The Smiley Smile Message Board

I was listening to "Hawthorne, CA" the other day. Got up to that great unfinished song "Lonely Days" from the Wild Honey Sessions, and then the wheels started turning.

At first I just wanted to see if I could extract the vocal. Then it turned into.. well now that I have the vocal, maybe I can re-balance things a bit, and get a more "vintage" sound going. Since the version we have is sort of raw, just with a bunch of reverb.

Once I did that, I decided to try and edit together a full version of the song as it might've sounded in '67, using the same approach that I used with SMiLE AD 4.0. The goal was to keep it different enough throughout the loops to make it feel like you're listening to a fully produced song. Unfortunately we only have that 1st verse vocal (anyone know if any more exists?)

Anyways, enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JXvqUQcOic
http://www.mediafire.com/?cpbfgbytcbif3ec

I dug it! I might have left it at two verses though, as the lack of more lyrics makes it a bit repetitive. Great work.

Nice work! I wouldn't mind Bruce's line being worked into a new song, there's actually a lot of interesting things happening musically in this track that they could have worked on.

Thanks man. Yeah, not much we can do with one verse lyric. But if it had been made into a full song, I'd have to guess this would be the format. Maybe with a bridge in there.. or maybe not (i.e. Here Comes The Night)


Appreciated! Yeah, Bruce's part is pretty awesome. Those chord changes are killer. Very R&B. When I started messing with the harmonies on the last verse, I thought to myself.. man this could've been a beast. I could hear a nice soulful french horn part going over Bruce's line.

I had the same thought about the french horn part! Man that'd be unreal!

I love the Brian Wilson piano/bass sound that he uses on so many tracks from this era. How did he pull it off? It's one of things that comforts me most in this life when I hear a little breakdown in a Wilson song with that distinctive piano and bass thudding away.

Part of the trick with is to EQ the treble up on the bass, and articulate with a pick.

Very nice job... Always found the original a tad too unfinished for repeated listening... This goes a long way to solving that!

It has just such a guttural sound, and it's just so distinctive. Especially on something like Anna Lee The Healer.

Yeah, fantastic work! Did you add any instrumentation/additional vocals? You've brought out some sounds that I've never heard before.

Thanks. Yeah, I know what you mean.


I have an idea where we can sample that from a Beach Boys song.


White Album bass a year before the White Album! Native Instruments needs to come out with a 60's bass VST...


Thanks man. No additional instrumentation, although I did give it a bit of a remix. Isolating the vocals enabled me to isolate other things in the instrumental, so I had a bit of control of the organ / bass / piano. In the verse, I brought out the organ line. Which is pretty trippy.  :3d

I added harmonies in the last 2 verses, by taking the isolated vocals into melodyne and building new melody lines. The background "ooh's" and "ahh's" are revoiced and come from the Can't Wait Too Long acapella  (which in this case, actually matches the era)

Btw, here's an alternate mono mix which is leveled slightly different, and also has an alternate "vocal production" structure: http://www.mediafire.com/?08ypdw2v73f6y78

Thanks for the upload on YT for those of us that don't download as much. I was acutally thinking you'd prolly use parts of the instrumental track from Get the Boot.

I wouldn't mind this one and songs like "our love" being finished for the new album. I can't see any of them getting that sweet sound vocally today though (Carl's lead is great !)

Wow. This is awesome!
That bass sound is pretty much a Fender jazz bass palm muted.
Those j-basses have some chunky pickup sounds.
They sound great.

the mono mix would be better if it wasn't so compressed.

I don't normally listen to, or care about fan mixes but I must say that this is excellent, really gives you a feel for how the song may have turned out had it been finished.

Great work.  Amazing what you can do with tracks these days.

The added harmonies work great!

Instrumental can be found on Unsurpassed Masters Vol. 19 Disc 1 Track 9 where it is labeled "Cool Cool Water (Rehearsal)".

I had Lonely Days stuck in my head all day today at work thanks to this mix. Thanks a lot.

Awesome!

Thanks for all the cool comments. Glad you enjoyed it. It's fun to hear something we know, but in a new way.
Btw, I have a new Stereo SMiLE Mini-Mix I'll be sharing soon. There's a few spots in particular that I'm sure (almost) everyone will enjoy quite a bit.
Now that I got my 'real' work done for the week, I think I'll be finishing it up in the next few days.


Yeah man, sure is. Technology's come a long way in the 10 years that I've been using audio software. Even away from the extraction stuff, some of the plug ins available now are amazing. I have an album I'm working on which sounds like it was recorded in the 60's.. and it's almost entirely software-instrument based!


Dreams of chunky '67 bass tones?

Btw, doesn't that part kinda sound like the bass line in Do You Like Worms?

Same here... I have to give kudos to seltaeb1012002; this is a cool listen! I never thought much of this fragment before, but this really shows it had promise. Nice work.

Fantastic. Great job.

Great. great job! Nice!

Vocal harmony on the 2nd go of Bruce's part feels extremely un-Beach Boys, but otherwise I liked this, nice jerb.

Found this by wonderful accident, went to the link &... it still works! So I downloaded it - sounds crispy & very nice, albeit a tad long. Still good to be tricked into thinking Lonely Days was finished back then, very elegant tune. Thank you, seltaeb!

I really enjoyed this mix, for the first two versus, and then it was time to switch it off. Good attempt, but not enough vocals to work with.

:) Mark