The Smiley Smile Message Board

Surf's Up? Cabinessence?

I haven't ever investigated it myself, but I have heard Solar System ranks among Brian's most complex songs.  :lol

First answer off the top off my head....Til I Die...though i reserve the right to change. The progression of the chords used is just stellar! No ordinary songwriter could have done what he did on this song.

As a whole, for me it's Surf's Up. It helps a lot that it's my favourite pop song of all.

This Whole World would qualify along with Surf's Up and Til I Die - all of them change keys every few measures.  This Whole World never resolves; Surf's Up does at the end of each section  (and, like Cabinessence, concludes with an unresolved chord on BWPS, a good move to set up the next movement). Til I Die only resolves at the repeated ride-out.  More recently there's Midnight's Another Day.  Granted this is a Brian trademark, insofar as Brian shoehorns "feels" and wildly different sections together and makes them fit.   Compare favorably with Dennis's POB songs: he too would skitter off in different directions as the muse took him, but his songs came to a definite ending, or came back to their beginning (like River Song).

'Til I Die is wonderful, yeah. On the version I've learnt how to play, the chords are so simple and he makes the same changes a few times, but if you didn't know you'd swear he was flying all over the place. No-one could do that. Also has the fantastic BW trademark of a half-step keychange, from the last chord of the verse to the first chord. I love that stuff!

Wonderful is close, or Child Is The Father Of The Man - these complex songs always bat down the insane stuff with rather simple bits, which of course makes them even more fun to play. Something like Look springs to mind - the verses are intricate things with diminished chords and odd bass voicings all over the shop and then the chorus is just I-V-I.

Solar System is pretty out there, you're right.

This Whole World goes all over the damn shop - I think it uses nearly every major/minor chord? And you wouldn't know it to listen....

I'll have to sit at a piano tonight and play this stuff again! I love playing BW.

A great topic.  The definition of "complex" is a key.  Deviation from I-IV-V-I is one thing.  Of course,
then there are when to do that, how to do that, and even when not to.  There lies the genius.  Brian
knows...and he maintains and processes his ur-sound.  And his ur-sound is worthy of a nation
and a century.

I think of poetry, where lots of amateurs figure they will be modern or post modern or post post
modern (whatever) simply by avoiding regular meter and rhyme.  Snore.

Then there is Wallace Stevens.

To me as far as notes, melodies and chords goes, it's Wonderful because the song constantly changes key.

Depends what you mean

The most complex chords and arrangements are on the Pet Sounds album

The most complex structures are on the  Friends, SMiLE ( only what was finished) and Smiley Smile albums.

As for complex melodies, they're all over the place, figuratively, literally and chronologically.

Personally I think structure is the most important aspect of music, as it is the container for everything, melody, harmony, counterpoint and rhythm. Also it works down on the level of these "lesser" aspects. Without structure, a melody is just random notes, rhythm just  unconnected noises.

Structure is king, even the atonalists had to have some form of structure.

So though the chords and arrangements on Pet Sounds are very complex, the song structures themselves are quite basic.  And while the structure of the songs on Friends are much more complex, (just listen to "When A Man Needs A Woman") the harmonic depth and the arrangements are (slightly) less adventurous than on PS.

Tough one, I think you'd need a doctorate in composition to answer this, and it would probably take a while.

Is Lee D. still around...

There was that nice video that Billy Hinsche created.  He spoke about that single deviation in California Girls...where
Brian did something surprising and great...in the chords.  I'm forgetting it now.  A defining moment?  So modest.

Don't Back Down has some pretty wacky key changes

I love that Good Vibrations starts in Eb minor, goes into Gb major and steps up to Bb major and lands into F major and finally ends in Ab major. How awesome is that?

to me that's a hard question because he (and Dennis) did ALOT of complex songs..I do like the part of "IJWMFTT" when the music historian is talking about "warmth of the sun"and he explains the complexity of it..I htought that was pretty cool,maybe soomeone should do a whole "documentary" dvd dissecting Brians music,,I would buy that..

When I first saw the chords to Surf's Up, I figured that was it.  Suspended and Diminished chords and all.........This Whole World too with the key change.  Warmth Of The Sun is anudder one.

so hard to choose. Most of Brian's tunes have a degree of complexity as he'd already figured out things like The Four Freshmen by the time he started writing.

it's a mistake to focus just on Pet Sounds and SMiLE when there's earlier stuff like Warmth of the Sun and Girls on the Beach, to Back of My Mind and Let Him Run Wild, and later things like Still I Dream of It and Midnight's Another Day.

there's also a lot to be said for writing a complex song that flows so well it doesn't really sound complex. Great pop records like California Girls and I Get Around are deceptively complex. again there's so many to choose from.

Brian also wrote in flat keys a LOT, which seems more complex to me for some reason. Maybe because I'm a guitar player.

some are definitely harder and more involved to play than others. most will keep you on your toes though  ;)

I choose 'God Only Knows', because there's something mingblowlingly beautiful happing in literally every single second of that song. Just try to keep that up for 171 seconds straight, that's gotta be pretty darn difficult. It sure hasn't been done by anyone else before or since.

Funky Pretty is quite complicated compositionally too, especially the multiple parts in the tag to fadeout.

Harmonically, my uninformed vote would be for "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times."  I say uninformed because I've never learned it myself, but I have learned, by ear, some pretty complex Beach Boys songs.  Having said that, I once had a gander at the chords, being played and scored, and they scared the crap out of me. 

just from listening, i say surf's up.  that melody is nuts

"I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" is a great call. Even the tracking session without the vocal is other-worldly, then the vocal has some incredible modulation, like when he sings "happen again", or in the opening line where he doesn't seem to take a breath (very tricky meter).

And the "sometimes I feel very sad" section that was separated out on the box set. Incredible.

Well said.  I've always considered that to be one of the many things that separates Brian from the pack  - he makes the complex sound simple and easy.  It never sounds forced - he isn't trying to be complex just for complexity's sake, which I think is something that a lot of artists try to do but often fail at.  It wasn't as if he was sitting down saying "okay, I've got to put 3 cool key changes in this song, then figure out how to weave a melody around them."  He just wrote from his heart, and luckily for us, the end result was songs like "Surf's Up," "Wonderful," etc.

The whole Pet sounds album is very complex. And many of the smile songs like surf's up and wonderful. This whole world is a bit over-rated when it comes to this I think. Just some basic key changes with regular chords. No complex harmonies or inversions, which pet sounds and smile are filled with.

"Surf's Up" - just listen to the First Movement music.  Amazing!

Chug-a-Lug

musically, lyrically and conceptually - for me it has to be Cabin Essence (or Cabinessence if your on 20/20)

I Just Wasn't Made For These Times is pretty out-there, a good shout.

Even his simple songs have insane arrangements going on - Something like Cool Cool Water, with all those interlocking harmonies, although the chord structure isn't so weird (still is a little)

How could I forget about The Girls On the Beach? Also mental but you really wouldn't know!


Man, I love his chords. Bacharach is the only dude who comes close, imo

Goin On is pretty damn complex! It just keeps going up and up in awesomeness with all sorts of killer twists n turns!

My number 2 all time fave Beach Boys song.

Since I doubt anyone else will nominate it... "Rio Grande". If not his most complex BBs composition, probably his most complex solo composition.

"This Whole World" almost sounds like it was written to see how much stuff you could cram into one song.

That surprises me, that you've never learned it!

And I think that's it, too.  IJWMFTT.

But really, and I don't expect anybody to pay attention to this, we have to define what complex means or the conversation is meaningless. 

Complexity goes beyond things like key changes.  And many of you are mistaking non-diatonic chord patterns as key changes, anyway.  For instance, Wonderful doesn't change keys.  That's not to say it's not good, exotic stuff, it most certainly is--but key changes alone don't make something complex.  Anybody can do one.  Play a C chord for 3 minutes straight and then play a C-sharp chord for 2.  You've changed keys, but nothing could be further from complex.

Complexity comes from the whole package.  Melody, Harmony, Rhythm, Counterpoint, arrangements, etc.  Complexity flows out of a command of all these things and more.  It springs not from genius but from craftsmanship.  A Bach or Handel fugue is complex--but it comes out of hard work.  Isolate the motive of a great fugue, and it's actually pretty simple, usually.  It has to be.  But then you start applying techniques to the motive, you add the responses, and slowly, a complex piece of music is erected, much like a work of carpentry.

So in my opinion, we can't look at isolated elements.  Who cares if there's a diminished chord or two?  Who cares if there's a key change?  Who cares if there's long sequence?  The song has to be looked at in toto.

So here's my analysis of IJWMFTT and why I think it's "the most complex."

1.  Melody:  The melody is pretty chromatic, but more importantly, if you think about it as a graph, it's pretty amazing how Brian manages to draw a series of ascending arcs leading to a very natural climax and denouement.  The melody is almost pure jazz, and could be fitted over all kinds of different chord changes, I think.

2.  Harmony:  As Adam says, the chords are very tricky and as I mentioned just above, they are not especially congenial to the melody.  The inversions of the chords shift from 3rd to 2nd to 1st, which makes it hard to tell the central tonality of the piece.

3.  Arrangement:  In my view, Brian's best, and heaviest arrangement.  The descending tympani, Basses, and Bass Harmonica pose as a strange synth bass patch.  The harpsichord and piano play that distinctive figure which I would love to have witnessed Brian teaching or collaborating with Mike and Don.

4.  Rhythm:  Not much way out there going on here, but the temple blocks are on a somewhat unexpected beat pattern.

Now, even after describing all that, I still feel unsatisfied that I adequately described everything, and I'm not sure that I can explain the synthesis of these parts that actually adds up to the complexity.  Perhaps some sort of Webisode is in order...

yeh, right on ...

anyone can make something simple seem complex, but it takes genius to make something complex seem simple (i.e., translate easily to others).

My votes:

1 - I Just Wasn't Made for These Times
2 - This Whole World
3 - In The Back of My Mind
4 - I Get Around

It's hard for me to separate composition from production and arrangement with Brian's songs because the overall sound shaping is a big part of the end result.

Josh, your post was too complex!  Let's keep it simple, eh?

Just so happens I was listening to the "I Get Around" instrumental track tonight.  For the life of me, I can't figure out how that instrumental track became the background for the melody and vocals recorded over it and how it fit so well. Not just the background parts, but especially Mike's lead and Brian's falsetto part. Just one self-contained tight package. How Brian heard all of that (and many other songs) in his head is really mind blowing to say the least.

Reminds me of when, at Brian's insistence, Carl played that fuzzy lead on Little Honda and said it sounded like crap and resisted playing it, but after he heard the playback, it sounded good. Or one other instance (I'm sure there were many) when a member of the Wrecking Crew said that something wouldn't work (chord change or whatever it was) and it ended up fitting into the song and sounded great and the guy was staggered by it.

I always thought it was interesting how the bass, not the percussion, drives the track in the verses. That's pretty jazzy too, no?

Maybe it's just me, but I think the fact that the main driving force shifts from bass to drums to temple blocks to back to drums is pretty neat.

Someone mentioned Midnight's Another Day as a modern example, my favorite modern one for complexity's sake is "What I Really Want for Christmas".  That song is crazy.  If you haven't listened to it with 'those' ears on, check it out.  He's all over the place.  He sings some of it with just his lead.   Some with a double tracked lead.  Some with full backing vocals.  Some acapella.  Some parts have just piano.  Some parts have the full treatment.... there doesn't really seem to be a pattern to it either, it's just brilliant. 


.... and of course it's just a christmas song, too, so it'll never get much respect but it's very, very well done production wise in my opinion. 

Not sure if that's from Dance Dance Dance, but that always blew my mind.  He changes the key right in the middle of the fucking verse in a rock song.  BALLS.  Brian Wilson has Balls.  He has this incredible way of somehow doing anything he wants in the studio, with no regard to what is supposed to work and what isn't.... but yet he still keeps it commercially viable.  I mean the world is full of musicians who are creative, but very few can be creative, AND keep it commercial.

Yeah, I had that epiphany with "Dance Dance Dance" just a week or so ago.  It starts with what sounds like it's going to be a totally stock riff, and then he immediately starts running weird permutations on it, and doesn't stop throughout the song.  Every time that riff appears he tweaks it another way, whether major to minor or jumping in key or whatever.  The song is hardly complex, but it's such an awesome snapshot of Brian's skill as it was seriously starting to go into overdrive - the playfulness and the cockiness of it is awesome.

This whole world is the opposite of that. It seems complex because it changes key all the time but it's a very simple song aside from that.

Lets go away for a while is pretty complex, and of course Surf's up  :) And also IJWMFTT! c

Ding Dang

Shortenin' Bread (I know, one Trad Arr (a.k.a. Public Domain) wrote it...)

Kevin Barnes, the king of chord/key changes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPnd3wEF2-w

and i can hear every change too.

though they've had some "SMiLE" esque moments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D02Dp6D0z1g

Right on!

Yes, but structurally it's very simple, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, instrumental break, fade.

I would say it's definitely the most complex thing on Pet Sounds though.

That's what pop music is--verses and choruses with the occasional middle-eight.  I could be wrong, but I can't think of a single through-composed Beach Boys song at the moment, can you?  When you leave behind structure, you're often not left with very much.  Great symphonies and sonatas follow tight structural rules that are predictable.  Even Wagner's operas, which are probably the longest single through composed works in existence, refer back to previous melodies, quote the leitmotivs, etc, etc.  Simple structure is almost necessary upon which to build complexity.

Speaking of Let's Go Away For Awhile...is anybody else like me...totally enamored of the no-strings track
from the Boxed Set?  It's got a fantastic less-is-more quality.  Then the question becomes:  Which is more
complex...with or without strings?

Mount Vernon and Fairway.

When I think of Beatles I don't think of verses and choruses, She loves you, Hey Jude etc.....When think of ABBA I think of verses and choruses, Dancing Queen, Waterloo etc......when I think Brian Wilson I don't really know, it's more like verse-> ending of verse ->verse.

I didn't necessarily mean through composed. I just mean the structures got more complex later. I mentioned "When A Man Needs A Woman" earlier. Whilst I don't think it is his most complex composition, it is a good example of how his song-writing  had progressed since Pet Sounds. You have verse / chorus, then an unrelated instrumental section, then another chorus then a very inventive bridge into another unrelated section, then into a second verse which takes the original verse then develops it. Then into the last chorus and coda.

It is so subtle you don't even notice how complex it is. Such an inventive structure and so natural, many composers would struggle to get something so concise yet varied into such a short space. And thinking about it, apart from the choruses, it is pretty much through composed

To me, structure is the most important part of music, as I detailed in the earlier thread and wouldn't want to repeat myself. Suffice to say, structure is what sorts out the masters from the apprentices, and by Friends, this guy had mastered his craft.

I totally agree  that IJWMFTT is a wonderfully complex composition though. When I first heard the backing track I was blown away, and struggled to sing the melody over the top of it. Everything working to serve that melody, yet each line with it's own logic and identity. Use of counterpoint is also the sign of a master.

Good topic guys.

Happy Days.

 :hat

The different structures of BW's compositions through the years are fascinating.

There are some chorus - bridge - chorus tunes earlier. This was the format used by the Beatles a lot, and is a common pre-rock structure. Surfer Girl, for example. Verse-chorus-verse was there pretty much from the beginning too.

Eventually, in the 80s and 90s, he began (and continues) to write some very elaborate songs using this structure:

verse - prechorus - chorus - verse - prechorus - chorus - bridge - chorus - tag

You see it in Your Imagination, Baby Let Your Hair Grow Long, Walking the Line, Midnight's Another Day (the bridge is an instrumental break).

This has kind of become his default outline in recent years.

I was going to post "Rio Grande" as soon as I noticed this thread. So +1 from me!

Superbly well informed, H.

+1.

Frankly, if nothing else blew the listener's head away, the very first chord (technically I over a II bass) is so bastard inexplicable as to be easily fielding genius. And enormously hard to pull off convincingly, which BW does with disgraceful aplomb. I could go on.

Would Make It Good count as a through -composed song? It isn't a BW song, but still...

Don't Talk (Put your head on my shoulder) is quite complex the way I see it. Both in terms of chords (the chords themselves/bass notes and the progression) and the melody.