The Smiley Smile Message Board

After Brian's original sprawling vision for 'SMiLE' collapsed, I've often wondered why he didn't simply pick out the best completed pieces and put that out as 'SMiLE'. In other words - why go and re-record a bunch of stripped down versions and make 'Smiley Smile'? We know he had 'Good Vibrations', 'Heroes & Villains', 'Wonderful', 'Wind Chimes', 'Surf's Up', 'Vegetables', 'My Prayer', 'Cabinessence', 'Roll Plymouth Rock', and 'You're Welcome' in the can. Why not just release those songs? Cue them up in any running order. And in time to compete with 'Sgt. Peppers'. They were done and they were brilliant! That's a far superior package to 'Smiley Smile' in my humble opinion.

(http://coolalbumreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Beach-Boys-Smile.jpg)

Because he worked very hard on the smile recordings to be released a certain way. I think releasing those recording in an abbreviated and non-representative fashion was repugnant to him.

I understand. But to have a masterpiece like 'Surf's Up' completed and in the can and then just to leave it unreleased.....wow.

Well, sure, but It wasn't completed and in the can. There was the first movement backing track recorded (no vocals), and the piano demo.

Concocting the melted-down, intense and strange Smiley Smile was a much more artistic decision than putting out an unfinished symphony would have been.

Edit:  What egohangar said....

Because I think there was pressure to put out an album and he couldn't do Smile justice in the time frame he had and the model used Smiley Smile allowed him to put something out quickly. Since no actual music was used from the Smile-era except for a bit of Vega-tables and Good Vibrations, he left it open enough so that he could return to it. But that never happened until much, much later.

An area of interest to me is the role of Carl, Dennis and Stephen in resurrecting the SMilE tapes in 1969 for 20/20 and then again for Sunflower and Surf's Up albums.

Especially Carl, we can't thank him enough.

Has this come up as a topic before because I'd like to know more of the lengths that he went to to get this stuff released. Can the resident expert, Stephen, shed any light?
(Meant to post in the other thread but the Cool Cool Water video and the song extracts are spectacular thanks to Stephen and Will C. and The BB's, of course).

It wasn't until the release of the boxset last year that we found out that Carl only sang the lead in "Cabin Essense" in 1969, right? Everyone assumed they had been done in 66 or 67.

I'm only speculating but was this one of the reasons that Van Dyke didn't contribute to the project last year, maybe he believed that The Beach Boys had done more vocal work back in the day, maybe they had, but for whatever reason these tapes were erased, lost, whatever. Obviously the attitude of Mike to singing these lyrics was a factor as well.

This seems most likely to me. He left his options open to release the material further on down the line. I think the Wild Honey Surf's Up demo supports this theory. I wonder if he'd given up on Smile by the time 20/20 was released though.

We knew this long before the box.

Originals wrote:

"We know he had 'Good Vibrations', 'Heroes & Villains', 'Wonderful', 'Wind Chimes', 'Surf's Up', 'Vegetables', 'My Prayer', 'Cabinessence', 'Roll Plymouth Rock', and 'You're Welcome' in the can"...

Weeeeelllll... not really. He had a bunch of unmixed sections in the can that might have gone to make up those songs, if he put a lot more mixing and editing work in. Many of those were just sections of multitrack tape with overdubs in Summer 1967. The only finished one was GV.

Don't forget, Mark Linett had to do a LOT of work to the SMiLE tapes to get even the sparse versions featured on the 1993 GV box set done and out. And that was with the benefit of 90s tech. Doing the more advanced versions for the SMiLE box needed a lot MORE work, and that with 21st century tech.

In 1967 Brian didn't have the advantages of ANY of that... AND he was totally burnt out on working in that modular fashion, mixing and splicing and overdubbing and all that. Which has got to be one of the reasons he didn't finish that stuff off, but just recorded Smiley in a much simpler way, and went down that road.

That's how I see it, anyway.

Many would disagree with me, and that's okay - - but I've never been a fan of 'Smiley Smile'. I can't understand why a great song like 'He Gives Speeches' could become the bizarre and silly throwaway 'She's Going Bald', for example. Or how the original 'Windchimes' could be transformed into the inferior version on 'Smiley Smile' and released instead. I don't mean to offend anyone who loves the album - - these are all just preferences. But I still think the music world would have taken alot more notice had the Beach Boys released what had been finished of 'SMiLE' at the time rather than put out 'Smiley Smile'.

Great points.

Hmm...interesting. He Gives Speeches sounds much more like the throwaway track to me, reinforced by the fact that it was thrown away so many times. It never seemed like it was ever considered a serious contender for the Smile album except maybe a brief period around the time it was recorded. As it stands, it seems like a fragment though what it could be connected to, I haven't the slightest clue and its recording date makes it even more cryptic in this regard. She's Going Bald is bizarre, but it is also a much more interesting track in my opinion and who knows maybe the full SS track gives some indication of the fuller structure of He Gives Speeches.


Maybe so. But I think Smile was also a deeply personal project for Brian and I think he wanted it to be as perfect as it could possibly be and this is why it would have been one of the worst things imaginable for him to put out a rushed release made up of the songs that he recorded during that period.

I appreciate everyone's responses and see that my initial thesis was flawed; the album wasn't as complete as I thought it was at the time.
That's why I love this board!

What's interesting about He Gives Speeches is that Van Dyke Parks doesn't claim the lyrics as his. Is he credited with writing it in TSS?

I don't have the box in front of me but yes that is strange. Also, I think he's wrong. People have suggested on here that it is Brian writing a Parks-like lyric but that doesn't make much sense to me. Why would he do that? Especially when he is, you know, working frequently with Van Dyke Parks at this time, probably seeing him almost daily. Then there is that pesky issue with Parks being credited on Bald. Seems to me to be the overwhelming proof that he had something to do with the song. Wind Chimes on the other hand - I think the original credit on that was correct. Just Brian. Doesn't sound like Parks to me, at all.

I would say that Brian didn't want to release Smile without being able to tell the story.  You also have to remember that as schizoid as Brian's personality may have been at the time (it's a humour album, but wait, it's about America and the pioneers, but we also want to make sure we talk about being healthy), he tended to come up with a concept before going into the project.  He's a completist in that way.  You can't tell the proper story if you don't have all of the pieces.

IIRC Brian is credited as writing the words to He Gives Speeches.

I always imagine the song being about Murry.

The Don sees Smiley Smile as a unique artistic endeavour all on its own, just like Love You. Preferably not to be judged with other material in mind.

Maybe that's my problem - I've been tempted to compare the two.

I always thought he just gave up and Smiley smile was a Passive agressive thing  by him,,

Talk about bizarre.

Yeah, it can be viewed as his "fine, here's your album" to Capitol, that's an easy one, but I wouldn't say it's the definitive answer. On top of all the existing information, they must have been pressuring him like crazy. The blame can't be placed on Capitol really - they were just doing what any label does - there should be product as scheduled to satisfy markets and make green. They were being held at the (love and) mercy of Brian - imagine the suits sweating in the tower. I don't know if Brian ever thought of them, I suspect he did but his attempts at completing the album were still stunted by too much of everything. Too many fragments, different sections, and also complicated by the prehistoric way of editing done in '67. And there there was the fact that Brian was always coming up with new ideas (pipe dreams, some of them), and focusing on too many ideas at once, leaving many incomplete thoughts to just sit. He probably realised all of this, and the "screw it, let's do it this way (Smiley Smile)" was probably more of an idea to take the pressure off himself rather than the Capitol execs.

And, still, this has to be brought up every so often, the session tapes of Smiley Smile show Brian to be totally in control and aware of what he wants. It's the same producer of Pet Sounds and SMiLE, but just leading his team in a different direction.

Yeah, I mean there were other pressures too - like the pressure to be relevant at a time when there were so many new things being done. It's hard to appear relevant when you're not actually releasing anything. Also, the time was really ticking to capitalize on the overwhelming success of Good Vibrations. In fact, by the time Smiley Smile came out, that time had surely passed anyway. But that huge success was a major opportunity for Brian to increase and maybe change his audience somewhat but in order for that to happen, he would have had to put out something. In some ways, I think the success of Good Vibrations did a real number on him and helped create even larger hurdles for Brian to jump over with Smile.

Because a bunt if usually preferable to a fly out.

A fly out can be impressive, but is ultimately a failure.  A bunt is far less ambitious, but if executed right, is a success.

Interesting. I seem to remember Marilyn intimating something along those lines once.....

I may be alone on this, but personally I think The Smiley version of Wind Chimes is so much more incredible than the Smile version.    i love Smiley Smile.   

nah you're not alone! Personally I think SS showcases Brian abilites even more than Smile given that he could twist some of those gorgeous songs and remake them in a completely different but equally endearing way. Not many (is there anyone else?) can achieve something as anti-ambitious as that ^^

Agreed - the Smiley version has an absolutely great chord sequence. So eerie. And that vocal bit just before the fade is sublime.

I think the opposite on both of those.

...and I like both versions! For the songs where the SMiLE tracks have a direct 'mirror' on Smiley Smile, like Wind Chimes & Wonderful, I think that both attempts are absolutely magisterial. They're clearly the same song in each case, but each executed with a completely different feel, and each has fabulously interesting aspects that the other version doesn't.

Ah, I could write a bloody *essay* on the Smiley Smile Wind Chimes. There is so much to that track - weird chords, creepy feel, fascinating production tricks, a vocal performance by the group that is nothing short of electrifying... It's just so deep.

Sadly, with a terminally sick father and a bouncing nine-month year-old baby, I just can't spend the time. One day... one day soon...

There's a holistic factor to this that might be a little abstract to get one's head around, but let me try:

These days, if you put a bunch of music in a sound file, you can physically SEE it.  You have an instant grasp of the big picture.  Darian was able to load all of SMILE into a ProTools file and mess around with it.

Back in the analog days, things existed on tape.  To find out what was on it, you either had to have detailed notes, acetates of what was on it, or go back and listen.  Usually some combination of same.

So there's a factor that, yes, Brian had a ton of stuff recorded, and some of it could have been completed with a little more elbow grease.  But I think he had just piled up so much tape that there was no really good way to assess what he had....it was this amorphous blob of ideas.  Just that step of getting the tape together, figuring out what was on it, editing and splicing by trial and error...forget actually doing it.  Just contemplating that in a burnt out frame of mind would simply suck.

I can totally see why the simplicity of just sitting the band down and banging out semi-live versions in a couple of weeks seemed a much more attractive prospect.  It probably would have taken at least that long just to catalog what he already had and think through what might be done with it....without having an advanced an inch in terms of finishing.

Fucking-A right!

I don't think too much material was ever a problem because he wasn't considering it all as in play at any given time. He knew when he got to the studio what was what and for where. He kept very good records of what was what and where it went and what new bits were replacing what and where.

And, I think that's exactly what happened. However....

I can't help but think, at that precise moment, when Brian decided to do that - Smiley Smile-ize the tracks if you will - is when Brian took his first step backwards, artistically speaking. Yes, some people see great art in Smiley Smile, and I respect those opinions. I don't agree, though.

I'm not criticizing Brian, blasting him, or second-guessing him. I just think at that moment in time, he gave up in a lot of ways - physically, mentally, and spiritually. And, he was never really the same again. Or, I should say his music was never the same again. One can't deny the occasional flashes of brilliance in subsequent efforts, and, yes, there were some. But, in my opinion, just one man's opinion, there just seemed to be gradual decline.

I don't want to oversimplify it, but if you used a graph to track Brian's "performance", I would probably peak it at SMiLE and start a gradual decline the moment he decided on Smiley Smile.

It has been said before but I will state it again. The impact of the actual "Industry", the churn and burn. Why even bother if no one "get's" it?
Like an actor that is remembered for that one lead role, Brian no matter how hard he tried could not shake what he was now part of.. The Industry! Did he want to play the game? He was building to something that even he could understand fully.. Brian was at the absolute cutting edge and that was hard work, why bother anymore when you have made Good Vibrations? Heroes could in my opinion NEVER live up to GV's no matter how long or with cantina without cornacopia etc. Surely he knew that the cycle was coming to an end perhaps. He needed a break, his family needed him?

In one of the BB biographies (I'm sorry I don't remember which one), I believe it was David Anderle who said something that would disagree with your perspective. He stated that Brian and the group didn't view "Good Vibrations" as a peak or something that couldn't be topped, but a starting point or a springboard to even greater things. I'm paraphrasing of course. Maybe somebody is more familiar with the quote.

Yes I remember something similar,but that is what they were saying publicly! And we can only go on what we have read or heard, I guess. The Industry was a buzz the publicity machine was in overdrive, the vibe was there, which only made the decline even more spectacular.

Plenty of people were getting it - the Wrecking Crew, Van Dyke, Leonard Bernstein. The success of Good Vibrations alone suggested that Brian's weird experiments could have enormous commercial success.

1. Because all of the tracks you mentioned were far from 'complete'.

2. Because he didn't feel that any of the individual recordings 'worked' right (and in a sense, he was right).

3. Because he didn't know up from down with SMiLE, it became a big downer, and he was no longer inspired by it -- he lost the vision for it; he lost the moment.

4. Because it was scary stuff and he wanted to cool out.

5. Because Smiley 'works' better than Smile work have -- it makes sense as a cohesive piece. Brian knew what he was doing in '67, and he understood that SMiLE could not happen.

It's very simple, Brian didn't want to do Smile by the late spring of 1967 and went on to do other things through the rest of the year. He was very active the whole of 1967.

I respect you a lot. But I don't believe that.

believe it ... for whatever reason, he wasn't feeling it anymore.

Yes, I've heard the argument and seen the proof. I don't believe it.

I think we look at these as positives retrospectively. Good Vibes success aside, Van Dyke bailed on the project and when did the Bernstein thing actually air? Was Bernsteins opinion of one song or direction relevant to the "industry" and the bands/Capitol's direction.What did the Wrecking Crew think at the time? They were recording pieces or fragments, it was only after voices were added to songs that they actually got what Brian was doing, I think Hal said something similar to that.

He was down on himself R&R. I don't think there's anything else to it. Brian has some serious self esteem issues, he'd rather put out something that he knew would fail than something that would likely fail. I think that's why he was always working on stuff like Good Time and HELP. Desper has commented in the past that Brian would record and then erase songs for himself. He had very personal, serious music written, but he wasn't willing to take a chance and see it rejected.

That's the reason for Smiley Smile. He didn't want to put his all into the project if there was even a kernel of doubt as to whether it would succeed. Smiley was a cop out, he wanted Smile to succeed but thought there was a chance that it wouldn't. He knew Smiley would fail and didn't care if it did. Given those two options, Smiley was just the one that Brian felt himself capable of taking.

Not because he didn't get it.


What difference does it make?


I don't know what this part of your discussion means, to be honest. I was simply responding to you point that no one got it.


If you listen to the box set, as I'm sure you have, you can tell that the session musicians "got it" just fine - hell, they even chipped in ideas.

Maybe this comes down to a question of wording then. I can sort of see what you're saying but that doesn't suggest to me that he didn't want to do it - simply there were competing interests: he wanted to do Smile, and he didn't want it to fail. The latter won out, and he didn't make the album.

Ultimately though, I think there were lots of things going on. He lost confidence in the album by the end of 1966, he felt overwhelmed by the success of Vibes, he needed to put an album out soon, he wanted to make something approaching perfection but never quite got there to his liking so he kept recording until it got like that last second of Tetris before you die and you scramble to fit a piece somewhere even though you are all filled up to the top. Seems to me all these factors make more sense then simply saying he didn't want to do it anymore. I mean maybe you could say that all these factors led to him not wanting to do it anymore...

Honest! Really it's not so complicated. It was an album he really wanted to do in 1966, but through 1967 it slowly became a chore and he eventually wanted to do other things. Nobody knew at the time that their domestic popularity would take a dive, that Brian's issues and drug problems would get so much worse, nor that Smile would become some sort of milestone hanging over them. Listening to Brian, Mike, and Bruce get interviewed in early 1968 by J. Marks they all felt good about the group and Brian went out of his way to say how much he enjoyed making Smiley. Why? As Brian put they had a good time making it without any of the previous pressure. The could apply to Wild Honey, Friends, Sunflower, or even TWGMTR. The best stuff Brian and the group have done together since 1966 is the stuff where there wasn't so much demand on them to be competitive with their peers. When they were trying to hard after to be commercial after 1966 we got things like 15 Big Ones, or L.A. Light where Brian just dropped out of it completely.

Watch the scene where he is talking with Melinda in IJWMFTT about how he got tired of trying to beat people and just wanted to make some "nice" music. That sums up his basic goal ever since, but especially what he was thinking during the late sixties and early seventies before insecurity began to plague his work. The biggest thing that Desper told me was different in Brian from when they worked together from 1967-71 and then again from 1979-80, is that during his first tenure Brian was much more confident in the studio, and as a singer, in his twenties than he was later. That didn't change with Smile, only his competitive streak was altered initially. Mentally his issues started years before Smile, and he was fairly functional most of the time until Murry died, or at least until cocaine became an issue during the So Tough sessions.

I don't really disagree with any of that. I take their word in 1968 that they, including Brian were happy with the direction they took. But I don't think that Brian's decision in the spring of 1967 was necessarily a happy one or one that was done out of pure desire. Even throughout 1967, Brian does work on some pieces that harken back to the more experimental far-out Smile era (Been Too Long, Water Chant, Cool Cool Water) and he doesn't release that stuff either. I think he was still hanging on to the idea of Smile. He could have easily put something like Our Prayer on Smile but he didn't and I think it's because it was still in play for him.

Publish your damn book!  >:(

It wasn't happy for any of them to have to make a tough decision like that I agree. Yet it didn't bring things to a halt like the myth says it did. Good point. Brian didn't give up modular recording, but perhaps it was as simple as feeling that those type of things didn't fit albums like Friends or Wild Honey. Certainly "Can't Wait Too Long" has the influence of Smile to it, but it also has some of the more funky soul oriented elements Brian was doing by the end of 1967. Brian told me that Stevie Wonder was a big influence on his music by that time actually. One of the things I also learned with my work is that Brian didn't at all mind using the stuff from Smile on 20/20 (in fact he helped finish it) so it's not that he didn't think he should hide experimental stuff away or was being forced to do so etc. Had the Beach Boys been as big here as they were in the U.K. in the late sixties, I'm almost certain that a lot of the legends around Smile would have never been created and the period would be seen with more clarity.

I am submitting it next week!

Agreed! Thanks again for your writing.  :)

No problem at all!

Haven't always been in total agreement with you SJS, but I believe that I am here.  I think this is spot on.

I am really looking forward to your book. I also recall an interview segment in the Endless Summer tv series that the guys did in 1989 where Brian is talking about how how competetive the early BB's songs were, and he says 'lately I've had a bit of a headache about competition" then he quotes Landy as saying "but everything is competition". Brian goes on to say that 'lately I've been laying back a bit, being a bit cooler about things". And I think that does sum up his attitude post-Smile...no competing with the Beatles or Spector or whoever, just making some nice music to cool out by.

Thank you. Yeah I remember the segement and I think that's how Brian makes music best since Smile.

Yes, first, "Relevance" during that era was critical, with the USA at war, and the Band directly feeling that impact.  Absolutely.  The new buzz word before political correctness or it was the forerunner/precursor concept of same.

Second, a song named "Winchester Cathedral" was the song of the year.  1966! Go figure that one out. Not Good Vibrations.

Third, SMiLE was likely more a "box set" before it was ever conceptualized in terms of marketing.  Could it have been even a double album, with the time limits?  Would an hour have been enough?  Would the record company allow it? Sure, it is boiled down to the sessions, now, but how could it have been released in that era, as it was ahead of its' time on so many levels.

Someone asked about Bernstein and the solo of Brian doing Surfs Up.  April, 1967.  About six months post GV and six months pre Smiley.  

YES!!!! This, more than anything save Made In California is the BB-related product I am anticipating most eagerly!

Separate topic: there are a lot of good points being made in this thread, but there are a number of times where it reads to me like people view Smiley Smile as a radical departue from the modular approach, and just a simplistic tossed-off "live" run through of the songs. But most all the the Smiley tracks were also recorded in modular fashion. Maybe I'm being pedantic, but people seem to forget this all the time. A substantial handful of the Wild Honey tracks were recorded that way too.

Weeeeellll... I agree, and I disagree. It depends whether you consider 'modular' to mean simply 'composed of short sections, or modules, edited together' or whether you think it means songs 'kit-built' from just a couple of modular components repeated and edited together, mixed differently each time. Smiley Smile has some of the latter, and some of the former, but of the tracks with the latter structure, most of them are SMiLE-era recordings. Of the newly recorded tracks, many of them are made from short sections edited together, but the pieces often aren't repeated. I tend to think of modular recording as a method by which you record say, four pieces: an intro (A), a verse (B), a chorus (C) maybe a bridge (D) and perhaps an outro  (E), then you put different overdubs on each section, do a few different mixes of each section, and then cut them together in an order ABCBCDBCE, or just ABCDE and you're done. You get some tracks on Smiley Smile like this (but they're certainly not all like this), and there are more on Wild Honey (Darlin', A Thing Or Two, Here Comes The Night, maybe How She Boogalooed It).

The SMiLE leftovers on Smiley are indeed composed of modular, complex sections. The re-records for Smiley are sometimes pieces edited together, but there's a lot more longer live or near-live sections amongst those pieces, they don't always repeat and the arrangements on most of them are far simpler than on the SMiLE sections. You can tell from the recording dates that cutting them didn't take long, and they were finished up, edited together and overdubbed pretty quickly to completion. So work did proceed much faster than on SMiLE. And you could argue that cutting some of the tracks in basic sections and editing them together made things even faster - there was no need to work at getting complete through-played takes of a three-minute song done coherently, they just had to bash out a 40-second verse section and a 25-second chorus, maybe a bridge and a different intro, copy the repeat sections a couple of times and edit them together, and the song was done. Repeat that over a couple of weeks and you have Smiley Smile pretty fast. And indeed, they did!

Going track by track:

H&V, obviously, was recorded modularly, as the Smiley version used some of the basic pieces from the SMiLE sessions.

Vegetables was recorded in pieces, but again, most of the later sections are parts which had already been recorded at SMiLE sessions, and the main first part of the track, which supplies much of the body of the Smiley version, was cut live.

Fall Breaks - I'm not sure about this one, if it's one long through-performed piece or repeated sections edited together. Anyone know?

She's Going Bald — I'll give you that it's in pieces edited together, but the parts are all quite simple with just basic instrumentation (mostly piano and bass on the latter sections) and a couple of vocal overdubs. And as in Vegetables, the main body of the song is one longer section played through in a live or near live way.

Little Pad — Granted, this is pretty damn modular. It's a couple of pieces with basic, stripped-down instrumentation and vocals, mixed differently a couple of times and then edited together, with a comedy live section edited on the front. But aren't the results great? No-one else hums quite like that...!

Good Vibrations — Again, granted, there is none more modular track in the Beach Boys recording history. But then, this wasn't recorded for Smiley Smile, of course.

With Me Tonight — This, structurally, is like Little Pad, pretty modular: a couple of sections mixed differently and spliced, with an acapella intro attached on the front (wasn't that first section a SMiLE-era recording, or was that disproved? I can't remember). Again, that's not to denigrate the track, which is beautifully played and sung, and must have taken quite some effort.

Wind Chimes — This is structurally very like Vegetables, with a long through performed section at the start supplying most of the song, and then a few very short spliced sections on the end to complete it. The parts don't repeat. The first part shows the essence of pragmatism, that new 'awww, just get it done and out' mentality of Brian's, moving, as David Anderle and Paul Williams said a few months afterwards, 'like a tank through wheat' on to the next thing. As we hear on the Sea Of Tunes bootleg, the Boys overdub vocals mostly live, but completely mess up the harmonies before the bridge. Rather than painstakingly re-record as he might have done on Pet Sounds or SMiLE, Brian just mixes them out on that part, ups the organ, and overdubs some spacey delayed dischordant harmonica to plaster over that section, then cuts to something else.

Wonderful — this is very *un*modular; although the finished mix sounds like the 'Hey Baba Ruba...' bridge was spliced in, SOT 18 showed that it was actually just a through-performed piano performance by Brian that was then overdubbed with vocals, organ, glockenspiel and harmonica to finish it off. And the end part of the track is very minimal, with really just the piano and the voices.

Whistle In — well, it's in two edited pieces, the intro and the rest, but nothing repeats and it can't have taken very long to record. Another one exemplifying a 'get it finished and out' mentality.

Exactly. And so, the legend of Brian Wilson and SMiLE was born.

I always assumed this was a pretty widely held point of view  ???

I also seem to remember Brian saying in an interview at the Hollywood Bowl that he used to always try and one-up himself but became scared of what would happen if he kept doing that.  Seems like Smiley Smile is right around the time he made that decision.

Thank you for that. I tried to convey how much buzz is on here about the book and I hope that will make the difference.

On this board, there are those (several?) who would push the point of decline past Wild Honey and Friends, maybe even past Sunflower. And, hey, if that's what they believe, no problem. I usually look at Smiley Smile. 

I'd date the beginning of Brian's decline as a cultural force and relevant pop producer right at the beginning of Smiley Smile sessions. But as a musician? No way! In my opinion, he just kept getting better after that. He started his decline sometime after Sunflower. Maybe after recording 'Til I Die, even.

Ok, then....next question....

Since it's been established that the SMiLE tracks were not in any form to use for Smiley, why were Wind Chimes, Wonderful, and Veggies regurgitated recycled into what they became on Smiley?  Wouldn't it have made more sense to record all new songs (except for GV and H&V, of course)?  That way, if the implication is correct that SMiLE was still being considered for possible release even after Smiley, there would have been no duplicate versions of songs.

You can't tell me that the Boys couldn't come up with three additional tunes at the drop of a hat.

Like Help Me Rhonda and Be True to Your School?

Nice one.

That's one song on one album each.  Not three (four if you count Heroes and Villains).

Nevertheless, there's precedence of Brian releasing different versions of songs and these were more desperate times. Brian had already composed some new tracks for Smiley (Fall Breaks, Little Pad, Gettin' Hungry) but time was tight, a product needed to be released, and Brian simply wasn't fit to write a whole new album's worth of material in that time. And so he cut his losses, came up with a radical new angle for the material he had, and went with it, and managed to use virtually none of the material produced during the Smile sessions - and what little material he did use was from a very liminal period.

Do we know what the boys said about the radical shift in style? Mike was against Smile, they say, but he had no problem with Smiley? Whoa.

I'd presume the more commercially minded members of the band would have called a time out when Brian presented them with Smiley Smile -type of music. Maybe even pushed for the completion of Smile instead, on the double?

I just can't understand it. They had a problem with Smile but no problem with Smiley Smile? Either the guys were more avant garde than given credit, or they just gave up and were desperate for anything. I dunno. But they had almost complete masterpiece ready, and that would have been a good time to support Brian and his Smile. Better late than never?

But no. "Hey, good thing you scrapped that ego music, now let's hum along creepy Baldwin backings." I just don't follow these guys.

to me, Today through Sunflower is flawless ... and plenty of gems before and after. the group's entire career is by far the most compelling and interesting body of music ever released as far as I'm concerned !

You have to remember that at least the three Wilson brothers and Mike Love were taking drugs at the time, most notably marijuana.  It wasn't until later that Mike Love (and then Al to a certain extent) started TM.  It's not hard to get a record like this produced when the two leaders of the group are stoned.

It makes sense if their problem with Smile were the lyrics and production that was so overblown and complicated that it looked like they would never release anything again and only spend time in the studio with Brian making them make silly noises for no apparent reason.

I don't know that marijuana stunted SMiLE. For Brian, it opened up pathways to create the sounds that comprise much of that album. I doubt he could have done a lot of that stuff without mind expansion.

PS - I love your signature, Reddiwhip! "Mother" is probably my favorite movie.

What!? Let's start a new thread. Albert Brooks is my favourite comedian! And how did I miss Reddiwhip's signature?

RE: signature; yeah, I was debating about either that quote or "It's the 90s, mother.  It's fancy jam time.

That's not what he's saying at all - he's saying that, if Mike was getting pissy about Van Dyke's lyrics and Smile being an unending horror story of blowing kazoos on Heroes & Villains part 7 (revised version, take 73), getting Mike high would slow his roll a little and the sessions are a bit more accessible. Also, Smiley sessions were not the same level of dithering (to be unkind), which is probably another factor in his acceptance.

The problems that shelved SMiLE were Brian's problems with the material, mainly Brian's problem with the lyrics and his feeling it was was over-elaborate in the end. According to Brian, the Boys were not happy that Brian was shelving SMiLE but Brian did it anyway. When Brian decided he wanted the different approach he took with Smiley, the Boys did what they always did which was trust Brian's muse regardless of any reservations and work their hardest to do as Brian asked whether they understood it or not. We keep trying to make these decisions out as something Brian didn't want or believe in but I think we need to get used to the idea that Brian got and did everything the way he wanted.

Apologies - I'm sure you've been over this many times before - but what is the evidence that Brian had a problem with the lyrics?  Did he actually criticise them somewhere?  And if they were, as you say, one of his big problems, why ("He Gives Speeches" aside) would he retain these problematic lyrics for the refashioned versions of Smile songs on Smiley?

The lyrics he retained were, aside from Heroes and Villains, mainly simpler ones. Vegetables, Wonderful (now that's a nice, understandable love song), Wind Chimes... Surf' Up and Cabinessence were axed, being much more elaborate both as productions and lyrics. I don't really know (who does) if the lyrics played any part in which songs he chose for Smiley, but the fact is the chosen songs are from the simpler end of the Smile spectrum.

Brian said they were too arty and not Beach Boys and Anderle said he thought the "main" reason SMiLE was cancelled was the conflict between Parks and Brian with Brian feeling that Parks' lyrics were too sophisicated. Apparently not all of the lyrics were too arty or sophiticated or not Beach Boys for Brian's Muse/taste.

Both Heroes and Villains and Wonderful have complex and abstract lyrics. Van Dyke Parks didn't write the lyrics to Wind Chimes but he did write part of She's Going Bald. Brian loved the lyrics Van Dyke wrote - he's on record as saying that both now and his love for them at the time is evident - see his deconstruction of the Surf's Up lyrics in the Siegel article for evidence of that. If Brian criticized Van Dyke's lyrics, it's because outside influences made him lose confidence in them. But it seems that in the back of his mind, Brian had a soft spot for songs like Surf's Up, which I guess is why he kept playing it after the sessions collapsed. I don't believe for a second that Brian had a problem with those lyrics until he was made to have a problem with them.

This story simply doesn't wash - if it was the lyrics that drove Brian away from Smile then he quite simply would not have retained so many on Smiley.

Just because you make a decision to do something, this does not necessarily mean that you "want" to do it. There are all sorts of factors that can affect your decision-making process, your own personal desires and hopes being only one of those factors. However, if Brian truly was unhappy with the way SMiLE was turning out (we'll never know for sure) and decided to go all low-fi on our asses with Smiley Smile, then I think that was a genuinely horrible artistic decision.

I think it's possible and probable that Brian originally found Van Dyke Parks and his talent for lyric writing very fascinating, hip, and maybe even what he was looking for in a collaborator in mid/late 1966.

It's also possible that by early 1967, some of those lyrics lost their "hipness" or edge with Brian, and he started to question them. Of course any previous criticism of VDP's lyrics could plant that seed in Brian's mind, I'm not denying that. But, really, after all that time, effort, and something to show for all that work, meaning the brilliant SMiLE tracks that Brian laid down, don't you think that Brian would've been going with his gut feeling when he scrapped SMiLE? I mean, Brian knew how great that music was; I can't see him discarding it if HE really loved it. Maybe, believe it or not, by early 1967, he no longer did. :o 

Like I've said, no, I don't believe that nor do I find the argument for it convincing that he must have disliked it since he put so much work into it.

I don't think he didn't like them, he has said he thought they were too arty and not for the Beach Boys and reportedly felt they were too sophisticated.

The problem to me with outside influence is who would it have been? I don't see any evidence of anyone having that sort of influence on Brian and before we start pointing fingers at the Boys he said it was his feelings and the Boys were not happy with his decision to scrap the SMiLE songs. They also seemed to be bewildered/clueless by why they redid the songs they redid.

Can you give the source for these comments?  Is it Anderle?  I don't doubt Brian said it, but I'd like to read it from the horse's mouth if possible, and especially to know the context.  After all, it's practically a running joke on this board that Brian changes his mind every five minutes and is endlessly contradicting himself.  Was it before or after he sang the gorgeous 1967 version of "Surf's Up" from the box set?

So he decided to record Fall Breaks and Back to Winter instead?


We've had this discussion before and I just don't think your side of the discussion is convincing at all. We know that Brian loses focus on the album right at the same time as the blow-up session in December and to me, that's fairly compelling. Everytime these cases are brought up, you simply say that while he eventually came around to the same point of view of these people, it was STILL Brian's point of view. I'm sorry, but I just don't understand why it is so necessary to take this stand.

I'm not Cam (obviously), but I don't think Brian was ever against stuff like "Surf's Up". One has to remember the quote from a 1968 rock 'n roll special, where he said something like "some people like to hang onto certain things and ... just as their own little songs that they've written almost for themselves. And a lot of times, you know, a person will write and will realize later that they're ... it's not commercial, you know, but what they've written is nice for them". So I think maybe the late 1967 recording of "Surf's Up" was just that for Brian. Just a little something recorded for posterity. It was his song that he was proud of, and he just wanted to keep it to himself. However, obviously by 1971 it was obvious the group needed a certain something to help them gain some momentum commercially, and he agreed with Jack Rieley that he would put "Surf's Up" on the next album. And I'm happy he ended up making good on that agreement.

I can't see that either. After all, Good Vibrations should have convinced Brian that his move into more experimental territory could have resulted in huge commercial success. Furthermore, I don't think that his post-Smile work is indicative of a guy who is trying to make specifically commercial music.

I thought it was pressure from Warner Bros. that led to Surf's Up inclusion on the album. Wasn't it part of their deal with the label that Smile would be finished and released?

Right with you.