The Smiley Smile Message Board

Such a beautiful song deserves to end properly after at least 2:30. Discuss.

Agreed. One of the best tracks on Friends, even at it's short length.

I totally agree.

It's perfect at 1:29.

I'm with the camp who think it's undercooked. What we have is absolutely beautiful, no doubt, but there's definitely something missing, which is frustrating given the rest of the song's quality. I'd love to see if the multitracks could flesh out the song a bit more in a vein similar to what Stephen Desper did with 'Til I Die.

Naw. Undercooked? The song does more in a minute and a half than several songs do in 7, 8, 9+, and any more would probably be dragging it out. What else is there to even add? "One by one, the stars are still there, the sky herp herp something qabout koala bears gimmie gimmie ass treatment"

I'm not saying the song has to be some 5 minute epic where the "one by one" verse has to appear eight times. I just think it's undercooked in the sense that it's just a stellar verse and a chorus repeated a couple of times with no bridge/proper outro.

I love and am completely satisfied with Had to Phone Ya even though it's short but it's because there's a few more twists and turns in the package. If Brian had just repeated the first verse after "just a dial away" and faded out there instead of going into the bridge and outro, I'd feel shortchanged in a way that I do here.

I'm a huge fan of Brian's willingness to keep things short. It's always better to live them wanting more than to leave them wanting less.  Also, that little moody instrumental section near the beginning of the song is essentially the bridge, just placed earlier in the song. The fadeout  makes for a nice little musical joke, too. As the stars disappear, the song disappears, too.

There's that errie musical part after the first verse that's not repeated again. I always thought they should have used it again later on in the song.