"By Killing smile, He saved himself"

[Shady]

I finally bought the GV box set from tower records today and during a free class I starterd reading the fantastic booklet that comes with it.

I was struck by the quote "By Killing smile, He saved himself", and I'm wondering do you all agree with that. If Brian continued with smile, would he have died or something.

Saved himself from what?

[hypehat]

A good kicking from Mike 

But seriously, i think it's supposed to mean it stopped him going insane or w/e, a lovely point not helped by the fact that Brian actually did go insane within the decade.

As an aside, that book is so 'Brian-centric' I'm kinda amazed Mike let it through. Or maybe he saw the Pet Sounds draft and just thought 'not again....'

[OneEar/OneEye]

What a load of horse pucky.  IMO not completing Smile only made things worse for him. 
"Saved from what?", indeed. 

[Emdeeh]

It's romantic sentimentality about our hero, imho.

[bgas]

What a load of horse pucky.  IMO not completing Smile only made things worse for him. 
"Saved from what?", indeed. 

Would you rather the quote had read  " By killing himself, He Saved SMiLE" ?  ( of course not)
Still, the sense is he  HAD to walk away to keep his senses intact.  See?

[OneEar/OneEye]

What a load of horse pucky.  IMO not completing Smile only made things worse for him. 
"Saved from what?", indeed. 

Would you rather the quote had read  " By killing himself, He Saved SMiLE" ?  ( of course not)
Still, the sense is he  HAD to walk away to keep his senses intact.  See?

If it works for you, then by all means.   
I just don't really buy the idea that ditching it saved him from anything negative. 
In fact, I'm of the opinion that it only helped make the negatives worse.

[pixletwin]

I can see it both ways. I think for Brian it was one of those situations where he was damned if he did or damned if he didn't.

[Chris Brown]

What a load of horse pucky.  IMO not completing Smile only made things worse for him. 
"Saved from what?", indeed. 

Would you rather the quote had read  " By killing himself, He Saved SMiLE" ?  ( of course not)
Still, the sense is he  HAD to walk away to keep his senses intact.  See?

If it works for you, then by all means.   
I just don't really buy the idea that ditching it saved him from anything negative. 
In fact, I'm of the opinion that it only helped make the negatives worse.

Agreed.  Killing Smile meant that he failed at something, for the first time in his professional career.  For a guy who was already incredibly insecure and who had already suffered a breakdown over the weight of his musical responsibilities, it must have been a huge blow.  Nobody likes to fail at something, but for somebody like Brian, it clearly had a profound impact on him.  He wasn't able to really spearhead a group album for another 10 years after that.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

What a load of horse pucky.  IMO not completing Smile only made things worse for him.  
"Saved from what?", indeed.  

Would you rather the quote had read  " By killing himself, He Saved SMiLE" ?  ( of course not)
Still, the sense is he  HAD to walk away to keep his senses intact.  See?

If it works for you, then by all means.  
I just don't really buy the idea that ditching it saved him from anything negative.  
In fact, I'm of the opinion that it only helped make the negatives worse.

 A million times agree.

[guitarfool2002]

Did the failure of Smile as an overall project or the failure of Heroes the single to be welcomed as Brian thought it would be that one fateful July 1967 night at KHJ radio have more of an effect? I think the Heroes debacle was one of the last nails in the coffin, so to speak.

If you place all your hopes on one event, and you're banking on it to revitalize something very close to you, and it fails to reach your expectations, it has to be nothing short of devastating, whether the effects were instant or long-term.

[Jcc]

It's been posted up here before, that what really killed SMiLE for Brian  (and this was from Peter Reum) was the change of direction from a 3-movement work to a basic 12-track album.  I think this did 2 things.  First, because it changed the whole focus of the project, it became impossible for Brian to complete it in the way he originally envisioned.  This increased the likelihood that Brian would eventually lose interest or give up since even if he had finished the thing, it still would not have been the SMiLE he would have wanted, or could have created. 

Second, it also served to develop a rift between him and members of the band, because it was their insistence that the album be changed into that 12-track format.  I'm not convinced that Mike was the villain in all of this.  He may have been the spokesman for the SMiLE "doubters", but it's very possible that Al or even Carl was the main instigator.   Brian Wilson confirmed as such on his own message board several years back when he claimed that Al was very much against SMiLE at the time.  I could also see Carl, a go-along-to-get-along kind of guy, and probably rather risk-averse, saying, "Gee Brian, I don't know.  Are you sure you're doing the right thing here?"  Now, that being said, Carl would probably have been the first to admit he was wrong (and he probably did) especially in light of the fact that he tried to see whether the project could be resurrected in the early 1970's.  To be honest, I think Murray had a HUGE part in SMiLE coming apart, and may have tried to convince the other guys (especially Mike and Carl) to "save Brian from himself."

I don't know.  This is all conjecture, but over the years it has astounded me how the Beach Boys have the most amazing talent of choosing the single worst solution to every problem, and it all started with that.

[Ron]

My personal opinion, not worth much, I think he was falling the hell apart, and the album falling apart was just a symptom of that.  I'm sure he was devastated that he couldn't finish the album, but he had bigger problems going on at the time. 

[A Million Units In Jan!]

It's been posted up here before, that what really killed SMiLE for Brian  (and this was from Peter Reum) was the change of direction from a 3-movement work to a basic 12-track album.

So you think that back then SMiLE was a three piece movement? I'm not saying your right or wrong, but even when they put together BWPS, I never heard ANYBODY say that back in the day it was originally a three movement thing. Not VDP, Brian, anybody.

[Cam Mott]

I agree with Margaret.

[bgas]

I agree with Margaret.

Who?

[Les P]

My personal opinion, not worth much, I think he was falling the hell apart, and the album falling apart was just a symptom of that.  I'm sure he was devastated that he couldn't finish the album, but he had bigger problems going on at the time.  

Ron, this seems to wrap it up fairly succinctly to me.

We know he had second thoughts/insecurity about Good Vibrations, and nearly gave it away before finishing and releasing it.  Multiply the insecurity he felt about GV by how ever many modular tracks he was recording for SMiLE (with the added complication of VDP's abstract lyrics and the resistance those brought up -and which he even may have questioned), exacerbated by his deterioration in mental state (aggravated by drug use), and it's hard to see how he ever could have finished it.

[Cam Mott]

I agree with Margaret.

Who?

MDH.

[Chris Brown]

It's been posted up here before, that what really killed SMiLE for Brian  (and this was from Peter Reum) was the change of direction from a 3-movement work to a basic 12-track album.

So you think that back then SMiLE was a three piece movement? I'm not saying your right or wrong, but even when they put together BWPS, I never heard ANYBODY say that back in the day it was originally a three movement thing. Not VDP, Brian, anybody.

The closest anybody came to talking about movements was Brian saying that there were 2 movements back in '67, and they added a third in 2003 to create a "rock opera."  To me, it seems that Brian was talking about 2 contrasting sides of an LP, not movements in the structure of BWPS.

[MBE]

It's Leaf Brianista crap. Tinkerbell LOL

[juggler]

 To be honest, I think Murray had a HUGE part in SMiLE coming apart, and may have tried to convince the other guys (especially Mike and Carl) to "save Brian from himself."

Really?  I've never seen or heard much in the way of evidence that Murry, for all his faults, killed Smile.  

Is Smile the sort of thing Murry would have done himself?  Absolutely not, but Murry had to have been happy with the piles of money Sea of Tunes (i.e., the Brian-Murry partnership) was making on Good Vibrations, right?  

Also, wasn't there a story along the lines that Van Dyke Parks didn't own a car, so Brian marched him down to Murry's office and said that VDP wanted a Volvo and Murry wrote out a check on the spot?   Buying the Smile lyricist a car isn't exactly a way to express your displeasure with the project, is it?

[hypehat]

I've never heard murry figure in that story. I think Brian could write his own cheques in 1966....

[juggler]

I've never heard murry figure in that story. I think Brian could write his own cheques in 1966....

Could have... but probably didn't. 

By 1966, mundane details of ordinary life such as check-writing and check-cashing were not Brian Wilson's thing (and probably still aren't).  Remember Tony Asher's recollection of being shocked at seeing large uncashed checks and piles of unopened mail gathering dust at Brian's house?

[Ron]

My personal opinion, not worth much, I think he was falling the hell apart, and the album falling apart was just a symptom of that.  I'm sure he was devastated that he couldn't finish the album, but he had bigger problems going on at the time.  

Ron, this seems to wrap it up fairly succinctly to me.

We know he had second thoughts/insecurity about Good Vibrations, and nearly gave it away before finishing and releasing it.  Multiply the insecurity he felt about GV by how ever many modular tracks he was recording for SMiLE (with the added complication of VDP's abstract lyrics and the resistance those brought up -and which he even may have questioned), exacerbated by his deterioration in mental state (aggravated by drug use), and it's hard to see how he ever could have finished it.

Yeah, I think the doubts, etc. about the songs and what to do here and there, etc. were all symptoms of the mental place he was in at the time.  Without the mental illness, he probably would have pulled it off. 

A lot of the work he did on the album didn't improve it.  He could have used early takes on a lot of the stuff and did what he wanted to do with it, he just mentally wasn't in a place where he was able to make a decision and stick with it.  It wasn't a problem with work, it was his entire life, he was having problems with his wife and in my opinion that was probably a much bigger deal to him than the album.  When you step back and look at all the stuff he was going through at the time, it's amazing that he was functioning even on the level that he was. 

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Given Brian's mental state, I think that he was heading towards some kind of breakdown which would have occurred with or without Smile. Nevertheless, I think the fact that Brian was forced into a position where he had to kill the project probably didn't do him much good. As an abundantly insecure man, I think it made him seriously re-consider his own self-worth as an artist and this combined with his illness led him pull back from the things he once felt responsible for. Maybe if Wild Honey or Friends (which, from Brian's point of view, were probably compromises) had been as successful as Today! or Summer Days, then he might have been able to rebuild some of his confidence but unfortunately that wasn't in the cards. I think what ultimately would have saved Brian is recognizing that his idea of perfection was unattainable for anyone, and to put Smile out to what surely would have been enormous critical acclaim, though doing so before Sgt. Pepper rather than after it would have probably been key to this as well.

[Cam Mott]

I think his problem was with the music and the lyrics, and the drug and/or mental problems became his problems later.