The Smiley Smile Message Board

Hi all,

do you know what the background of this demo is, when and where it was recorded? It features alternate lyrics, only piano and vocals, and it's hard to determine for me if it is sung by Brian...is it?

This is the only version I have found on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR7BWKw6bz4

Definitely Brian ! The voice sounds like the time around the first soloalbum. I'd guess '89.
It's very beautiful and I also wondered what's the story behind it.

try asking the ol' masterbaiter....

Thanks for bringing this to my attention.  Nice to hear a version without awful production and bloated instrumentation.

I believe the demo dates from 1986.  The song was around as early as 1985, when it was mentioned by Timothy White in Musician magazine's cover story on Brian.

Debbie Keil posted here awhile back that "The Angel Song," something he wrote for her, was around circa '79-'82, and it was the nucleus for what became this song.

Yeah, I fixed the speed (as the demo version making the rounds was sped up) and eliminated the piano on one side, vocals on another. Love Brian's vocals from this era as well...sounds like he sang better on demos than on released recordings for some reason...

Do you think the speed as in the youtube link is correct? I have also made my own fixed version from the Come back Brian bootleg purely by ear and slowed it down one semitone until it sounded correct. Mine is about 1% slower / deeper in pitch than on the youtube link.

PS: One semitone is also what I applied to the Wilson Paley recordings (compared to the Soul Searchin' bootleg which is a sonic upgrade of Landylocked but with the same wrong speed) and they sound very good to me.

I once heard the actual version and was going off of that. I once possessed a photographic memory; even after my stroke earlier this year, when it comes to music at least I haven't lost anything. Brian's voice really was that high and reedy unadulterated back then. Plus, I think 'Modern Brian' (i.e. 1983 and later) sings much better when it's 'off-the-cuff' as opposed to when there's a microphone in front of him in an actual professional recording situation.

Did not know that. That's pretty cool. I notice that Brian wrote great lyrics when writing about her...

100% agreed. I wish Brian would do an album where it's  just him and a piano, no backup vocals or other instrumentation.

His rough, original vocal on "I'm So Lonely" (as heard in that TV show, Ear Say, or whatever it was called) blows away the officially released version.

I can imagine. It seems like latter day Brian sings differently once the recording starts (or live)...when he's loose, he actually sings with more passion.

Which is somewhat ironic, considering the fact that when he sang that early I'm So Lonely lyric, he was being filmed. lol  ;D