The Smiley Smile Message Board

what, in your opinion, would be the most psychedelic song on SMiLE? I would probably say good vibrations, but I don't know...

To me it's all one big psychedelic song with themes.

To clarify "psychedelic", that means (to me) a variety of odd sounds and noises that somehow fit into a polyphony of music; the more the merrier so to speak. Things like the "boing, boing, boing, boing" in Cabinessence simply reek psychedelia.

If I were to pick one, it would probably be Barnyard just because of all the wild out there noises going on. When you hear it you say "psychedelic", and if you were in a chemically altered state - well it would be mind blowing. Love to say Dada would be a runner up - it's completely bizarre and shouldn't work, but it does.

God, I love this album.

if i had to pick one off of "SMiLE" i'd say Cabin Essence for sure. Like the guy above me said, when i first heard the boing boing boing part i thought it was completely psychadelic. the lyrics and music are obviously also very psychadelic. however if we were talking "Smiley Smile" i'd definitely say Vegetables. At the very beginning when there's the sound that sounds like blowing into a glass coke bottle then the water pouring plus the chomping. i swear the first time i heard it, that was the most psychadelic thing i'd heard up to that point. the chomping was especially memorable, and i think the water pouring actually rehydrated me temporarily. its a really really  weird song, but absolutely marvelous when you think about it. i mean who would ever think up using vegetable as a percussive element. Who but a genuis?

Well, whenever I have "imbibed" and played SMilE, it is always the ending of Cabinessence that causes the "flashing" to occur.

Do You Like Worms with the crazy hawaiian music part near the end of the song.

Both "Do You Like Worms?" and "Love To Say Dada" because of their weirdness and the "grand coolie" part from "Cabinessence" because of those hypnotic vocals.

I agree, the whole thing really is, well, pscyhedelic. but if i had to pick one
third verse of Wonderful when the background voices are not just dah dah dah dah dah descending, but also yo-day-lay-ee-who in the deep background over "the path was a mystery
Through the recess the chalk and numbers"

I find this whole song spooky and, well, wonderful. Such a tight and almost strained/restrained melody. And the lyrics are the oddest time frame of life and an interesting point of view, especially for the time, I think-- a young girl thanking god for this discovery through the chalk and recess...amazing.

Do You Like Worms is way out there . . .  :brian

gotta go with Cabin Essence. it's psychedelic Americana. it's like an early settler got hold of some peyote (or fun,fun,fungus...?  :) )

Child Is Father of the Man certainly qualifies and Heroes & Villains is quite a trip as well.

but really, the entire album is a psychedelic masterpiece. a teenage, middle-aged, all ages symphony to God!!!

I know it's not technically SMiLE, bu the "water chant" is pretty trippy. I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Fire/Mrs. O'Leary's Cow yet.

This would be my #1 choice as well. The "bicycle rider" theme really does it for me here. Brian did an amazing job letting that little melody pop up in more than one song on Smile, somehow that really adds a lot to the music's overall tripiness.

Fade To Vega-Tables.

When I hear the phrase "psychedelic music", I don't immediately think of Sgt Pepper, or Jefferson Airplane, or Cream or Hendrix. I think of the vocal chorus of CITFOTM.

When I hear the word psychedelic used to describe music, I think of phasing/flanging, vocals drenched in echo, and backwards sounds effects. To me, the majority of SMiLE is a symphonic masterpiece.

There are two different forms of psychedelic music. The kind that is commonly tagged with the term is an attempt to replicate the drug experience in sound and music. This type of music rarely has a great effect on the listener when actually "under the influence". The other type is music that actually has an intense effect on the "experienced" listener. This music generally involves usages of drones, acoustic instruments sonically altered, etc. This is why Indian music so appealed to "heads" in the 60's. Among the finest examples of this type of thing in the rock genre are The Velvet Underground & Nico, the Smile recordings and above all, the dry and unrelentingly textural Smiley Smile. The music, which can seem simple, odd or even dull to the untrained or "straight" ear, is actually completed in the head during the drug experience. Echo, reverb, chord and mood changes etc. that aren't actually there can be "felt" by the listener. It was fairly obvious to me the first time I heard Smile after smoking a bit that the music was created under that same state and built around the concept of space, chordal vibrations, etc. that resonate with that consciousness.
"Psychedelic" music itself is fairly corny, except for The 13th Floor Elevators.

^ This guy is a hero!  :smokin

funny i think of The Velvet Underground as kind of anti-psychedelic in many ways and i think they did too.

I certainly don't think Smiley is more psychedelic than SMiLE. more STONED, without a doubt.


there was some discussion before about "Sail Plane Song" being descirbed as acid rock in the Endless Harmony liners... most disagree with that description (although Brian's whistling sound effects at the end are pretty trippy!)

I think "Feel Flows" is probably their most blatant attempt at psychedelic or at least "acid rock"

Good Vibrations is absolutely psychedelic... one of the earliest examples and a number one hit at that. how many #1's can be described as psychedelic?

Feel Flows makes me think of hard drugs.

I think of Smiley Smile being the pot record and SMiLE the acid record

Good Vibrations has that classic 60's psychedelic sound but Cabinessence is a real trip!

It's surprising that nobody has mentioned "Fire" yet.  That is one bad trip, if I've ever heard one....

There's a quote from Brian, don't know the source, this is coming from memory: "Pet Sounds was marijuana. Smile was benzedrine."

Wind Chimes...In a gentle imagery context...

and

Fall Breaks and Back to Winter, which seems to contain the subtext/melody/chorus of Mrs. O'Leary's Cow/Fire  and whose harsh sirens which remind me of SDT.   ;)

Have you ever listened to either album on acid?

Taht's what I like about this board - the way posters offer to help each other out :lol

What was 'Stars & Stripes'- beer?

Root Beer!  ;)

Obviously "psychedelic" means something different to everybody.  The first thing I thought of was Fire.  That song freaks me out with it's dramatic structure that gives one a sense that things are violently out of control.  The heavy drum sound was way ahead of it's time like some kind of strange dark dance number....wow, that to me is a psychedelic tune!

Shots and beer! Even a toke or two when Willie Nelson sings The Warmth Of The Sun.

Albert Hofman synthesized LSD from ergot fungus In the late 1930's...it was used by a Dr. Timothy Leary, who espoused its use in a context of "psychedelic psychotherapy." The rest is history.  But the connotation is an expanded one...which reaches up to nearly 1970's and includes both art and music concepts, and earlier, which evolved from its' original pure meaning of using LSD as a means of artistic stimulus.  In many, it caused irreversible brain damage.

The concept of psychedelic is difficult to define, but as the Supreme Court says about "porn" - "We can't define it, but we know it when we see it." Pretty maladroit, but that is their non black-and-white interpretation.  I guess it means it can be a subjective standard.  

The same could, apply, I think to the psychedelic concept, as applied to art and/or music.  Earlier interpretations might rely on an "altered mental state" but that does not mean that sober people could not use their creative gifts to conjure some of the instrumentation and composition to create imagery in sound or on a canvas.

One can recognize it on album covers, pop art,  etc. almost as a "style" of art, and in music, the use of instrumentation which creates almost a visual imagery for the listener.  Wiki can give some broad parameters to get the idea of the concept.  The record stores used to give out "psychedelic/pop art" book covers...I think Capitol had one...

Well, I just meant that music that isn't in the "psychedelic" genre per se is frequently the most truly psychedelic, if one means the term in a "drug" sense. Again, it has to do with lots of drone and dry sounds, which the VU&N, Smile and Smiley music all has large quantities of.
Personally, I wouldn't recommend taking drugs to anyone.

I agree  8) Wicked stuff

No one would espouse taking drugs...it was a pretty irresponsible experiment, for doctors and scientists to foster this thing for "creative enhancement." And, it defies the Hippocratic Oath in my opinion.

But, that said, a whole genre, went mainstream for art, fashion and music.  A lot of the big corporations used the pop art/psychedelic style to market new customers, knowing they would be a huge market share.  Peter Max is a really famous signature artist from that era.  Interesting story on wiki.

You can tie in the white suits, which were very cool in the mid to late 1960's.  Any old films from that era clearly show, that was the look. No different from the mullets or spandex shorts from the 1980's. Or, those awful polyester leisure  suits from the 1970's disco era. They look dorky now.  It is all relative.

Worms is pretty trippy, especially the chorus backing vocals and the weird slide guitar on the Hawaiian section, and then the repeat of the BR theme at the end.  Fire is the most obviously psychedelic, the "bad trip" flip side of the "good trip" Good Vibrations.  Who Ran the Iron Horse also seems psychedelic to me, especially with the Dennis Truck Drivin Man vocals.  And Vegetables is definitely drug influenced, the "demo" and Smiley versions more than the Smile one, but it's more a marijuana song.  The LYRICS of many of the songs are stream of consciousness "acid alliteration" but in terms of the music Worms, Fire, GV and Iron Horse are what send my brain to Cartoonland.

SMiLE in its final form (as in BWPS) is pretty much a psychedelic experience throughout, especially in the way it is seamlessly structured in three long pieces that move through many different moods and musical textures. 

As far as one song, I would say that "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" is the most, could we say, "classsic psychedelia" piece in the song cycle.  It's like an aural hallucination.

It's tricky trying to describe what "psychedelic" is. Lawrence Welk can be psychedelic when you're high on acid.

And it's short-sighted to narrow it down to just "drones" and "sonically altered acoustic instruments." Jimi Hendrix rarely played acoustic or employed the use of droning, and his music is some of the most psychedelic ever created.

I've listened to the Beach Boys under the influence of various things and I've found that Smiley Smile is probably better enjoyed while stoned, like the band was when they made it. whereas much of SMiLE, and Cabin Essence in particular is like musical acid. The music itself transports you to that place, no drugs needed.

If I'm short-sighted, you're Stevie Wonder. Thanks for trying, though.

haha good one!

you're right. Psychedelic music is only drones and dry, sonically altered acoustic instruments. And the Velvet Underground.

thanks for setting us all straight... what was I thinking?!!

I can't believe some of the junk I'm reading here.  I would expect people with an interest in SMiLE era Beach Boys to at least be able to generally identify the different types of psychedelic music that were happening in the U.S. and England around the mid-to-late 60s, to understand the blues underpinnings of the San Francisco scene, the more jazz/pop/folk influenced L.A. sounds, and the music-hall-meets-mad-hatter-meets-medieval-meets-sci-fi mix happening in London with established bands like the Beatles and new (at the time) bands such as Pink Floyd. 

Instead, I'm reading groundless conjectures about "drones" and stuff.  Come on folks, get some decent info and do some decent listening.

well the obvious is good vibrations :)

Be more creative with your choices, SMiLE has way more creative "psychedelic" songs on it. :wall

I'm just pointing out the obvious but another psychedelic moment in smile is well surf's up :)

If I were liberal with emoticons, I would use this one after every post newguy makes.

That was actually my full intent when replying to his posts.

I don't know, for most of the songs on Smile, I think the childlike innocence of Brian is represented more than psychedelia.  But Good Vibrations is pretty much the definition of psychedelia.

f*** You Guys  :angry lol

Watch your language Sunny! :old

:whatever

we have rebel amongst us

"Cow" feels like an acid trip gone very, very bad. Paranoia, bad feeling. Kind of reminds me of R. Crumb's description of the party where everyone there seemed Satanic.

"Wonderful" sounds diametrically opposite...the good kind of trip...the ordinary world sparkles, and every moment is filled with wonder (although the "nonbeliever" leaves the girl after they consummate, which sounds like a buzz-kill to me).

I've never done acid...or much of anything else, for that matter...yet I keep running into people that tell me they always thought I was some big acid-head!