head.

zen is very simple and unpretentious, which reminds me of what Donald said here about it not being pretentious enough for the heads back then. zen is too obvious, not lost in dreams. the ultimate experience is said to be one where thought stops and one's original mind is known - which is emptiness, or a great space out of which all else arises.

i prefer "our prayer" to anything the beatles ever made

it's just on a whole other level, such purity and devotion in it, coming from a great place

one sometimes wonders how brian knew to arrange so well, consider the chorus to Cabinessence, and the unique use of voice in the verses

like, sgt. pepper is a fun listen with some sing-alongs and some epic tracks (day in the life) with a similar approach to psychedelic-ized innocence and such but they missed the Zen moment. brian knew of the zen moment, they didn't. they only knew fantasy and not reality.

he brought an american whimsical approach to zen into the pop music scene which seems to have been plagued by pretentiously self-absorbed musicians. brian was just like a kid building sand castles on the beach, but before he really finished he kicked it in

[nobody]

you know the single version of Heroes and Villains tends to get butted aside in favor of the the potential smile version but i think the single is perfect and brian knew exactly what he was doing.

it's better than good vibrations, not as a hit single but as a song. the mono mix is muddy and robs it of some of its higher quality charm but it is what it is and it's great

it's like one of brian's finest flowerings

when insanity manifests as brilliance if but for a moment or two

all the pieces fell in place rather than remaining scattered

what brian did with smile is practically beyond the scope of all his friends and foes in the business and pop music world at the time. just way beyond. it's on an operatic level, such control and insight.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

I wonder what it is like to listen to Fall Breaks and Back to Winter on repeat while stoned. I wonder what it's like to be stoned.

I've often wondered those things too.  Smiley must sound so trippy while "under the influence."

Actually, to be honest it sounds more normal, and to these ears even cooler.

You know what the perfect song is for that occasion? "Time to get alone", esp the "Deep and Wide" part (esp listening on good head phones).

[nobody]

yeah time to get alone is good

about my comments on brian's music and zen

i'm not saying i think he's a zen master or anything. in fact, from my spiritual perceptive, brian wilson was a deeply confused mind. his zenniness was mostly due to his eccentricity, his quirky humor, and drugs. he was particularly effective with it because he had good timing sense and a first hand knowledge of shifting states of emotional experiences due to drugs. i think drugs create all sorts of illusions for spiritual seekers so i can never allow the possibility that a deeply realized soul is a recreational drug user. the deep experiences in meditation are so sobering, so lucidly clear, so penetrative in their fullness of consciousness, that they make drug states seem like passing mental circuses with fancy lights but nothing of much lasting worth.

i also think the rumor of brian spending much of his bedroom time meditating is bullshit due to this. brian wilson was not a meditator. he didn't have the temperment for it. meditation is a state of no-mind, brian's mind was always conjuring up things whether beautiful music, personal delusions, or other mental attacks

[LostArt]

nobody, I like your thoughts on Smiley Smile.  I think I'll give that one a spin tonight.  It's been awhile since I played it, but that was the album that got me into Brian and the Beach Boys.  Have you been to Bill Tobleman's site?  You'd likely enjoy it.  He posts here now and again (at least he used to), and his site deals with Brian and zen.  Here is a link...explore, and then come back and tell us what you think.

http://pages.cthome.net/tobelman/

[nobody]

that's the place i had originally read about it and suddenly realized that it fits

however i find that website to be a bit sensationalist, making more of the whole thing than there actually is

i don't think brian had any great spiritual realization that he was encoding in music. he was just into drugs and learning about new philosophies and such and the ones he liked he played with in his music.

besides, i don't like the perspective of the author of that site. i think of the drug culture and its leaders as its own philosophical system - the drug yogis. they rely on work and expressions that the gnostic yogis did and used for explanations of their chemical tomfoolery. it's all big talk, really. the experiences are there, the so-called religious-spiritual-psychedelic experiences, but they're chemically induced mind peculiarities rather than the real samadhi states and similar things spoken about in traditional yogic spirituality. and the difference is clear. think of the historical gautama buddha - is that image you have in your mind anywhere even CLOSE to all those clowns who led the drug movement? god no and you know it. he wouldn't even THINK about taking a drug because... what's the use of such a fleeting experience born in mind? yet he will speak of altered states, certainly! but these are the altered states of a profoundly lucid & sober mind - the jhanas, nirvana, etc., are states of consciousness experienced when one's own awareness is held while passing from the waking state past the deep sleep state, not losing consciousness. even the most respected drug guru still falls unconscious each time he sleeps. they're failed yogis resorting to chemical stimulation to fill in the gap of their failed practice. like alan watts, he studied buddhism from an early age but it wasn't till he started playing with drugs that he thought he had come to know. but he died an alcoholic. come on, alcohol is the most spiritually pointless drug in the world, affecting the lower nervous system and encouraging more unconscious behavior than others. he didn't know sh*t except in theory and artificial, chemically induced experience, says I.

based on this, i'm not inclined to give much interest into brian's actual message because i don't think he was spiritually sane whatsoever. i think he was involved on a mythical sort of level while disintegrating on the ordinary level due to the enormous stresses of the music business and his already fragile state of mind. i just see what he was going for with things.

but like i said before and someone agreed, i am willing to bet that every single person here including everyone ever involved feels much saner, more grounded, when they cool off on the smile and smiley smile interest so heavily. when they let it go and don't think about it or listen to it much. it's just not a stable place, mentally. it's a fragmented mess that sometimes came together well. but overall, maybe brian was right in a moment of clarity when he felt that "fire" would be too much to release on the world. not that it would work like black magick but just because it comes from a place of paranioa, fear, tension, strangeness, and it's so far from reality as it is when unstained by thoughts. it's the sound of a contracted mind imploding, not an enlightened mind expanding in awareness. it's contraction, spinning into itself.

more proof of my idea that the drug culture was a philosophical movement like any other with its own practices, and that their leaders and high priests are just failed yogis in an ordinary sense, is that people like brian wilson so obviously lost the plot that it's not even worth discussing. brian wilson who probably takes twelve thousand medications just to get out of bed each day and be semi-functional.

i also think richard alpert aka ram dass is full of sh*t and was probably using drugs somewhat regularly throughout his whole life like tim leary, even when talking about his spiritual practice and all that. he just wanted to play guru the silly fag.