Smiley Smile - an E! True Hollywood Story

[Mr. Cohen]

OK, I think I finally figured out the circumstances around Smiley Smile. Many fans have wondered what convinced the band to release this or what motivated them to record it in the first place. Well, here's what I think (know) happened:

A few months prior, Brian had shelved SMiLE (although he had toyed with finishing it a few times afterwords). He was going to release it only if it met his impossibly high standards, and there was no compromising. We would not get a makeshift SMiLE.

 "C'mon Brian, why not just release what we already recorded? You'd just have to mix the tracks, we already recorded enough vocals to make an album."

"Sorry guys, but I can't do it, I just can't do it," Brian replies with exaggerated emotion, refusing to give a more thorough explanation.

So a few weeks pass by, and now Brian has a studio in his house. For what purpose? One night, stoned out of his mind and on downers, Brian is jamming with some friends in his house - it all sounds magical under the influence - and he thinks, 'imagine if we recorded tracks like this'? He knows his brothers have started to smoke pot and that even Mike tokes now and then, so the next day he calls up the band and tells them they're going to start recording at his home studio next week. There's some talk about finishing up the SMiLE tracks, and the band is happy to hear that Brian is going to start seriously working on music. He mentions to his bandmates that there will be LOTS of weed. Hey it's the summer of 1967, they figure (except Al and Bruce), so why not? 'It should be fun," Brian promises. Brian calls up some of his drug buddies and finally gets Danny Hutton to deliver pounds of primo Moroccan hash to his house, which he has casually laying out on a table with various smoking devices when the band comes over.

So, the next week, totally LOADED, they start working on "Vegetables", SMiLE material, and the bands hopes are high (literally and figuratively). Brian records a bass track, a nice bouncy feel, a strange piano part from his bizarrely tuned grand, and they try whistling over it to add color, but it just doesn't sound right. In a moment of drug-fueled inspiration, Brian strips the song down to the bass track and likes what he hears. Excited, he runs downstairs, fills up some empty glass Coke bottles by the counter with water, and the band starts blowing into them. They munch on a pile of organic celery stalks that Brian paid a bundle for (he only buys organic now, pesticides are terrible, man). He records himself drinking a glass of cold water. Brian even adds a SMiLE snippet at the end, as he likes how it gives the song a nice cinematic multicolor ending, like an old Disney cartoon. He's happy with what he hears, and he's found a new organic approach to take with recording. Yes, organic. Brian likes the sound of that.

As the weeks go by, Brian winds up recording a bunch of tracks using this method, and he's having a lot of fun again. He seems carefree for the first time in months, much to the band's relief. To be honest, the band is too stoned to really understand what's going on, and they figure Brian is just going to add some of these sections into SMiLE to finish it up (or something... who knows?). Brian isn't really to clear about all of that to the band, but in his head, an idea for an album is starting to form. As the band wraps up recording in Brian's studio, Brian rushes the tapes to another studio and produces a master for the whole new album in ONE day. Later that week, Brian goes on a little retreat into nature with Marilyn and one of his nephews, and while talking to his nephew the idea to call the new album Smiley Smile is suggested to Brian. He simply loves the title, and upon returning to his mansion informs the band and the record company that the Beach Boy's new record is going to be Smiley Smile!

The band is shocked at first, but what can they do? Brian isn't going to release SMiLE and they haven't had any new product in months. Maybe releasing this will help Brian get over his hang-ups with the SMiLE material and working on releasing new songs again (and sure enough, about a month later Brian was writing R&B songs with Mike). The songs are weird, but there is so much strange hippie music on the radio, who can tell what people will like? Maybe Smiley Smile won't do that bad. Sure, it won't be a smash hit, but maybe it'll go gold with a little luck (or platinum, if the stars are all aligned right). People did buy over 1 million copies of "Good Vibrations", after all, which was kind of out there, and there was a lot of hype for this SMiLE stuff. The record execs at Capitol aren't thrilled, but after the lawsuit and the formation of Brother Records, they don't have as much say in what the Beach Boys release, and they don't want to upset the apple-cart any further. Besides, they know they're about as clueless about the hippe music sweeping the radio right now as Al Jardine.

Smiley Smile is released in September, 1967, and the rest is history. It bombs and Brian shies away from making overtly psychedelic music and he never tries quite as hard at making a great record as he did in '66/'67. And this, my friends, is the true story of Smiley Smile.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Sounds good to me.

[Dancing Bear]

It reduces the drama to a minimum. Just day to day decisions. I like it.

[The infamous Baldwin Organ]

Smiley Smile is awesome. Dude...look at my hands. 

[Sam_BFC]

What of the decision to release the album as a Beach Boys production rather than a Brian Wilson production?

Sam

[Mr. Cohen]

What of the decision to release the album as a Beach Boys production rather than a Brian Wilson production?

After all of that talk about Brian making 'ego' music and the rest of the band being called talentless hanger-ons by some of the press, and also considering the family get-together quality of the recordings (I think Mike's sister is on "Wonderful"), Brian decides to release the album as a Beach Boy production as a gesture of goodwill towards his friends and family. Brian felt that the hip showbiz crowd had taken advantage of him, making him want to surround himself with a more tightly knit circle of family members and close friends. His next two albums, the Beach Boys production Wild Honey and the aptly named Friends, reflect this shift in attitude.

It reduces the drama to a minimum. Just day to day decisions. I like it.

Didn't Marilyn say that there was almost always a simple explanation for Brian's behaviors? For being such a genius, he was a comparatively uncomplicated guy, and quite earnest as well. Do you really see Brian being hateful enough to engineer Smiley Smile as a way to extract revenge on the group? I doubt it was deliberate. He was just really 'out there' at the time, from his emotions to his drug use, and Smiley Smile is a portrait of that.

Also, what I wrote is largely based on fact. The band wasn't sure what Brian's ultimate intentions were for the Smiley Smile material while they were recording it, and they all still believed that Brian was going to eventually finish Smile. There are quotes to that effect from the band out there. It is true that Smiley Smile was mastered in one hurried day, and that the name Smiley Smile was suggested to Brian by a nephew, lending the impression that the album was a spur of the moment creation. And it does sound like the band had fun recording the album, even if some of the songs sound creepy to the untrained ear. Really, my story was already sketched by the available facts, I just colored it all in using Brian's typical behaviors as a template.

The drama implied by Brian claiming that band almost broke up for good because of his decision not to release the song "Surf's Up", I think, happened either before the band had started recording Smiley Smile or after the album had already been released and bombed. I don't have proof but I just feel that the drama would already had to have been resolved or yet to emerge for the sense of family togetherness present on Smiley Smile to exist. But hey, what do I know?

[The Song Of The Grange]

Very interesting insight DaDa.  Sounds pretty plausible to me.

But it makes me wonder what was going on between Feb. '67 and the time of Smiley Smile's recording.  During that time Brian only worked on H&V (in pursuit of a single), Vegetables (in pursuit of the anti-single), maybe Wonderful, and Carl's Tones song.  All work had stopped on most of the Smile tracks, and most notably, all of the more challenging Smile tracks were shelved (Surf's Up, Cabinessence, Worms etc).  And the Smile songs that he did work on ended up on Smiley Smile, and in the case of H*V and Vegetables, sections from this period were actually used on Smiley Smile.  This time frame is clearly pre-Smiley Smile, but it doesn't really feel like Smile anymore either, though in the press Brian was still talking as if Smile was still coming out.  It makes me buy into the idea that is on that Ear Candy article on the web--Smiley Smile is Smile (http://www.earcandymag.com/rrcase-2.htm).  I think there is a clear cutoff point when Brian moved to the home studio.  That is when Smiley Smile begins for real.  But I would argue that from Feb. '67 to June '67 can't really be called Smile, despite the wildest dreams of Domenic Priore (the canceled Smile mix down session the day after the Dada sessions in May). 

The fact is, unless there are a bunch of vocal takes missing somewhere (and I really hope there are), then after mid February '67 lots of important Smile tracks were left unfinished and abandoned: Cabinessence, Child is Father of the Man, Worms, Surf's Up, I'm In Great Shape (and Barnyard), The Elements (Fire was abandoned as early as mid December), and really Wind Chimes could be added to the list because it wasn't touched again until the Smiley Smile sessions.  But like I said above, there are press accounts of Brian still talking about Smile during this period.  The only way I can make sense of this is that there was for a time a post-Smile Smile, a Smile #2 which would have been drastically different than Smile, and more along the lines of Smiley Smile. 

My theory is that at some point in Jan. or Feb. '67 lots of Smile tracks were vetoed, and/or Brian got cold feet about them.  And work progressed with a scaled back Smile line up.  Cabinessence and Surf's Up are just out of the question.  Wonderful gets to stay because at least it has girl-boy lyric overtones.  Vegetables gets to stay, with the strangest lyrics being changed.  No wonder BW stopped working so hard on the album when lots of the best cards in the deck were suddenly gone.  This plays out in the Smiley Smile period too.  To fill in the gaps left by the vetoed songs, BW went back and scavenged a bunch of unoffensive fragments from the Smile scrap heap.  He Give Speeches (long abandoned) was revamped as a little wacky comedy piece, With Me Tonight was cut out of a stack of H&V outtakes.  Whistle In was salvaged from the wreck of Do You Like Worms.  Little Pad feels grafted off the "Hawaii arrival" theme of Smile, Fall Breaks picks apart the H&V intro music, and Gettin' Hungry is a pre-Wild Honey song given the Smile cut-and-paste treatment.

I guess the only flaw in this theory is that Wonderful and Wind Chimes were made even more strange and spaced out than their previous Smile counterparts, which kind of bucks the simplification trend.

[Cam Mott]

I think Brian vetoed  SMiLE [by realizing his Muse was over it] some time between Feb. and June, probably by late March, but the Boys obviously didn't veto SMiLE because they still thought it was in play and going to be fantastic with material they had already recorded according to their comments as late as through May in Europe.

I seriously doubt that Brian ever considered SMiLE as a solo album. Unless I've forgotten or am imagining something, the only thing alluding to that was wishful thinking of the Posse which Brian dismissed out of hand.

[Wirestone]

Ah yes, "his muse was over it." As opposed to encroaching mental illness and paranoia, documented annoyance from group members and the departure of Van Dyke and his inner circle at the time.

We've accepted, I think, that Brian made the definitive choice in ending the album. But let's not make it look like it was not a painful choice, or one that forever changed the dynamic in the band.

To the subject at hand, I think the account of Smiley Smile makes a lot of sense. It does seem like the album was a way to recapture the group spirit and spontaneity of an album like Party (a similarity often noted).

[Mr. Cohen]

The fact is, unless there are a bunch of vocal takes missing somewhere (and I really hope there are), then after mid February '67 lots of important Smile tracks were left unfinished and abandoned: Cabinessence, Child is Father of the Man, Worms, Surf's Up, I'm In Great Shape (and Barnyard), The Elements (Fire was abandoned as early as mid December), and really Wind Chimes could be added to the list because it wasn't touched again until the Smiley Smile sessions.  But like I said above, there are press accounts of Brian still talking about Smile during this period.  The only way I can make sense of this is that there was for a time a post-Smile Smile, a Smile #2 which would have been drastically different than Smile, and more along the lines of Smiley Smile.

Here's what I think happened: Mike and some of the other band members voiced objections towards the esoteric lyrics and psychedelic sounds, such as the infamous "over and over, the crow cries..." argument between Mike and Van. Brian, emotionally vulnerable, now becomes conflicted with the material. He knows the songs are good compositions, but will the mass public like it? Brian needs that approval for psychological reasons. Unsure of what to do with the songs, he decides to just focus exclusively on making a hit single. This is when we see all of the sessions for "Heroes and Villains" and "Vegetables". Unfortunately, his own insecurities at this time will make it impossible for him to release anything. He can't face the public scrutiny. One engineer during the SMiLE sessions tells a story about Brian having this amazing mix of "Heroes and Villains", a worthy successor to "Good Vibrations". Looking for feedback, Brian decides to bring a random guy off the streets into the studio to listen to it. The guy doesn't like the song after the first listen, and so Brian concludes that the mix is no good and that the entire song has to be redone. Brian was so hung up on his quest for the perfect single that if he couldn't create it SMiLE wasn't going to happen. Personal insecurities can sometimes manifest themselves as perfectionist tendencies, and that's what we see in Brian during the SMiLE period. He was so absorbed in recording "Heroes and Villians" and, later, "Vegetables", that he simply didn't have time, or maybe want to make time, to think about "Cabinessence" or "Child is Father of the Man". It was too much to think about. I think 'songs' (really, they sound more like chants or incantations) like "With Me Tonight" were just Brian fishing for the inspiration to finish the next single as opposed to being part of a coherent plan to finish SMiLE. He used tracks like that on Smiley Smile because he still wasn't sure what he was going to do with songs like "Cabinessence" or "Surf's Up". So, then, why did he revisit "Wonderful" and "Wind Chimes"? Well, he was just more comfortable with those themes, for whatever reason. He's always been proud of "Wonderful" as a composition and "Wind Chimes" is pretty inoffensive. And that's the truth.

[Wirestone]

And sadly, Heroes and Villains is just not built with as appealing musical themes as Good Vibes. Brian could tinker with it forever, but it was unlikely to do as well -- it doesn't really have a killer hook. It has a lot of little hooks, and a brilliant production, but the central chorus/chant doesn't scream chart-topper.

I think on some level Brian understood that, and it's why he worked with the song for so long. The concept is excellent, and you can just feel the inspiration come out of the grooves of that early mix. But that early mix has no chorus, and the cantina section is arty and strange. So Brian tried to revamp the song, find a chorus somewhere, and make a hit somehow.

[DSamore]

This made me laugh and smile. Excellent work!!!

[Dancing Bear]

And sadly, Heroes and Villains is just not built with as appealing musical themes as Good Vibes. Brian could tinker with it forever, but it was unlikely to do as well -- it doesn't really have a killer hook. It has a lot of little hooks, and a brilliant production, but the central chorus/chant doesn't scream chart-topper.

I think on some level Brian understood that, and it's why he worked with the song for so long. The concept is excellent, and you can just feel the inspiration come out of the grooves of that early mix. But that early mix has no chorus, and the cantina section is arty and strange. So Brian tried to revamp the song, find a chorus somewhere, and make a hit somehow.

Exactly. Brian wouldn't let go of Heroes and Villains, couldn't or didn't want to write a better candidate for a follow-up to GV, and all the band members could do was wait, as they weren't songwriters.

About 'vetoing'.... I think we have achieved a good balance about the band's reaction to Smile. If anything nearly as clear as a 'veto' or a 'group vote' had happened, we'd have known every single detail about it by now. I think the months just passed by and nothing got finished, till Brian decided to work in a home studio and everyone went along. Simple as that. Relationships were strained and they had problems communicating, and a change of pace seemed to be a good idea. And no one looked back thereafter.

[The Song Of The Grange]

I think claymcc makes a good point that mental illness has to be considered a major factor in BW's losing the artistic decisiveness to finish Smile, and H&V in particular.  And once he got locked in a battle to "perfect" H&V, the rest of Smile fell by the way side for 2 or 3 crucial months.  Mental illness, and probably drug use too, blurred BW's focus, and he started spinning his wheels in the mud.  But I must add that I think the band's negative reaction to the Smile tracks didn't help BW's mental illness.  He is already in a fragile state, and big rejection from his own musical vehicle makes it that much worse.  Then the cards start falling one by one--Carl gets drafted, Van Dyke leaves, Capitol records is ripping them off, he has a falling out with Derek Taylor.  Then add in paranoia stemming from the mental illness and you get a real hurricane swirl of troubles.  A perfect storm, death by a thousand cuts.  And BW had the bad luck of this coming down on him right when he was making some of the greatest music of his career.  Man, what a tough ride it must have been.