The Smiley Smile Message Board

I was wondering what unbootlegged songs y'all would like to hear the most.

I would definitely love to hear Brian's 1975 piano demo of "In The Back Of My Mind".

I bet the best unbooted songs are the ones we don't even know exist. For example, who was clamoring for Surf's Up 67 before TSS?

I'll take Aegir's point one step further. I have a feeling that the best Brian Wilson/Beach Boys songs are the ones that we will NEVER hear, simply because nobody remembers them, as they are lost to the foggy haze of history. Father Time can be a vengeful bitch. I don't want the upcoming box set to have unbooted tracks. I want it to come included with the formula for a time machine so I can go to Brian's house between the years 1970 to around 1975 and be a fly on the wall in the room whenever Brian sits down to play the piano.  8)

As long as you take a recorder with you and bring it back to the present so we can hear the results !

I'll take Aegir's theory and raise Jay's – some of the best stuff probably never made it out of Brian's head. But that's okay. My unfinished Third Symphony is actually unstarted… lots of the best art goes that way!

Not to rain on any parades or anything, but I would disagree with the notion that the best of the stuff being mentioned in this thread was not recorded, and is lost to time because no one remembers it.

I disagree because if you're in the business of writing songs and making records for a living, your better ideas are going to be written down, given a demo or scratch recording, or in some other way cataloged for future use, even if that use includes being re-purposed into another song or song idea. Those ideas which come and go in the minds of writers are so fleeting, or can be so instant and as a result so easily forgotten, you're going to make note of them. Witness those dozens of tapes Lennon left behind which made up the "Lost Lennon Tapes" series...there were hundreds of individual recordings, everything from simple ideas to fully demo'ed songs. And as wasted as John, or Keith Richards, or any of them were at any given periods of their lives, there always seemed to be some way for them to record ideas which turned into legendary songs. Those like Keith waking up in a daze, recording a riff on tape then totally forgetting about it, only to have it eventually become "Satisfaction" when he eventually played back the tape and worked on it.

Those professional (successful) songwriters all seemed to have a system of jotting down ideas they think are "good", whether it be a portable recorder, a journal/notebook, or a cocktail napkin from the bar they happened to be in when the idea hit them. With the modern age, the fucking iPhone will probably advertise a way soon to tap into your imagination and record your subliminal thoughts...all for a nominal fee, of course, and a contract which involves signing away all your rights to privacy and confidentiality where your best thoughts get recorded and stamped with the Apple logo and TM.  ;D

Any artist, any medium: It gives a certain romantic "lost to time" element to consider or speculate on all those masterpieces that only existed in the imagination of the artist, never to see the light of day, but ultimately what's the point in getting sad over what wasn't recorded when there is so much to learn about what actually exists for us to hear, see, feel, etc.?

Yeah, yeah, but I still wanna hear "Burlesque"!

Depending on the amount of drugs taken at the time, it actually is very possible something brilliant doesn't get recorded and ends up forgotten. Considering this is Brian Wilson we're talking about, some of these songs he 'forgot' and were never recorded likely ended up being recycled as other songs later, even as songs he thought were 'new'.

George Gershwin in discussing his show songs with Ravel said that he discarded "9 ideas for every one I write down" which Ravel marveled at, remarking that in writing long form that he didn't have the discipline it took to write short form. Brian will play for hours before he finds a melody he likes. He calls them "feels" which he shuffles in his mind until he finds a melody he likes.