The Smiley Smile Message Board

Never mind what was the original concept back in 1967, do you prefer to listen to SMiLE as a complete "suite" or mostly unrelated, "banded" tracks?

Personally, I prefer the tracks because it helps me to appreciate the greatness of each song with breaks in between them. Even though I love the '04 arrangement, it moves way too quickly for me.
 

66/67 = separate tracks
2004 = suites

  The movements are fine, but isn't it almost certain that SMILE would have originally ended with "Surf's Up" rather than "Good Vibrations"? Making "Good Vibrations" the closer in 2004 and 2011 was a revisionist touch I never cared for, even though the second movement ("Wonderful" -"Surf's Up") works beautifully.

In my opinion, the movements on BWPS (the record) are a travesty and a disgrace, robbing the songs of some of Brian's (potentially) great fades, especially on "Do You Like Worms", "Cabinessence", "Look", "False Barnyard" somewhere, and "Surf's Up".  

I also think the movements give the listener too much music bunched up and not spread out. At the end of each movement, I find myself coming up for air. It's not a feeling I like while listening to the SMiLE songs.

12 tracks. Namely these:

Prayer
H&V
Wonderful
Holidays
Cabin Essence
Fire
Child

Good Vibrations
Wind Chimes
Look
Vegetables
Worms
Surfs Up

No tinkering, no cross-fades, no forced inclusions. I've finally found the perfect lineup...FOR ME.

My preference is for how Brian (and Van Dyke) envisioned it back in 1966 - single album, 12 tracks. BWPS is a wonderful, wonderful thing. But it's not Smile. How can it be ?

I prefer the vintage tracks in a 12-13 song order. I prefer the BWPS recordings in the 3 suite movement.

The vintage tracks are too unfinished to keep my attention for 50 minutes.

Agreed!  I can see how GV works in terms of the concert performance as kind of a show stopper, but you've gotta have "Surf's Up" as the final track on Smile in my book.  I thought that the three suites worked well live, but it's not how I prefer to listen to the original Smile material.  I go for separate tracks in kind of a modified Americana/Elemental configuration, mainly sticking with the back cover listing (plus my own mix of Dada/Water):

Our Prayer
H&V
IIGS/Barnyard
OMP/YAMS
Worms
Cabinessence
Wonderful
Vegetables
Wind Chimes
Fire
Dada
Child
Surf's Up

I enjoy a good segue as much as the next guy and I can see why it's tempting to try something like that with Smile, but it starts to feel a little gimmicky after a while.

What versions of the songs, Bubba?

I think there is a third choice that falls somewhere between the two options you gave. For instance, Wonderful/Look-Song for Children/Child Is The Father Of the Man works for me as a unified piece. It's not too far out to think Smile could have been a combination of free standing tracks and suites. Whatever one believes Smile would have been, we should all agree that the songs are by no means "unrelated" as you propose.

I think Good Vibrations would be the first song, as the Our Prayer (intro to the álbum), which was originally in C#(Heroes And Villains), was changed to Eb (Good Vibrations).

Agreed. 

I like the three movements.  Good Vibrations fits in well for me at the end, because it represents the Ether the fifth element. 

I don't get too caught up on what he intended in 1966, the album never happened. 

Years back, I use to belong to the Earth, Fire, & Water contingent. Wasn't that the philosophy that Priore or somebody preached? I mean, I guess you can make the songs fit that theme if you want, but........nah, it was just 12 beautiful tracks with lives of their own. A bunch of songs about a musical journey across America from East to West; about modern American history and culture, including the Wild West. Notice many of those Smile songs were cut and pasted or reworked for Smiley Smile, which had NO common theme. Notice Cabinessence and Our Prayer and Cool, Cool, Water And Surf's Up were cut and pasted onto subsequent albums and they seemed to fit (acknowledging that 20/20 was a hodge podge album.) So SMiLE to me had a common thread, but still consisted of separate tracks on their own.
 

I wonder how Cabinessence would've sounded with a 1966 vocal...

Right on Ron. Sometimes I would start going down the rabbit-hole thinking about what SMiLE could, woulda, shoulda been. But then I just realized it wasn't finished in the '60s, and despite what any of us wanna think, Brian finished in '04. He says it's finished, so it's finished. Just like Pet Sounds or whatever. Do I think there woulda been three suites in '60s version? Absolutely not. Do I think there would have been some segues between songs? Sure, yeah, probably a few, and then the rest as your usual stand alone songs.

I do wanna say though that I feel that the songs from the SMiLE era actually hit me harder with their presence on subsequent albums than they do when I listen to The SMiLE Sessions. For instance, "Surf's Up" to me seems so much more powerful on the Surf's Up album (not to mention that I prefer the '71 version anyways). To me, it seems like that's when the song was meant to be released. "Cabinessence" also seems to be a really big, important song on 20/20, whereas within SMiLE it seemed like a cool song surrounded by other cool songs.

I would agree with this. I think there *is* a middle option, in my opinion, the most likely way the album would've been finished in 1967--Suites, but 2 of them. Not 3. There's definitely a link between some of these songs, but 3 movements doesn't bode well with the vinyl format and theres no proof that 3/4 of the songs we now consider "the elements suite" were originally intended that way.

Thats how I organized my own SMiLE Mix. As for how I think it wouldve come out in 1967: 

I think 2 side-long suites, or perhaps "mini-suites" is the most likely route the project was heading in. I think it's possible SMiLE couldve been one half Americana and one half Life, if we're talking side-long suites. If we're talking "mini-suites" I think it wouldve been the four movement Barnyard and Elements suites on their own respective side, bookended by standalone tracks. Either way, I think each song (if wed include these potential Barnyard/Element mini-suites as songs) wouldve been its own standalone work, but with semi-related bridges in between them. 

I've said it before, I think Psychedelic Sounds and the wackier Smiley Smile moments are more important than they're usually given credit for. I think segments like the Garden Fight with Hal and George Fell Into His French Horn were at some point supposed to lead into Vega-Tables and Surf's Up, respectively. Perhaps segments like Taxi Cabber couldve lead into Worms or Side Stroke lead into the elements/dada/cool water or whatever.

I agree with the opinion that BWPS, while a great presentation of the material for a live performance, doesn't work in the context of the original 1967 studio recordings. Every mix I've heard (including my own early ones that followed the 3 movement structure and TSS Disc 1) that uses BWPS as a guide just sounds FORCED and exhausting to listen to all the way through. The fragmented tracks like Barnyard and Great Shape in the beginning make it sound disjointed and thrown together right from the get-go. The Elements was never meant to be a medley of Veggies/Chimes/Cow/Dada and they sound terrible together like that, in my honest opinion. I agree that Good Vibes, while it'd work at the end live, just sounds tacked on and anti-climactic at the end. I don't buy this "fifth element" nonsense either.

So, yeah. 12, maybe 13 tracks--not 17~19. Two sides that are linked thematically/musically but where each song stands as a seperate, unique work all its own. In case you couldnt already tell, I'm very passionate about this material. I'm not trying to insult Brian's work with BWPS or Mark and Alan's with TSS. But...now that I've experimented with a 2 movement structure, and found one that works for me personally, I don't think I'll ever go back. The difference is night and day, and I never realized before how much the BWPS sequence really cheapens (for lack of a better word) the material. 

While I wouldn't go so far as to call them a travesty as far as their use in BWPS, I do strongly disagree with BWPS itself being passed off as the unquestionable final word on SMiLE, and I especially disagreed with the decision to restructure the original recordings based on it for TSS. In BWPS it works ok for what it is. But trying to force the sessions into that order really just accentuates how unfinished the original tracks are.

Also, the 3 movements are just very uneven in terms of pacing, mood and how complete the songs are. The only one that really, unquestionably works is the Childhood suite. The fact that they couldn't even really get that to flow for TSS shouldve been a red flag that this was not the best sequence to use, I'd say. And either way, coming off the unified in theme, flowing in music second suite, the Elements "suite" sounds so incredibly mismatched on BWPS or TSS.

I haven't thought of it that way, but I like the concept.  Something to think about!

Eh. I can see how putting them on their own albums could allow each SMiLE track to really stand out. Instead of a great song in a sea of great songs, it's THE great song in a sea of ok-good-really good songs. But see, to me that's really the beauty of SMiLE the album. Just the idea of an album full off killer material, tracks that on any other album would be stand-outs in their own right. Like assembling all the best (insert your preferred sport) players on one team, or how Squaresoft assembled the best developers in the business to make the game Chrono Trigger. The fact that all this exemplary stuff was recorded all at the same time, as part of the same artistic message...it just makes each track seem even more special to me, than if they just came out one after the other on whatever random album.

Surf's Up is way more profound as an intentional "look how far we've come" during the peak of psychedelia and the best year for pop music than as an abandoned song, half-finished and stuck on the upcoming album as a way to garner attention. Not trying to insult the band, but in the former scenario theyd be making a conscious change to reinvent their image at the height of their popularity. In the latter scenario, whether it was or not...it just *seems* like a desperate, too little too late attempt at rekindling former unfulfilled glory.

Just offering a counter-argument. But I think a finished SMiLE in 1967 would've been something truly special and greater than the sum of its parts.

Wow. There's nothing----0%----I disagree with here. Now all I need is a vinyl version of BWPS... ;=)

So, are the 12 you guys are agreeing on the unsequenced:  Do You Like Worms, Wind Chimes, Heroes and Villians, S'Up, Good Vibrations, Cabin Essence, Wonderful, I'm In Gr8 Shape, Child Is Father Of The Man, The Elements, Vega-Tables, The Old Master Painter: from the back cover.

If yes, what's your take on The Elements, which is at least 2 tracks (Cow and DaDa) as per AGD's nifty pink or blue tome circa 2004 = total 13

According to VDP when I asked him back in the late 90s, the album was envisaged as a single disc, banded, twelve titles and no cross-fading or segues except internally on one track. I could lie and tell you he also told me the exact sequencing, but he didn't.

Of course, I could be lying when I say that...  :old

I don't think you're lying. But of course, Peter Reum claims Brian himself said it was to be 3 movements way back in the 80s. So which is it? I don't think the creators even knew--the idea kept growing and changing. Once I gave up trying to make sense of Brian's interviews and trying to shoehorn whatever random bits into a forced "Elements suite" and started looking at what was actually recorded it made a lot more sense.

Maybe it wouldnt have been "suites" as we think of them in the BWPS format, with crossfades and whatnot. But I don't see why splitting these vastly different tracks onto two sides of the vinyl in such a way that each side is musically cohesive is such an impossible idea. It was done with Today and made even more sense with SMiLE.

I think it'd help explain some of the discrepancy between the collaborators, too. Brian was way more into those Psychedelic Sounds skits than VDP. Perhaps in his mind it wouldve been a novel way to frame the album, as someone tripping, thinking to himself, and meeting people (gardener, taxi cabber.) From what I've read, VDP didn't think too highly of these skits and thought it was just Brian goofing off. That could explain why one guys saying there were suites and the other thinks it'd just be a standard album. Might also explain why the Boys disapproved of the project but claim to love the music.

This is all just speculation on my part. I've read a lot about SMiLE, but I think a lot of that knowledge is circulatory and becomes like an echo chamber. I think we ought to take a fresh look at this, starting with what was recorded during late '66 to early '68.

A wise concept. Instead of theorising about what might be, go back to what is, and proceed from there.

Exactly. I see no evidence for 3 suites. I see no evidence for this "Bicycle Rider's grand journey across America" or "the whole album is H&V" or "Good Vibes was always the fifth element--love/aether/whatever."

I do see a body of work with two central themes--America and life/love. I think we can all agree H&V, Worms, and Cabin Essence were cut from the same cloth. Wonderful, Look, Child and Surf's Up all fit together really well. Once we accept the fact the Elements and Barnyard suites were working ideas never finished (and that the Elements was not, and was never originally intended to be a 4 track suite of its own) we can place the remaining tracks like Veggies and Chimes on the side they'd fit best. I personally think Veggies was meant to represent American agriculture, not Earth and that Wind Chimes works as a song about the anticipation of death, not Air for example.

It's possible Brian was just stoned and having fun recording Psychedelic Sounds. But the fact that he brought Hal into it for the fight, used other session musicians for George Fell, and used the Boys for his weirder Smiley ideas (laughing during Little Pad, Tape sped up, etc) there seems to be some legitimacy to these sessions.

Obviously I could be way off base here. But I think if you ignore the contradicting Brian/VDP/Beach Boys/Carol Kay interviews and fan/Priore speculation...and just look at what was recorded and let that speak for itself, I think a two suite structure with various "comedy" skits linking at least some of the tracks together seems to make sense.

If nothing else, maybe just the two major (as in, recorded with professionals and included on TSS) skits would be on there, and intro the two big closers on each side--Veggies and Surf's Up?

I much prefer listening to it track for track, no cross-fades, nothing...  just as a twelve or however much track album.  In actual fact, I still like going back to my "30 years of The Beach Boys" box set and listening to those individual tracks. 

Fan of the achievement in BWPS but not an especially big fan musically and it doesn't tell us much, if anything, imo about the historical SMiLE album.

I'm in the 12 track school because to me that is what the actual artifacts tell us. Much (much) less use of discarded H&V bits in album tracks, they would have stayed out of the album imo but some would have been on the B side of the H&V single when that was under consideration.

I'm agreeing with a lot of your writing. Would you share the sequencing on your personal SMiLE mix? I'm curious...

Thank you. Check out the link in my signature to hear it yourself.

AMERICANA
(You're Welcome)
H&V Part 1
Cabin Essence
Worms
Fire
Veggies
H&V Part 2 (the Bicycle Rider chorus only appears in this part so as not to diminish the impact of it in Worms, and instead serves as a reprise)

CYCLE OF LIFE
Dumb Angel [Prayer and Holidays paired up]
Wind Chimes
CIFOTM
Wonderful
Second Day [Dada and Cool Water paired up]
Surf's Up

I used some Smiley bits, some Psychedelic Sounds bits and as much of the original session material as possible without screwing up the flow. He Gives Speeches and With Me Tonight are H&V sections, Look is 'part two' of Wonderful, etc. The only major exclusions are Good Vibes, the throwback tunes (Old Master Painter, I wanna be around, gee) and Carl and Dennis' tracks.

Sounds good! Very interesting. I'm certainly not questioning the sequence, but I am curious why you placed "Worms" where you did, and why you excluded "The Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine". Also, does "Look" fade out?

Thanks again. I put CE after H&V because I used the fade with train whistles which set up the "who ran the iron horse" lyrics well. I think the fade of Worms fit well into the Bag of Tricks opening I used for Fire. I excluded Gee/Around/Sunshine because in my opinion they are the weakest pieces of music, they don't fit because they werent written by Brian and Van, and they bring the album to a halt anywhere you put them. Look doesn't fade--it's buttended to the piano bit from CCW Version 2.

OK. Thanks. I'll catch it on YouTube...

Hope you dig it. Downloads are in the video description

I agree.

I used H&V Part 2, Mrs. O'Leary's Cow and Second Day as standalone tracks in place of Old Master Painter, The Elements, and I'm in Great Shape from the infamous January (or was it December?) List. This was for various personal reasons--there's more than enough H&V material for two tracks, Fire and Dada/Cool Water as we know them today have become standalone tracks rather than one minute instrumental pieces of a whole. Meanwhile, OMP, IIGS and The Elements are more or less essentially one minute fragments each.

HOWEVER, for a historical SMiLE--that is, what I believe the general outline probably was in December '66 just before all concept of the album was more or less sacrificed for the sake of a single--I agree.

I think the trouble came when the Elements suite had to come together in December. Where do you put it, which side does it fit in, what the hell has to get cut or moved to make room?

Maybe here Brian grows unsure and losses confidence. VDP was unsupportive during the recent Psych Sounds Skits (from here on in, I'm referring to these as PSS) and wasn't there for Fire. He has quit, for the first time. Now, alone, Brian has to come up with something for Earth, Air and Water.

With pressure mounting from Capitol, the Band, everything else and the irrational fear of fire and Phil bearing down...it's hard to get inspired already, let alone with no collaborator. Maybe it's at this point that Element suite is abandoned. But how to fill that gaping void in the lineup?

Maybe he had thoughts of splitting it up--but how? At this point Dada is a H&V segment, Fire is a one-minute feel (that's meaningless on its own) and the other two are unwritten. This would also ruin anykind of spoken word humor between or during the songs.

Perhaps the H&V reworkings were part of an attempt to use the best pieces from other songs to gut those originals and make room for The Elements in some new place, or flesh out the bits he had (Fire--now Mrs OLeary's Cow as an Americana track & Dada--the reworked All Day) and make them standalone tracks.

Pure speculation: What if Great Shape (aka the Barnyard Suite)  was also a four-part, 1 minute each, medley? What if the disintegration of The Elements then made that track utterly pointless?

You can see the domino affect take hold. That stall in creative insight and subsequent lull in productivity couldve ruined the album. VDP returns, sees the initial cathartic spark was gone and the blueprint in shambles, and leaves to do his solo album.

The Elements killed the original album and imo is the scourge of SMiLE Mixers. SMiLE as it wouldve been is unattainable because this one track was never fully thought-out. Trying to hamfist four (essentially random) songs into an Elements suit is NOT doing justice to what the original SMiLE most probably wouldve been. Trying to crossfade 4 random instrumental bits into a 'The Elements' track is a fool's errand because 3 of them were never written or finished and declared by Brian. I'd argue the Barnyard/IIGS medley was fully thought out but perhaps not fully realized. Even then, it's an injustice to the original intent (whatever that was) to pass off Barnyard, Great Shape, Sunshine and IWBA as we know them today as individual, standalone tracks.

VDP isn't lying when he says SMiLE is 12 tracks because it was (more or less) in Dec '66 when he last knew what SMiLE was. Brian wasn't lying when he said 3 suites in '81 because he was always unsure how to do it on one two-sided vinyl, but he always wanted to express those themes of America/Life and the Elements. Darian isn't lying when he says the 2003 sequence was mostly Brian's idea, because when Brian was told he wasn't doing an LP but a live show, he was free of the restraints of the vinyl medium that had come to be incompatible with his ever-evolving vision.

TL;DR: The Grandplan of 1966 involved 2 side long suites of related tracks with IIGS and The Elements as four-part suites on the Americana and Life sides, respectively. When Elements failed to materialize it through everything out of place and derailed the album indefinitely. Brian was able to "finish" it in 2004 cause by then the concept could be reworked into 3 suites. I "finished" SMiLE because I was free to ignore the elements and GS suites and just use the sessions and PSS wherever I thought they worked. I hope this proves to be my definitive, final word on the subject. Can't promise I won't change my mind *again* someday, tho.  :hat

Edit: For what it's worth...and this also is pure speculation...when it comes to PSS and their place in SMiLE, I think ideas like the barroom brawl, Taxi Cabber and the Garden Fight wouldve populated the Americana side. I think that's where the journey across America would come in. But this isn't some grandiose heroes journey, it's a couple stoners on a road trip. That'd be the set-up for the humor in this album. Maybe at some point (after Veggies) it switches to the Vegetable Chants and swimming chants.

For the Life side, I think the PSS stuff would focus on living well. Like in the Smog Tapes. Some of that, maybe the falling sinto instruments pieces, the breathing and laughing parts too.

I think the more "atmosphere building/freakout inducing" parts like Ocean Floor and Basketball Sounds were possible candidates for overlays on top of existing tracks. Just a series of thoughts.

Separate tracks.  No question
What tracks?  The handwritten tracklist that was printed on the album slicks, using the SONGS as they were intended to be assembled, NOT just the SECTIONS that shared some of their names.

(Our Prayer - hidden "intro to the album")
Heroes And Villains (intro/Cantina version through tape explosion/single version from first chorus/ending bits I can't remember the names of)
Do You Like Worms (with discarded vocal line)
The Old Master Painter (Barnyard/TOMP/Barnshine fade)
Wonderful
Child Is Father Of The Man (includes both Look and CIFTTM)
Cabinessence

(You're Welcome - depending on my mood)
Good Vibrations
I'm In Great Shape (IIGS/I Wanna Be around/Workshop)
Vega-Tables
Wind Chimes
The Elements (Mrs O'Leary's Cow - the intro/Air/Earth/Water)*
Surf's Up (sung by Brian without Reilly's lyrics/Al's vocal at the end)


That's how it was conceived, that's how it was almost produced, and that's how I prefer to hear it.  And I swear, one of these days (if I ever manage to get my life back in order), I'll finish and share my own personal mix.  I promise.



* I have no idea what Brian intended for "The Elements", other than what I parenthetically listed above, nor do I know the order beyond MOC coming first.  The Smile set I'm SLOWLY assembling mix I'm working on includes (whichever version I'll eventually choose as) my preferred mix of what was contemporarily available on disc one, as well as two or three other plausible/possible  assemblies on the second disc, which will also include alternate versions of other songs, the "one million units" promo, original versions of the covers, and "finished" versions of the vocal-less songs, using portions of BWPS.  ...One day.

I would really love to see your documentary proof for this unequivocal statement. The back slick list wasn't in Brian's handwriting, nor was it in any order... but you say you know the track sequence. How ?

Eh. See, this is what I don't understand. Why is everyone so dead-set on this elements suite/side? There was initially one single track called "the elements" that was never properly assembled, much less written. Where and why did this whole Elements suite come into the SMiLE cannon? Why this obsession with putting Chimes and Veggies together? They sound nothing alike, it's such a jarring transition (as is Chimes into Cow.) You shoehorned a song about Children and loss of innocence into the Americana songs and tacked Surf's Up on at the end of these "element songs" that have nothing to do with it. To each his own, of course, but I resent the way you offer a pretty unoriginal sequence and claim this is the way it was always supposed to go.

I just don't see it, and this illustrates why I called "The Elements" the scourge of SMiLE Mixers. It's so overemphasized, we waste so much time trying to hamfist unrelated bits together because of half-assed 'well this sounds like air to me' type reasoning instead of being imaginative with the material. The Elements is a red herring. Just put the pieces you want to use in places where they sound good.

When I listen to this I approach it as I would as a symphonic piece. Sweet spot on the sofa, ample volume, kick back and shut my eyes for critical listening, no distractions (hopefully)

Smile is a great aural experience treated in this fashion, try it.

I hate BWPS. Separate tracks all the way.

This is my favorite sequence:

Our Prayer (Smile Sessions)
Heroes and Villains (Smiley Smile single)
Cabin Essence (Smile Sessions)
Wind Chimes (Good Vibrations Box Set)
The Elements: Fire (Smile Sessions

Good Vibrations (Smiley Smile single)
Wonderful (Smile Sessions)
Do You Like Worms? (Smile Sessions)
Vega-Tables (Smile Sessions)
Surf's Up (Smile Sessions)

Only ten tracks, but gets the job done and excludes all the unfinished filler cuts (Look, etc.)

Twelve Tracks.

While recording Our Prayer, Brian says it:  It's not a track.  It's an intro to the album.  We don't want to think of it as a track.  That's all I need to know.  Brian simply had something else in mind -- NOT what he ultimately settled on in 2004.  There's no debate about it.


Think of it this way...
Had Good Vibrations NOT been finished in 1966, and all we had were all the wonderful, inventive session tapes -- would we be discussing if Good Vibes was meant to be 3, 4 or 6 different songs?!?  No.  No.  NO.  I mean it could be... but it clearly wasn't supposed to be.  It's one song.  And I don't think ANY of us could have put together GV -- as it is -- from all those spectacular pieces the way Brian did.

So yes, SMiLE is twelve tracks.  And I believe the basic bulk of it is right there on all those unfinished working tapes.  And there would have been A LOT of sniping and cutting and editing (and re-recording) to make all the pieces fit and work.  Just like how Good Vibes works, SMiLE too was meant to work.

Best post in the thread, right here.

12 Tracks. 

OK.  Bear with me, as I'm not trying to be snarky at all.  Obviously there's no way I could know the way things REALLY went down without being there but there's a lot of stuff that when looked at realistically, just makes "too much sense" to be wrong.  Regardless of the handwriting, that list was either dictated or authorized by Brian to be sent to Capitol, for them to use as the OFFICIAL list of songs for their new album.  Things fell apart, Brian didn't finish the album, and it was scrapped but that doesn't change the fact that those 12 songs (plus "Our Prayer" and any other "hidden tracks" he may have also included) were what Brian intended to put on the upcoming album.  I'll get to the running order shortly but there's far more concrete evidence (mainly the slicks) saying "those were the songs Brian intended for Smile in early 1967, with the album's release looming" than anything proving they weren't.  


As I highlighted above, I agree with what I believe is most of what you do.  I see "The Elements" as a single song, comprised of four section, of which only one was completed.  We know "Fire (MOC)" was "'The Elements' part one" but most evidence suggest that at best, Brian never told anyone what he intended for the other parts and at worst, never even got around to composing them.  I don't think of "Wind Chimes" and "Vega-Tables" as neither part of "The Elements" (song) or an elements suite.  Where I think our opinions differ is I don't think there were ANY suites, Americana, loss/innocence, or anything.  Sure there were themes Brian and Van Dyke were exploring here and there but I don't think those themes dictated the album's order order in any overwhelming way.  Like "Sloop John B" and the title track's placement on Pet Sounds, I think Brian's personal preference was what mattered most in that regard.

As for the running order, it's my belief that BWPS came out the way it did because despite the suggestions from Darian that were used, having Van Dyke "finish" the rest of the songs, and using the alternate lyrics for "Good Vibrations" to give us another "new" song, much of it was VERY close to as Brian intended.  Some of the songs flow "too good" to not be what top-of-his-game Brian had intended all along.  For example, BWPS had "Vega-Tables" follow "Workshop" and the Purple Chick version showed us that the intro percussion of the one fit PERFECTLY behind the sound effects of the other.  Why did I ALSO put "Wind Chimes" next in my version?  Because I honestly believe that's probably where Brian intended it to go (and more importantly, because I can't think of any place that sounds better).

When the album was scrapped in '67, I believe it was VERY close to being done.  All that was missing were finished vocals (in some cases just leads) for "DYLW", "Surf's Up", "CIFOTM", "TOMP", "IIGS", and Cabinessence"; completed lyrics for "CIFOT" (probably) and "DYLW" (possibly); recording, assembling, and/or composing the rest of "The Elements", possibly the backing track for the second half of "Surf's Up", and the big one, which is what I strongly feel is what "killed" Smile: edits of "Heroes And Villains" and "Vega-Tables" that Brian was happy with.  Mike (and/or others) may not have liked some of the material but as pointed out, they brought it when asked.  I feel the modular recording method got the better of Brian (probably in part because of drugs and/or mental illness) and he finally just had to give up on trying to figure out the "right" way the pieces fit, just to save himself.  Truth be told, Derek Taylor probably saw this first hand and accepted it before Brian, which led to the scrapped while still recording time table.  ("Another week and he's starting over AGAIN?  I'm sorry, guys.  I'm pulling the plug.")

So 2004 rolls around and Brian and his team decide to finish it but he's no further along than he was in 1967.  Step one: Darian assembles "H&V" and "Vega-Tables" and Brian approves.  Next, Van Dyke finishes (or unearths) the lyrics.   Finally, they record the whole thing.  At some point Brian decides that "The Elements" (song) just isn't worth the effort it will take to finish it so he rejigs "Fire" and makes it its own song.  Beyond that, the main difference between my version and the 2004 release is them designating each unreleased fragment of music with its own name.  Compared to the old slicks, this made it look like it included all sorts of "extra songs" but by then, lots of people knew the names of the pieces and the link tracks legend had grown so much, a bunch of little tracks seemed more, I don't know...eccentric? and marketable so that's what we got.  The important thing was Brian was anywhere from OK to completely satisfied with the music came together.

Everyone knows the three movements was a post-2000 idea and like many people, I agree that it was done mainly to give cohesion to the third, unfinished "movement".  Because while the Americana one works pretty good.  What does "Cabinessence" REALLY have to do with childhood or whatever that one's supposed to be?  Don't get me wrong.  I love BWPS for what it is and all those involved really did a great job of making a complete album from where Brian had left off but I think much of it getting finished had to do with Brian saying things like "Those edits work great, Darian.  What other ideas do you have?" and "While you're here, Van Dyke, why don't you go a head and put lyrics to these other pieces too?"  

Like I said, I think Brian was almost there.  All I did was create a different edit for "H&V" (which I really believe was the intended edit for at least a small window in time in 1966/67), and assemble a versions of "The Elements" which is probably no closer to what Brian had in mind than anyone else could guess but also no worse than anyone else could make using only the material available.

There's one other wrinkle I didn't cover but I'll leave that for someone else to bring up because this post is already FAR too long.

And for the record, I immediately regretted not including a "YMMV" at the end of my original post so feel free to use this one for both. :)

EXACTLY!  And what happened to "Good Vibrations" would also have happened to "IIGS", "TOMP", "CIFOTM", and given enough time, "The Elements".  Sadly Brian couldn't stop fussing with "H&V" and "Vega-Tables" and time ran out on the whole thing.

No it isn't. He's just echoing what a bunch of us said earlier in the thread. We agreed on 12 tracks.

And notice Bean Bag mentioned Good Vibrations and how it's one song (track). A track you have a very difficult time including in YOUR Smile mix. And NO, I don't want to hear your opinion again of why you don't include it in your mix. You already milked it for all its worth on another thread. It was pretty much unanimous on that last thread that Good Vibrations be included. So now it seems you're acknowledging the inclusion of the song and going with the flow, is that it? No, don't tell me, I don't want to know!!!!  ::)

You are such a smug, condescending little a$$hole it's not even funny. You bring nothing meaningful or worthwhile to any discussion you take part in (at least, none that I've seen) and you've gone out of your way to be rude and disrespectful towards me since I've got here. Did I kill your puppy or something? Drop a house on your sister? Like, what's your problem with me?

I wanted to give Bean Bag a shoutout because while he said "12 tracks" like the rest of you...he did it in a particularly eloquent way and I agreed with him. Is that so awful? Did that really warrant such a snarky remark from you?

If you actually paid attention to what I've said (instead of coldly dismissing everything related to the actual topics I'm trying to address) you'd see that while I don't think GV fits for me personally, yes, I concede it probably would've been on a historical 67 SMiLE. Don't know why that's so hard to grasp.

You started that flame war about GV, not me. I enjoyed no part of that, I was actually really disappointed that the only kind of response generated was asinine "durr, you suck for leaving off GV!" for pages on end. I expressed my reasons, my PERSONAL reasons for leaving it off my PERSONAL mix because you forced me to defend my decision. How was I supposed to react in that situation?

A QUESTION TO ALL OTHER SMILEY SMILERS REGARDING THIS FORUM ITSELF: Is there a block feature on this site? Because I am sick of seeing Mikie and his posts when I come here. This forum can be an awesome place. But with people like him, it can be a real sh!thole too. I just want to share my ideas and discuss things with civility. I am absolutely tired of dealing with this harassment, though.

I'm not in the mood for typing out a real long, in-depth reply to you right now as I usually would. When I am, I will edit this. Just wanted you to know I read this and agree with a good chunk of what you have to say. The fact that you concede that The Elements was an unfinished track and not like a suite, that really makes me appreciate where you're coming from a lot more, even if I still disagree with things like putting Veggies and Chimes together. To be continued.

So, does anybody else agree with Mujan's assessment about me?  And though you're tired of dealing with "harassment", Mujan, you doesn't hesitate to call me a "smug little a$$hole". That's not very nice - I never called you any names, nor did I harass you in any way. Just bringing up an unpopular opinion of yours from the past, that's all.  Never even commented on your Smile mix, other than your exclusion of Good Vibrations from it.

You berated me incessantly for choosing to leave it off. Page after page you wouldn't let it go. You spearheaded a wave of others dismissing me because of that one, goofy little thing. Your posts towards me have been absolutely rude since I got here. You go out of your way to bring negative attention to me, to follow me from topic to topic and put me down. Don't you dare try to play innocent now. You're the bully who harassed people until they snap, then cries foul when your victim calls you a "not very nice" name. Did I hurt your feelings? Well, youve been hurting mine--and intentionally so--since I started posting here regularly.

.

Well, screw you too. I don't know what it takes to win the respect of you people here, and I'm sure I don't want to know any longer. It's like I can try to post honest opinions, new takes on an old subject, whatever, and I get sh!t on for it. I don't know if it's because I'm not part of some old established clique here or what, but the hostility from some of you here is completely uncalled for.

But it's not a "goofy little thing". For all intents and purposes, including strong evidence to support it, Good Vibrations was going to be a part of Smile! But since you elected to exclude it from your mix, it's of course your prerogative. I'm sorry - you seem to be a very sensitive chap. I apologize if it seemed like I was harassing you, bastard son of a Blue Wizard.

We've been over this. For over 6 pages. I said numerous times during the course of that infernal thread that it's probably what Brian would've done. Just not what *I* like to do when listening to my own version of SMiLE.

It's just really hard for me to believe that in the span of that entire thread and in all the times you've gone out of your way to put me down since, you never once thought you were being inconsiderate. That maybe enough's enough, this guys taking offense, maybe I should just let this silly crusade go, etc...

This isn't the first time I've expressed to you that I took offense to the way you were speaking to me. And yet you still come back with a vengeance, to give me yet another tounge-lashing for the heinous injustice of...telling another poster I liked their submission? Really? What could possibly be your purpose when you do things like that, except to get me riled up? Well, congratulations. It worked. And you seem to have the board on your side, too so way to go. I'm glad one of us has enjoyed this.

Not necessarily.  "Heroes and Villains" and "Vegetables" were revamped that much because they were considered singles.  "Great Shape," by comparison, is more of a castaway, part of "Heroes" rejected for other sections.  And prior to being considered a single, I wonder if that earlier "Vegetables" was the earth section of "The Elements."

Definitely agree with the 12 tracks.


Yeah, it's harassment.  You're comparing one person's fan mix with what's become a debate over what could have been, and taunting the guy, when there's no reason to.  That other thread was annoying because of this and now this one is becoming the same thing, so just let it go.  

I wouldn't take too seriously what halblaineisgood has to say - it's not like he's of much use himself, either.

And I would say you do have a use: your Smile mixes are interesting and fresh.

Maybe I am missing something here, but are we not asking whether Smile was 12 tracks or movements, etc. Also, which tracks those would be and what sequence would work best?  If that is the case, then certain songs need to be there. I know it is speculative, but no matter what Good Vibrations needs to be included. This isn't a personal track list, but an educated guess of what tracks Brian would have chosen. In that respect I am with Mikie on this point.

This isn't regarding this thread. I posted a fanmix months ago where I excluded GV (tho, for the record, I think it wouldve been on a 1967 album finished by Brian.) Mike crudely let me know how wrong I was and spent a lot of time and (virtual) ink never letting me forget it. He's been outright nasty to me any time our paths accidentally crossed since then. This time, what set him off was me daring to give Bean Bag the proverbial thumbs up for what I deemed a very good post. So I finally called him out on it, because this has been going on for far too long and I've had it.

Sorry that it lead to this thread getting derailed. But, yeah, they weren't just referring to events on these three pages. Still waiting to hear back about that block feature...

I appreciate you saying so. There's a lot of unwelcoming people on here, but the nice ones like you make it almost worth it.

Thanks, Demon, for sticking up for me as well. It's frustrating how he keeps turning it around on me for being "sensitive/paranoid" all the time. It's never his fault, gotta be someone else...

It started out as a personal preference - 3 movements or 12-14 tracks. But, naturally the thread was going to expand as to what the 12-14 tracks are/woulda/coulda/shoulda been. And, I don't think there's anything wrong with the thread moving in that direction. I mean, the tracks themselves obviously influence your preference.

I wish there was an unwritten rule that you can't criticize people's SMiLE fanmixes. Even though there is some documentation and history involved with almost all the tracks in question, a person's SMiLE fanmix is BASICALLY THEIR OPINION. There are no right and wrong choices - because the damn thing never came out! Even Brian didn't have all the answer(s). A SMiLE fanmix is speculation, no more and no less.

So, please, even if somebody doesn't preface their fanmix with "I think this is the way it MIGHT'VE come out", just assume that's what they mean. That way some pompous and arrogant poster doesn't have to reply, "Where's your proof?"

Mujan, Thanks for clarifying. Hey, on my stereo Smile mix, I use Carl's 1971 Surf's Up. Brian's demo vocal does absolutely nothing for me. Actually, of his two, I prefer the 1967 demo.

Well, for what it's worth, I posted this in the "Vegetables" thread awhile ago:

I don't mind criticism at all--I openly encourage it in the YouTube page and I encouraged it in the thread. What bothers me is outright dismissal. And using my choices to judge me as a person. And encouraging others to do the same. And putting me down further for defending myself. There's absolutely no cause for that type of behavior at all. However much he tries to whitewash it now, it really is playground bullying level behavior. I'm only making such a big deal of it because I'd like the mods here to take full notice. Either add a block feature or ban posters that do that kind of thing. This topic of hostility on the board has come up before. It was mentioned on the thread trending now regarding Brian's new album and one of the mods acknowledged it himself around when I stopped posting awhile ago. Maybe it's time to actually do something about it?

For crying out loud, quit fighting about Smile preferences - because that's all any of it is, preferences.  It was never completed til 2004, but 2004 was 2004, not 1966/67.  Despite whatever "evidence" one or another may have as to this that or another particular of how the album may have been - none of it means squat, because it wasn't finished originally, and again 2004 is Brian (and whomever else had input) then, not back in the 60's.  
So whatever configuration, mutation, derivation, ejaculation you wish to make of the album - do it, fan mix and treasure your own little theories til they are worn and snug like an old, much loved cuddly toy - but no one, and i mean no one, not even Brian it seems, can definitively state what an original Smile album would have been or would not have been.  
So do whatever the heck you want with your own personal mixes - that's what it's all about anyway if you ask me - the audio equivalent of a Rubics Cube, only there isn't any right answer - every answer is right.
I think the main issue the hard asses here have a problem with is when opinions, or preferences are stated as fact.   Don't do that.  There are plenty of "facts" with Smile - but no definite answer - unless you are of the mind that 2004 is the definitive answer - which is your preference, but realize it may not be everyone's.  
These arguments are so stupid.  It's really not that difficult - mix and let mix, fanboys.  
and that's all the Potato has to say.  

THANK you. I'm in 100% agreement.

Yeah, BWPS is a fantastic mix and assemblage of the remaining debris.  Better than my attempts.  And far more legit.  Being a product of its creator, it thus includes many insights that we didn't have.

But what BWPS is, is an attempt to use as much of what existed and make it into a listenable collection.  The 12 track solution was not on the table because it was, A) impossible or too difficult to re-imagine the work to that level and, B) wouldn't do justice to all that was already done, which... C) is now sacred.

Yeah, I think the key piece of info people forget is that BWPS was conceived as a live performance, not as an attempt to finish the LP. They didn't want to leave any of the well known pieces out, the knew they had to express "The Elements" in there somewhere. Hence, we got the third suite of random tracks from before now standing as elements and bits like Barnyard and Workshop passed off as finished tracks. It's beautiful in its own way, it's just as valid a Smile as any other version...it's just not THE SMiLE.

It's just as valid as any other SMiLE, really? It's not like a billion times more valid than yours or mine, since you know, it was finished by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks? Come on man. Whether or not you like BWPS that is IT. Brian, in the liner notes, states that it's the finished SMiLE. Whatever you think of Brian and his capabilities in 2004, he deemed it finished, and I think he has much, much, much more room to assess that than any of us.

Id like to direct you to the comment that's five posts above me.

Seriously, this sh!t's just comical at this point.  :lol Like goshdarn, better pick your words carefully or one smug prick or another'll jump down your throat over semantics. Or over what songs you choose to leave out. Or anything else, really. God forbid I try to move the thread back on track from that prior ugliness. No, please, lets duke it out because I said BWPS is a valid SMiLE.

Well, ok. If you wanna go that route. Yeah, I think it's a valid SMiLE. No, I don't think it's a billion times more valid just because Brian was involved. I think it's a great body of music that the Brian of 67 started and the Brian of 03 revisited and pieced together in a way that pleased him at the time, and in the context of a live presentation rather than an LP. He played around with the material that was there, just like all of us making our own fanmixes. I don't believe for a second that a historical 1967 album wouldve been anything like BWPS in terms of structure. I've explained why in previous posts.

If you have a problem with this opinion of mine...again, refer to the Potatohead's comment.

Mujan, every time you react to a perceived slight with an essay about how you're being bullied, you just pour oil on a fire that was almost out. If I were you I'd walk away and let the embers die.

Then this thread can get back on track.

Or perhaps it'd be better to leave this forum altogether? Really just doesn't seem to be a good fit.

That being said, can you understand where I'm coming from? I'm literally just trying to add to a topic I'm interested in, just hoping to maybe present an alternate perspective on what SMiLE might've been. I see a comment that's pretty spot-on in it's own way, give my version of a "hey man, well said" and for no reason at all I get crapped on by Mikie yet again.

This person has been making it his prerogative to knock me ddown a peg or two at every opportunity he's been given. There's absolutely no reason for it at all that I can fathom except that I left GV off a damn fanmix. It's the most ridiculous overreaction I've ever seen and a huge reason why I initially stopped posting in the first place. I don't think I'm being unreasonable in calling him out on his behavior. I was happy to move on since I came back, let that sh!t go, and talk about SMiLE again in peace, but apparently he's still interested in looking for a fight after all this time. I don't know what I'm supposed to do since I can't block his posts; if someones gonna be obnoxious to me, sorry, but I'm gonna stand up for myself and call them on it.

Now granted, I may have been heavy handed with my reply to sweetdudejim. But to me, his comment was pretty uncalled for too. Aside from being rude for no reason except petty semantics and difference of opinion, it's just plain kicking a guy when he's down. I'm not trying to be a drama queen here, but it's this kinda stuff (and like I've said, it's been going on since I got here) that just kinda makes this whole board seem toxic. There's no reason at all for people to be this catty over personal opinions. I'm not a troll, I'm a genuine fan with some differences of opinion who has every right to come here and speak freely without being treated this way.

You make it out as if I'm going around begging for sympathy every time someone disagrees with my opinion or some stupid thing like that. Not so. I'm just pointing out that this board is, to put it bluntly, badly moderated. I'm just calling it as I see it. I don't think it's unreasonable for me to feel this way considering how Mikie and his kind are allowed to hound me at will and get away with it while I'm continuously made to be the bad guy for not putting up with it. I was openly mocked, and told I wasn't welcome here just for bumping some old threads that anyone not interested in could easily scroll past. I don't know if I just rub you guys the wrong way or if the culture of this board is just THAT bad, or what. But I don't think I deserve the hate I get for trying to post meaningful SMiLE-related posts on a forum about the Beach Boys.

I'm trying to be civil, but it's hard when you really put yourself out there posting mixes and opinions only to be called "useless" and told to go somewhere else, etc. With that in mind, can you really blame me for getting frustrated right now?

Love it or hate it (I like it), BWPS is the finished Smile. We here often have the tendency to compare Brian to great classical composers. Well, it applies here better than anywhere. Many greats took years or decades to finish their masterworks. Jean Sibelius composed his 5th symphony, and then he decided to scrap it, reshuffle the parts, restructured it from four part symphony into three, and so on. Lost lots of great stuff, but then again on the whole made it better. And there were many years between the versions. So, Brian did kinda the same. Tried, failed, took a break (a long one, I admit) and finished it later according to his then-current vision. It's not like you have classical enthusiasts whining about "what-the-1916-version-of-5th-symphony-would-have-been"... And that's why I like it in here, not on their boards!

When you frame it in that context, it makes a lot of sense, and I can respect where you're coming from even if I don't personally agree. However, I still think there's a lot of merit and fun to be had discussing possiblities for that elusive "original vision(s) of 1966/7 whether you consider BWPS the final word or not. I wish more people were open to new ideas regarding SMiLE and what direction it might've been heading in back in the day.

Oh, believe me, I'm as open as can be, and I'm loving all the speculations here. And I do think the three-part structure doesn't suit the material in a best possible way... But facts are facts, and we should respect Brian a little more in this case. The finished vision isn't the original vision, but it is Brian's vision. You don't have to like, just accept it!

As for comparing Brian to classical composers... Was he writing a symphony or a pop music 33 rpm LP? Two very different formats. Judging BWPS as an LP, it doesn't hang together that well. Judging it as three-part symphony, it's quite alright. In 1966, he was making an LP, I presume. The finished thing is a bit too grandiose in concept for it's own good, don't you think? Loses the songs as individual diamonds and concentrates a bit too much on being this great, finished whole. Just my two cents.

Mujan, every time you react … with an essay … you just pour oil on a fire that was almost out.   :-\

Looks like I'm in the minority but TSS disc 1 is the only Smile sequence I listen to these days. It's smile for me, so I guess I'd have to go with 3 movements although I share the belief that Smile would most likely have been banded tracks without had it been released in 67.

FTFY.  :)

Aaahhh... I'm guessing you never experienced the Male Ego forum. Man, that made this place at its worst seem like a Care Bears fan convention. Ego was cage fighting with chainsaws while juggling scorpions and nitroglycerine.

Damn, I miss it.  :'(

Miss Male Ego and the Smile Shop both… though sometimes I get a sense of deja vu and Groundhog Day here!

As for SMILE sequences, well my own is in my head and it changes every day. Today All Day goes into Child, Worms and Cabinessence precede Heroes (chronology and all that)…  One day I might have the time to take all those little pieces I've amassed over the last 38 years and weave them into something I can plug into my iPod and take everywhere, though having it to hand will spoil much of that magic in my head.

My own view of Vibes in the line-up? Smile without Vibes is like cake without flour, an engine without spark plugs, fish and chips without mushy peas.

TSS disc 1 is the only one I bought, basically for making the comparison with BWPS, Brian's last (as opposed to lost) masterpiece. That said, I haven't played either in months, having been diverted into other musical areas (it happens). :=)   

.

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I dunno what the original address of male ego was (maleego.net?) but you can use this to view old websites.

https://archive.org/web/

Just type in the address and pick a date.

I've read/participated in forums where a mod jumps in at the slightest altercation. It's boring. The mods do a good job here keeping things from being ridiculous, but I think its best to let the chips fall where they may. Isn't that what makes it interesting - to share opinions with others? This board is a lot of fun when everything 'clicks' together. And the greatest!

Don't take things personally...there are always plenty of people reading (or even agreeing with  :o) what you have to say, even if they aren't saying anything.

u like cocaine
u are in a cocaine-induced rage, john K
i can't condone this

The mods do a great job here …

Rage isn't in my vocabulary, runnersdialzero (it is you, isn't it?). I just happen not to warm to anything Brian has done since then. Sorry! Oh, and cocaine isn't in my vocabulary either.  :=)

I have "Worms" and "Cabinessence" preceding "Heroes And Villains", too! I have a feeling we're in the minority there. I know you mentioned your mix is in your head, but I'd be interested in seeing it if you'd care to share it :) 

It's comments like that that piss people off. You "calling it like you see it" can understandably rub people the wrong way.

The mods here do an excellent job. Because they don't slap Mikie on the wrist whenever he pisses you off doesn't mean they are doing a bad job. It means they realize we are adults who should be able to handle these petulant spats ourselves. If someone is pissing you off, ignore them.

Nice post! It also makes me think that the constraints of a single LP may have been Smile's undoing. Just too much music for Brian to pick and choose and edit into a 12 track banded record. Had he had the freedom of a double LP, maybe he would have released it in movement form back in 1967.

Duly noted. I didn't mean to come off as though I'm the only one with a handle on the situation. I just thought it was important to express where I was coming from, completely and honestly. I don't expect people to be banned for being "not 100% nice" I just think some people take it to the next level, and that kind of thing ought to be discouraged not passively accepted. I'll be sure to ignore the 'spats' from here on in, it's just that in certain situations in the past, it seemed like everyone was on their side since the majority of reactions I was getting, no matter what I did, were really negative. I wasn't sure what I was doing wrong to seemingly piss people off to such a degree.


But I'm really not trying to sidetrack things with my sh!t. I was really enjoying the initial topic. So to get back to it...

John Manning, if you wouldn't mind sharing some of your ideas, I'd be really interested in hearing them. I love alternate SMiLE mixes. Sheriff John Stone, I think the reason you guys are in the minority on that point is because Heroes was undeniably going to be the big single, and tradition dictates that that lead off the sides of an LP.

Thank you John. It is impossible for me to be on here 24 hours a day but I try to check in as much as possible.  Like now, im at work but checked it right before I go back on from break

Yes, I think that "Heroes And Villains" (or "Good Vibrations") would've led off SMiLE. And, I really don't think that "Our Prayer" would've preceded it. But we've been over that territory before.... :-D

I'm not really a lyric guy, especially with BB/BW music, and even SMiLE, but I can't get past the fact that "Heroes And Villains" is such a past tense song lyrically. I've BEEN in this town so long, I've BEEN TAKEN for lost and gone, FELL in love YEARS AGO, bullets eventually BROUGHT her down, just see what you've DONE, my children WERE raised, they STARTED SLOW LONG AGO....

I get why "Heroes And Villains" is usually the opener in most mixes, and what they were trying to do with it. And, I've tried it there several times myself. But, it just doesn't sound right, especially when I follow it with "Worms" (c'mon, Plymouth Rock should come first). Right now - and that could change tonight! - I am viewing "Heroes And Villains" as Brian's opus for SMiLE (not ignoring "Surf's Up"), and using it closer to the end of the mix, almost like a "summary" song. I merge Part 1 with Part 2 and make it a long suite if you will, a kitchen sink version if you will, fading out over the horizon with "False Barnyard". Then I bring it down with "Our Prayer" and close with "Surf's Up".

I really daren't set my version ("mix" is the wrong word… I don't have the multitracks and can't mix anything - I can only rearrange the order of finished tracks or perhaps edit sections into different orders… mixing is what engineers, producers etc do) down in words cos that would involve it leaving my head and being beyond my control…

I love "Heroes And Villains" as an opener, and the chronology question folks have raised in this thread is not a problem for me at all. Quite the contrary actually. To me "Heroes" is a great in medias res bam! right at the beginning of the American epic, and it grounds the whole thing firmly in a visceral, personalized story of one man's experience smack in the middle of the country's crazy, sweeping odyssey. Then you follow it up with the backstory, via the appropriately abridged, travel-guide vignettes like "Worms," which work as nice prequels and gain more power from having "Heroes" come first.

Unrelated thought that came to me as I was typing the above: another thing I adore about the Smile material is how cartoonish it is. Musically and lyrically both. A perfect match. Man, I love this stuff.

A most awesome board ... :'(

I let Brian make my personal Smile mix for me about 10 years ago.  That sh*t was GOOD you guys should check it out.  He released it about 2 years ago, I think it was called "Mark Linett presents: SMiLE" or something like that. 

Prob. the best fan mix I've heard. 

 >:D

"Once upon a time..."  ;)

I'm another fan of having Worms come first, followed by H&V. That's the way it's sequenced on that darn pesky Capitol memo. Why do you think that is?

I hate TSS reinvisioned Smile. Too many backing tracks. I just get bored to tears by stuff like Look, Dada, etc.

My ten song Smile is perfect for my needs.

I've said it before, others have as well, but my theory is that whomever made the list was listing them off the top of their head, starting with the most complete or at least most "blue-printed".  If you look at the list, we have the seven most finalized songs first, and then the five more fragmentary songs near the end as he/she sort of struggled to brainstorm what would actually be finished to be on the album.

Hence it's a list of songs that would be on the album rather than the actual tracklist (thus the *see label for correct playing order")

Thanks! I look forward to more back and forth.  :drunks

Brian recorded in sections with the intent of assembling them into a series of DIFFERENT songs.  Smile's two singles were revamped BECAUSE they were singles.  They were CONSTANTLY revamped because Brian couldn't make a final decision on how to arrange the sections within them.  At one time "H&V" didn't have the "Bicycle Rider" chorus but instead had the "In the Cantina" section.  At another time, it included the "I'm In Great Shape" section which, once he'd discarded it, he chose to expand into its own separate song (as noted by its inclusion on the submitted tracklisting) by adding additional OTHER sections to it.  And while the "Great Shape" SECTION can be looked at as a castaway, there's no doubt in MY mind that Brian didn't considered that SECTION a song, any more than he did "Prelude to Fade".  As I said earlier, the thing biggest thing BWPS got "wrong" was designating each SECTION with it's own (song) title, thus mudding the waters of section and song.

"I'm In Great Shape" (SONG) = the individual SECTIONS of "I'm In Great Shape", "I Wanna Be Around (Friday Night)", and "Workshop".
"The Old Master Painter" SONG * = the individual SECTIONS of "Barnyard", "The Old Master Painter", "You Were My Sunshine", and "Barnshine fade (False Barnyard)"

It's no different any of the other songs that were recorded modularly, except that they weren't assembled in the 1960's.

The SONG "Cabinessence" was made by Brian arranging it into a combination of two verses (made from the SECTION originally known as "Cabinessence"), two chorus repeats (of the SECTION originally known as "Who Ran The Iron Horse"), and a tag (consisting of the SECTION originally known as "Grand Coulee Dam"), rand not just the verse section.  We don't call it "Cabinessence/Who Ran The Iron Horse/Cabinessence part 2/Who Ran The Iron Horse part 2/Grand Coulee Dam" because it makes no morse sense than referring to "Workshop" as its own song, when it's obviously just a SECTION of one.

As for whether or not "Vega-Tables" was ever intended as part of "The Elements", Who knows???  Maybe it started off there and, like "IIGS" was expanded into a full song instead.  Another option (which I'm favoring lately) is that's exactly what happened but was ALSO intended to remain part of "The Elements", just as the "Bicycle Rider" section showed up in "H&V" and then returned in "DYLW".  After all, much like the "Bicycle Rider" section, we know there are two different sets of lyrics for "Vega-Tables" (tripped on a cornicopia).



* Which was referred to in the Priess book as "The Barnyard Suite".  I prefer the other title, as that's what Capitol printed on the album slicks.

Just want to add that I'm just getting around to replying to previous posts and clarifying a few things in them.  I don't want to restart the "what it is" thing.  :police:

Wow. You are probably the thinnest-skinned person that I've ever communicated with. You take any time somebody disagrees with you to be some major affront. Listen up, Mujjin, this is a forum for Beach Boys fans and we all have our own opinions and takes on the continuing history of the group. Sometimes it becomes quite contentious. But regardless, most of us have a respect for the other posters and their opinions. Apparently though, you just know so much better than the rest of us, and you aren't to be questioned. So maybe from here on out we should just ignore your posts so that way we won't be able to respond and offend your fragile sensibilities.

Phew....anyways if you can handle this without me offending you for disagreeing....

How can you say that BWPS isn't infinitely more valid than your attempt? Seriously? Regardless of the time table, Brian and Van Dyke returned to their original work and finished it. It's is theirs to be declared finished or incomplete or whatever they please. Now, do I think the three movement BWPS format is awesome? To be honest, no. I think the album is overlong, and it's a lot to digest. I woulda simply preferred a straight "album of songs" however, I'm assuming that Brian, Darian and Van Dyke were aware that the unveiling of the completed SMiLE had to be epic and so they did the whole "suite" thing, possibly to increase the "classical music" feeling. Also, I agree that a completed 1960s SMiLE (or even Carl's 1970s attempt) likely wouldn't have had the same type of structure. But as I've said earlier, there is no 1967 SMiLE. There is the 2004 version, properly finished by the original collaborators. And for The Beach Boys tapes there is the 2011 version. And that's it. And I think to say that any of your YouTube posted attempts is more valid than Brian Wilson's is bunk. That would be like you coming up with a new Pet Sounds running order and saying yours is just as valid.  Just because Pet Sounds came out relatively quickly and SMiLE didn't has no bearing. It's the artists work and not ours. If we want to do our own, we should create our own music. However, nobody is obligated to like what the artist has chosen, and I feel its very fair for a fan to love the songs but not particularly love the sequencing.

Yeah, my apologies for my last reply. You happened to catch me at a very bad time, but that was no excuse for me to take it out on you. Of course, you couldve been a bit more polite yourself :-) Just saying, if you read the thread up to that point, it was pretty obvious I was aggravated by what was going on when you decided to prod me about my opinion.

Anyway, before I reply to the bulk of your post I just wanna make it clear for the hundredth time: I don't care about people disagreeing with me. That's not what I was being thin-skinned about, just some long-standing beef between me and Mikie that came to a head the other day. And I never said my mix was more valid than BWPS. Just, that BWPS is *a* SMiLE, and my mix is *a* SMiLE. If you read some of my earlier posts, I don't even think my mix is what a historical 1967 album would've been because I chose to exclude GV, my mix is very long, etc.

To me, the dealbreaker with BWPS is that it was conceived as a live presentation of the old material. It wasn't billed as a finished LP, as THE SMiLE until later. VDP was called in on a whim, from my understanding. It's not like Brian announced "I want to finish SMiLE, summon VDP!" It just kind of happened. True, there's no 67 album. Doesn't mean people like me still can't speculate. I think it's fun playing around with alternative ideas. I don't understand why you and others are so hell-bent on putting a damper on the fun with your iron-clad "BWPS is the unquestionable final word!" rhetoric.

I took Brian's "We finished it" to be more of a good PR move/his way of saying he was done with this material now, kinda thing. But I think even he would admit BWPS is nothing like the original intent, whatever that was. It's not an issue of how long it took him to get back to it. It's the fact that there wasn't any attempt to resurrect whatever original blueprints there had been. It's that a different band recorded it. It's that it was done as a live show, etc.

As potatohead said, it's pointless to argue about this. I'm not gonna sway you, nor you me. Theres legit reasons to call the 2004 album definitive, and legit reasons not to.

Btw, it's spelled "Mujan." If you don't mind :hat

I somehow read it as 'Mulan' for a while. 'Mujjin' is cute though...

Why yes, yes it is. Kind of like Muffin but with js, not fs. But there's a specific reason it's spelled the way it is, and I'd appreciate being called by my proper screenname, if you gentlemen don't mind.

Including the 'Bastard Son of Blue Wizard' part?

Are you working on any new Smile mixes as of right now, Mujan (BSoaBW)?

You can include that if you want to. I like Tolkien's universe and I've always been fascinated by what happened to the two Blue Wizards. It's kinda like SMiLE itself, actually. A mystery with no answer.

Not really. I'm pretty satisfied with Aquarian SMiLE. I was originally gonna do 4 at once: a 2 suite, one big suite, a no suite and then just a long splicing of studio chatter because why not. But I lost interest in those other 3 for various reasons. They just seemed forced, and kinda didn't flow. If I get the time and inspiration I'll work on em again. But right now I'm really feeling good about this 2 suite idea. It's just my baseless speculation, but I really feel like that's what SMiLE was meant to be.

That is what I was saying.  Singles means more important and he spent more time on them.  I agree with you on the rest (thought I thought the "Cabinessence" versus were called "Home on the Range"), and yes--"Great Shape" certainly became something more than a section.  But I don't think Brian was doing to spend 6 months on the section "Barnyard."  He also didn't seem to revamp "Cabinessence" (the song) like "Heroes" or "Vegetables."  The point I was making was about his anxiety over the perfect single.

Yes, "Home On The Range"!  I couldn't think of that for the life of me!  It was right there on the tip of my brain.
Good to know we're in agreement then. I just noticed the word I recolored in the above quote.  Had I seen it before....  :)

I agree with a 12 song no suites Smile as the preferable one.  The problem with sequencing is that when you sequence chronologically ( worms/Cabinessence/Heroes) or even thematically, the sequence doesn't work musically.  If we're rejecting the suites of BWPS then there's no earthly reason Heroes Cab and. Worms have to go together or even be on the same side.  That gives the sequencer freedom to better sequence the tracks so the "highs" start and end the sides and there's a nicer flow with uptempo, mid tempo and slower tracks.

I prefer the suites.

I was never a collector of bootlegs so prior to BWPS my only exposure was to the individual released songs.  With the exception of "Surf's Up" they seemed to lack context.  For whatever reason, BWPS really touched me.  For example, going from the hell of "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" to "Blue Hawaii" always makes me optimistic.  For me, it is an uplifting piece of music that would be less if they were separate.

This is what I've been listening to ever since the Smile box came out. It's 54 minutes long, but it includes most of my favorite Smile fragments. It's dang tough to pare it down to a satisfying 35 or 40 minutes with so much great material to choose from, so this is my favorite sequence.

Side 1
(Prayer)
1)Worms (with insert of Holidays a la BWPS' On A Holiday)   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWCh80PqEes
2)H&V (a 5:46 Cantina version)
(George Fell Into His French Horn)
3)Surf's Up
4)Good Vibrations
5)Cabin Essence

Side 2
(He Gives Speeches)
1)Wonderful
2)CIFOTM (comprised of Look/CIFOTM)
3)Wind Chimes
4)The Elements ( comprised of Second Day-Air/Mrs, O'Leary-Fire/Dada-Water/IWBA & Workshop- Earth
(Brian Falls Into A Piano)
5)Vege-Tables
(H&V Reprise)
6)IIGS (comprised of IIGS/Barnyard/Do A Lot)
7)The Old Master Painter (comprised of TOMP/YWMS/My Children Were Raised/Barnshine)

So, there are the 12 proper tracks from the back cover slicks and 5 short unlisted links. I've been very satisfied with it. Maybe some day more Smile tapes will come to light, but this will do until that day comes.

Six sentences that say it all for me. :=)

Birth-death-and rebirth....That's 3 movements.

Earth, fire, water. Fragments, sections. 12 separate tracks.

Whoa, whoa whoa. What are you saying here? That the Elements weren't a single movement, but that Earth, Fire and Water were the three movements themselves, that Smile would have been structured that way (albeit with just 12 tracks)?

Even if that's not what you meant, I'm going to be up all night thinking about it...

Smile is whatever you want it to be. Howsat? Don't stay up too late. I've been listening to Smile since about..........1982? And now I'm all Smiled out.

I still can't believe Camp Brian basically validated (but didn't really) the "SMiLE" spelling. MAKES ME WANT TO HEAVE. FROM MY ASS.

sh*t FROM A DOG'S ASS

That's three themes, among others in the. Smile songs.

In the years after TSS I worked on my preferred Smile mix which is quite close to definitive for me right now. It is in mono, it contains the tracks on the original back cover, with some very small differences, but most importantly contains quite 'authentic' or in any case as complete as possible versions of all the tracks. So, all the tracks are presented in a way that they were possibly going to be released in 1967. The dilemma is always Heroes And Villains and The Old Master Painter: if I'm using the 'Cantina mix', I can't use the fade-out in TOMP. So, my best option is most of the time to use the TSS mix of HAV, which isn't really what was going to be released in 1967, but it is the most complete-sounding version, incorporating most of the sections, and I can use the fade-out in TOMP which makes it sound like a complete track after all.

01. Prayer
02. Heroes And Villains
03. Do You Like Worms (with the original fade-out restored)
04. Wonderful
05. Child Is Father Of The Man (3-minute mono mix reconstruction, or the TSS version without the opening section)
06. The Old Master Painter (first bars restored using the Sessions tack)
07. Cabin Essence (TSS mono mix with some re-editing)
08. Good Vibrations (single version)
09. Wind Chimes (re-edited to match the original mono mix, with the first bars and the fade restored)
10. Fire (the UM 17 mono mix, no fly-ins, and including the Heroes And Villains intro)
11. Vega-Tables (TSS mono mix, first bars restored using the vinyl single mix)
12. Surf's Up

Sometimes I'm leaning towards including tracks as I Wanna Be Around or I'm In Great Shape, but the 'unfinished' feel of those tracks works better in a bigger compilation, including all the BWPS tracks and more.

Sure he did.  OMO has been liked with YWMS since the sessions and the Priess books describes Barnyard as being part of it (actually, the other way around).  The problem wasn't amplified when the section titles appeared on the back cover list because they WEREN'T section titles.  They were SONG titles.  The problem WAS amplified when each section was designated with its own title on BWPS. 



Likely or not, evidence shows where it wound up.  Carol Kaye said IWBA was part of The Elements and we know that's not the case.  Or who knows?  Maybe it was at one point.  Remember: Brian didn't RECORD songs.  He recorded sections, with the intent of assembling them INTO songs.  What may have been part of one song one day was put somewhere else the next.  This is the whole reason the album was scrapped.  So much of it fit together so well, Brian couldn't reach a decision on the final order. 

As for "Do A Lot", keep in mind the "Bicycle Rider" theme serves as the chorus to "H&V" but then turns up again in a completely different song.  The same thing happens with the "CIFOTM" chorus reappearing as the tag to "Surf's Up".  Like I said, your mileage may vary but to me, the evidence speaks volumes.

If you're using TSS first disc or BWPS as your "evidence" because that's "where it ended up,"  that's a weak argument for IWBA being part of Great Shape.  I guess Brian was going to restore the Asher lyrics to GV and the H &V intro was recorded as a Fire intro too, following that reasoning.

I don't remember the quote from Preiss indicating Barnyard was part of Old Master Painter - perhaps you could post that.  And yes, obviously OMP and Sunshine (and the fade) were all originally meant to follow each other - all recorded at the same session.  It's the Barnyard connection I don't follow.

Nope.  If you go back to my earlier posts, I said

I like your use of Psychedelic Sounds. That sounds like a unique order. I'd like to try that out sometime.

Brian gave evidence/reasons at the time and soon after why the album was scrapped and fitting together was never one of them as far as I remember. That is and always has been entirely fan speculation that has been repeated enough to become a faux fact it seems to me.

The evidence shows the contrary. How pieces fit together in which songs were known by Brian at the time and routinely called out or noted on tapes and boxes etc.

I think what Phoenix is thinking is how Priore was saying that "Barnyard" was part of "Old Master Painter" or whatever, but I think what Priore might have meant was FALSE barnyard. At the time I'm pretty sure people thought that the western style part that ended the early version of "Heroes And Villains" or The SMiLE Sessions version of "My Only Sunshine". And I think THAT is where the confusion comes from.*


*Note that I haven't read any of Priore's stuff in a while, so it's possible I'm off the mark.

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. Yeah, as I said before, I think it's refreshing you're not proposing an elements suite (which I personally see no evidence for) but no suites, just an elements track (which I think there's plenty of evidence for.) It seems we can agree on Great Shape's fate as well.

I mean, when we get right down to it, there's plenty of truth in what you and a lot of other people have said in this thread--that there's no proof of suites or that H&V/Worms/CE and Surf/Child/Wonderful come on the same side. But to that I ask...doesn't it just sound better that way? Chimes, Child, Wonderful and Surf's Up all feature prominent horns and deal with themes of life and love, but each turned on its head. Chimes sounds like a celebration of the little things but it's also about anticipating death as life uneventfully passes you by. And then there's Child, already pondering how the baby's upbringing will influence their life, Wonderful which is about the damaging emotional effects of purely physical love contrasted to the healthy emotional love of family (which I interpret as a critique of the more reckless aspects of the budding free love movement and "don't trust anyone over 30" sentiment.) Surf's Up harkens back to the stark simplicity of the early hits. Call me crazy, but the music...the themes...the style...it all just seems to fit.

And then look at the other side. All the sweeping, dramatic moments harkening back to the earth, Americana and danger (bullets brought her down, to the church of the American Indian, coolies working on the railroad) yet the comical touch. Vega-Tables shares the same off the wall uptempo feel, yet with enough dark undertones (stoner references) to be H&V's musical twin. Smiley seems to confirm this, too. I think a bombastic, sweeping "uptempo darkness" Side One works with more slowed down, subdued, "upfront emotional" Side Two.

This kind of LP structure has precedent with Today. If you ignore all the decades of "facts" echo-chambering and perhaps given more weight than they deserve, and just jump in and listen to the music with an open mind, I think it makes a lot more sense this way. And it then makes sense when Brian said "a third movement" was what allowed him to finish SMiLE, not just "movements" in general.

Maybe side one was meant to be a warning/message to the budding social movement--our ancestors abused the Elements and allowed for the destruction of a culture and nature, lets not repeat the past. And side two is exploring the old Beach Boys themes (Love for a woman, nostalgia, surfing) but with obvious sophisticated twists. I just think it makes sense, as opposed to Wonderful arbitrarily coming after Cabin Essence or Veggies and Chimes following one another, for example.

The only problem with this is Great Shape, Elements, OMP are all unfinished yet expected to be on this LP. I'd argue OMP was abandoned once the tag became part of Heroes. I'd argue the Elements track is what broke the back of the album. I'd argue that given enough time, Dada had a better chance appearing on a finished album than Great Shape, and I don't think GV totally fits on either side in this context. But each mix, it seems, always has its compromises justified by logical leaps of faith.

If we're gonna go further and give equal weight to recorded segments like Psychedelic Sounds and statements like lots of spoken word humor on the LP, there's the various chants, comedy sketches and atmospheric vocal experiments to fill in the gaps. These can be roughly grouped into Stoners traveling America/expressing the elements and becoming one with their instruments/reliving childhood like with basketball sounds and ice cream man. These would fit with, and add another dimension to, the ideas expressed on sides one and two. The lighthearted stoners getting in veggie fights and talking to the cab driver would be a nice counterpoint to scary music like Fire from the elements and Worms. The old rock star dreams/cliches they'd be experimenting with on Side Two could include the idea of becoming one with your music, turned on its head like the falling into your horn or a piano gags.

I'm just an advocate for ignoring all facts about how it was supposed to happen, and letting my ears vote for me unbiased. I think if everyone did the same, we'd have a better idea rather than blindly following LLVS and the years of self-referencing 'evidence.'

The second single, surely?

True. Even though I prefer it as the beginning, there's no proof the Americana side would be Side One. And there's no proof H&Vs would be the first track either way. But popular tradition, Smiley Smile and BWPS all point to Heroes being the first main track, hence why the idea is so prevalent whether it's accurate or not.

I'd be curious to whether or not there's any contemporary evidence of Prayer and Heroes being the same track. It's structured that way on the boxset but is there proof that was the idea in the sixties? Because if there is, that'd seal the deal in my opinion (even if I personally think You're Welcome works better as an opener to H&V.) But if there's none, maybe GV would be the opener.

Like I said, I'm positive Brian knew where most of the stuff was going from the start.  That's why I think so many of the songs were in place long, long, long before BWPS.  I do however think that he did manage to get too hung up on the singles, and possibly "The Elements" and "Surf's Up", which led to him being unable to finish the rest of the album.  My guess is he didn't feel it had got away from him but after the release date had moved and moved, culminating with Derek announcing things had been scrapped, Brian felt that the moment had passed and decided to shelve it and move on to the next, less stressful, less ambitious project and take the band into the more stripped down, vocal based sound.

I think a good, long, brain-clearing holiday before starting might have helped. Projects must have been blurring into one another with no defined edges. Everything, to me, points to stress, too many cooks laughing from the sides, too much opinion coming from all directions; anyone would throw in the towel with all that going on.

Bands today take years to come up with half-decent albums and complain about how stressful life is, and how they need that creative space. Brian was churning out works of genius just months apart with no recovery time, little personal space.

If you'd asked Brian back then whether he was planning a 12-track album or a series of suites, he'd've likely said that he wasn't sure where all the tracks would end up, and referred you to Marilyn with regard to the question about furniture buying.

Absolutely!

I feel it was the opposite. Imo, Brian was very deliberate and focused and what to do was never the problem but what he was doing was the problem. To me it looks like Brian got caught up in competing with the Beatles and Dylan et al and he collected some people he thought could help him do that and it went great early on and they were impressing each other but then as it did not ring true to Brian's muse he began to regret his plans and got back to being true to his muse. In spite of his collaborators, band-mates, employees, label, whoever, wishing he would keep at SMiLE.

I believe in remembering correctly that Brian clearly states that Prayer is an intro to the album. This is heard on the original tape from TSS. I think that is a great piece of evidence shinning light on how Brian intended to open the record. That being said, I think prayer could lead into GV or H&V to start the album.

Right, he says point blank "this is the intro to the album." I'm just curious if there's definitive proof circa '66-'67 if the track Prayer was meant to intro was indeed H&V. I used to put the two together without even thinking about it because that's the way it's always been done, the boxset implies that Prayer is yet another Heroes segment, etc. But now I've come to question this myself. I've come to prefer You're Welcome as the opener to Heroes, and while that's probably not a vintage idea, Brian did record a "H&V intro (now known as the fire intro) so it doesn't seem 100% certain Prayer go into Heroes either way. I haven't tried it yet, but supposedly Prayer sounds great leading into GV instead. Could that have been the lead track then?

Mujan, I'm glad you came around to STARTING with "You're Welcome"....at least for now. ;D

You know, there isn't much that we know about "You're Welcome". I have rarely seen it discussed in depth. Some questions always come to mind. What does the song mean? You're welcome to come on the pilgrims voyage? You're welcome to come on the SMiLE trip? Or, You're welcome to come nowhere in particular, it just sounded good?

Also, was it just a song, or was it a song that Brian composed to be the specific B-side of "Heroes And Villains"? Is "You're Welcome" and "Heroes And Villains" connected other than sharing the vinyl 45? It is interesting that "You're Welcome" was just the B-side of "Heroes And Villains" single and not included on Smiley Smile. Brian didn't record many B-sides only, but he did that time.

Cam, I always thought that was pretty much fact. I can't remember if Brian ever said it was an issue - maybe he did - but I always thought that was one of the main reasons he scrapped it. If we're to go along with the 12 separate tracks theory, then the inability to assemble the puzzle parts together into one cohesive album almost becomes mute. As indicated by fan mixes and BWPS and TSS, it can be done. But I thought I read an interview somewhere with more than one person (Linett, Boyd, Sahanaja?) that there was so many segments/fragments and the 'lack of technology' at the time was a consideration along with indecisiveness in putting it all together. Smile 101 stuff, I know. 

Maybe someone will come up with something Brain said close to the event I'm forgetting but I don't think so. As you said, it seems to be exclusively fan speculation based on a presumption that Brian didn't know what he wanted or didn't know how to do what he wanted or was always considering everything for everything. I'm saying the people around him and the musician and engineer memories of the period and call outs on the recordings and notes and notations all over the tapes etc. show Brian knew what he was doing. To me he didn't quit because he couldn't, he quit because he didn't want to.

Ok I see where you're coming from.  Because certain pieces not originally connected in 67 by Brian or noted as being connected by people involved with Smile in 66-67 sound good together in later fan mixes and were put together subsequently by Darian and Brian when making Smile into a live "suite" and you believe they sound right together, then that must have been Brian's original intention.  I shouldn't have to point out the faulty logic of that reasoning but consider it noted.

Yes when the Preiss book came out the "Barnyard" in circulation on boot and on the Preiss tape was later found not to be Barnyard at all but the fade or OMP/Sunshine - hence it being referred to subsequently as "false Barnyard."  So Barnyard is not linked  to OMP at all.

Cam's point is well taken -  Brian was recording sections and he knew what he wanted to record but particularly with the more complex songs like Heroes he was dissatisfied with what he had recorded and kept recording alternate sections without having the computer tools we have now to try different combinations of sections to see how they worked.  With GV he managed to edit the sections together to his satisfaction but left dozens of recorded sections on the cutting room floor.  We assume all the sections of Smile songs we know we're going to fit in somewhere, but clearly that wouldn't have been the case.

For what it's worth, Darian believed the "second movement" was what Brian always had in mind, based on his reaction to Darian playing those pieces together.

I criticize the sequence a lot, but there are genuine moments of brilliance on par with "Brian at his peak." I agree with Phoenix on that. I don't see BWPS as 'Darian's fanmix' as some do. More like 'Brian's fanmix' in that, I believe Brian sat down, reexamined the material for the first time in years if not decades, and put the pieces together in a way he thought sounded good. I don't believe he dug out any long lost plans for SMiLE circa '66, but there are some things that came back to him as they went along. I think the Second Movement is the best example of this. Those songs (possibly sans Look) were made to be together, as far as I'm concerned.

The first suite is good too, but it's kind of hampered by all the fragments I suspect wouldve been cut back in the day. Any tracks originally intended for the other 2 suites that could work in an element themed context were repurposed for the new third movement. Hence why the second sounds amazing, but the first and third are flawed (though still very good, of course.) Just some more speculation.

I do think theres a lot of weight behind that quote where Brian says "a third movement" was what allowed him to finish the album. Notice, he doesn't say "movements" just the addition of the third suite, the elements suite. For whatever reason, expressing the elements musically was an essential piece of SMiLE to Brian. That's why I believe the fear of fire/failure to craft the other three sections of the initial track was such a big setback. It's around this time VDP leaves, focus shifts to the singles and the album comes apart. Brian just couldn't find a way to do the Elements as a four part instrumental, it threw the original plan of the album out of whack, and a restructured 3 suite album didn't cross his mind yet and/or was impossible in the sixties with the vinyl single LP format.

This could explain why, according to Peter Reum, Brian said he thought it should be 3 suites in 1981 and why it ended up that way in 2003.

I'm repeating myself here, but I really think this could explain a lot if true. The suites were always a thing, but the initial idea was for 2, not 3 and the suites in the sixties wouldve just been a side of musically/thematically/stylistically linked stand-alone tracks.

It would have been interesting to have three different suite/movements on only two sides of vinyl. They clearly had trouble with that also on BWPS.

I agree with you. Brian wasn't just recording feels Willy nilly, and while I don't think we'll ever know what it was for certain, I do think there was a master plan at some point even if it's since been lost to time, drugs and mental illness.

However, I think somewhere along the line (January '67 most likely) the original idea was scrapped and that's when the chaos and distractions begin. My personal theory is that the fear of fire, dissatisfaction with the Elements lead to a gaping hole which threw everything off. This next part isn't as certain in my mind, but perhaps the Psychedelic Sounds experiments were meant to play a larger role but VDP and the Boys' disapproval lead to the abandonment of the idea and Brian doubting the whole plan itself.

The concept of an Elements 4 part instrumental track was the first thing that was abandoned. Eventually, Brian decides to compensate by fleshing it out to a suite of multiple tracks (hence Dada getting reworked from the H&V segment it had been) but by then it was too late, and too complex for a single LP to do justice, so Brian said screw it and started over.

Smiley isn't SMiLE, but I think it's a good indicator of what Brian's spoken word humor and off the wall crazy skits might've been like in SMiLE. This is all just me playing detective, but I think it makes sense and ties up some of the SMiLE contradictions.

It's just not possible, in my opinion. Either you put two together and leave one by itself. Or you split a suite and defeat the whole purpose, or you use 3 sides of vinyl which wastes space. One of the many reasons I'm not a fan of the 3 suites idea. If Brian wasn't satisfied with his original concept of a four part instrumental, I wish he'd have just worked with what he had. Fire is completely mind-blowing even by itself. The idea of fleshing it out with the H&V intro didn't come until later, but it might've made a nice fade to H&V if false barnyard were used in OMP and Barnyard in Great Shape. Include a fleshed out Dada or perhaps the Veggie fights into a full track and boom, you've got your 12 tracks. Then you can just say the elements is a bridging theme that ties the two otherwise distinct sides together.

Without a doubt 12 tracks

Prayer
1.Heroes and Villains
2. Do you dig worms
3. Wonderful
4. Child is Father to the Man
5. Old Master Painter
6. CabinEssence

7. Good Vibrations
8. Vega-Tables
9. Wind Chimes
10. Mrs. O'leary's Cow
11. I love to say Dada
12. Surf's Up

Considering Look wasn't even in the running as far as we know for Smile - it wasn't on the track list - I think that's a stretch.  Brian liked what Darian did with the sequence, and may have thought that's what I would have liked to have done in 66-67, but if that was what he always had in mind, why didn't he tell Darian that at the start rather than listen to what Darian came up with and then approve or disapprove it?

I prefer the 12-14 track SMiLE album. I love the tracks as separate entities.

"Look" and "CIFOTM" (SECTION) = "CIFOTM" (SONG), just as "Home On The Range", "Who Ran The Iron Horse", and "Grand Coulie Dam" (SECTIONS) = "Cabinessence" (SONG).

And I shouldn't have to point out that "I like red" doesn't mean the same thing as "I hate green."  Most of the parts, that I (me, personally) feel that way about are things that I (again, ME) think were decisions made by Brian in the 60's.   For instance regardless of how anyone, including Brian himself, feel about it NOW, I (ME) think the "H&V (intro)" sounds better as the intro to "H&V" than it does paired with "Fire".  If you've made up your mind about YOUR preference, that's fine but I think it's pointless (at least online) to try and show you what I see as proof that makes me think I'm barking up the right tree in terms of Smile's sequence. 

And in all seriousness, I bear no ill will against you.  I believe waht I do for very specific (and obsessively researched) reasons.  All that matters is we both enjoy the material for being the unbelievable music that it is.  :)

Interesting...  But do we have any evidence to suggest this link other than what was eventually on BWPS? 

Note that Look was recorded in August '66, and then Child was recorded in October '66.  We have a number of acetate test mixes of Child with varying song-structures of the song made between Oct-Dec and none of them contained Look at all, which would have already existed 3-5 months.  Brian would surely have had the opportunity to make a Look/Child test mix by then? 

Possible, but unlikely. I think there are some here who'be heard Brian's instrumental mix for Child (why on earth wasn't that on the boxset??) and they don't describe any Look pieces in there. Where would it fit?

There's a theory Holidays and Look were early working versions of Worms and Child...but I've yet to see compelling evidence for this claim.

This is why I'd say, even though it gets much less attention than say, Surf's Up part 2 or the Child verses, the Look vocals are debatably the biggest loss of SMiLE. Until we can know for certain, I prefer to think of it as "Wonderful Part 2." It just sounds right, to my ears and apparently Brian's as well.

Look - and i'm not referring to the song - I think it's every fan's perogative to assemble the pieces of Smile any way they want, whatever floats your boat.  Since we never got a finished Smile - in 1967 OR I would argue in 2011 -  you can argue that your sequencing is the best and you may very well be correct.  But I just don't get that because you feel something goes together that THEREFOR those are decisions Brian made in the 60s.  If Brian had made the decisions you are talking about in the 60s, well wouldn't we have a finished Smile?  Brian didn't and couldn't make the decisions about the sequencing and the finishing of tracks which is one of the reasons Smile was abandoned.  He never made those decisions.  I could better understand your position if you said because your sequence sounds right to you that you believe Brian WOULD have made similar decisions - that's an opinion, rather than that he DID make those decisions for which the evidence is exactly zero.

Smile's like a jigsaw, where every piece has three sides that fit and one that doesn't.

No one can ever complete a jigsaw like that, unless Brian decides to shape the fourth side of each piece.

He says 2004 saw it done and we have to accept that, no matter that even be bad to shoehorn those pieces with a crowbar to get them to fit.

Nothing to stop anyone attempting their own solution but the order, the… erm… "mix" can only ever be speculative.

Going by the hand written list AND the slicks for the album itself (which I most certainly do, as the record company readied them for the actual release), we know "CIFOTM" was intended to be included as an actual song and not a hidden or link track (like we know "Our Prayer" was meant to be).  We also know that neither "Look" nor "I Ran" were intended to be included as full songs.  So what makes more sense: Brian tosses an apparently fleshed out fleshed out, albeit untitled, song that runs the length of a pop song of its day and instead chooses to include a song fragment, running just over a minute in any of its contemporary forms OR knowing how Brian worked on Smile, the possibility that he combines in the same or similar fashion that he eventually did, 37 years later?

Maybe I'm wrong but like I said, which makes more sense?  And yes I know logic and sense aren't so easily found in many of Brian's decisions but it really makes the most sense to me.  ;D

Seriously?  Definitely, had he NOT gotten so distracted with the singles and spent the bulk of his time on them INSTEAD of finishing the album.   My guess is Derek's decision to scrap the album was what finally reminded Brian it was time to stop dicking around and pull everything together but by that time it was "too late" as he also then came to decision that his window to show Dylan and the Beatles, etc. that was still in charge had closed while he was focused on making things perfect.  With that, his ambition (to the degree it had existed) was gone and he moved onto something very different.

Well, let's take a look at it here:

If you notice, all the "fragments" were usually not their own song*.  Usually the actual songs were a series of fragments put together (H&V, Good Vibrations, Vege-Tables) or was a self-contained song with a number of sections in it in the first place, a la traditional songwriting (Wonderful, Wind Chimes, Surf's Up, Cabin Essence, DYLW**). 

Both Look and Child are of that second group: they are not fragments, they both contain verse, chorus and bridge sections, a self-contained "traditional" song.  Hence they did not need to go together at all, because both were complete as is.  Yes, Child is short, but who's to say that isn't be design?  It already had three separate sections that acted as a few verses and two variations of a chorus.  The same for Look--it's complete, minus a lead vocal.  If they DID go together, you'd have two completely different sets of verses and choruses clumped together.  While that isn't necessarily unfathomable, it is certainly uncharacteristic of how the songs were simply composed and/or created at this time, and the creation of a Look-Child super-song is a red herring.

And as I had said before, we most likely would have some test mixes of it happening...  There certainly were test mixes of the various segments of Child back then.  We also have test mixes of the three segments of Cabin Essence put together as one song.  So this is the standard. 

* exception being obviously OMP, which we all know would have been several segments put together as a complete song, as well as IIGS, which evidence shows would also have a few segments together to make a complete song. 

** one could argue that cabin essence and DYLW were a series of fragments strung together as well, but DYLW lyric sheet seem to indicate it was just written that way, and the fact that Cabin Essence was written along with the batch of the "traditional" songs that it too had a grand design, but was simply recorded in pieces to be later re-essembled. 

I haven't really dug through Smile history since the Smile Shop days, so maybe I'm forgetting something, but why do you call it Derek's decision?  I know you're referring to his article, but aside from that...

I'd argue that Vibes belongs in the second group - recorded, in the version finally released, in segments but originally envisaged in its entirety, as the early sessions tape reveal.

According the the 1966 backing track test mix, CFOTM is a complete 3 min song (without lead vocal) with a structure not too dissimilar to Cabin Essence.

Yeah I can accept that.

Of course, I forgot about that!

For those curious, the structure is:
chorus / verse / chorus / verse / chorus / bridge / chorus

"And then Van and Brian played us two things they were doing on the album: one was...ah, part of the thing that turned into "Cabinessence."  This was originally part of "Who Ran the Iron Horse," which was about this Chinese cat working on the railroad; it had the the "crow" line in it.  And another song, "Bicycle Rider," was to be integrated with it: they thought they'd put together these two separate songs...A lot of that kind of thing was going on: I mean there are fragments of maybe five different songs combined in each of the songs as they stand now.  "Cabinessence," for example, started out as a wholly different trip - Dennis was going to sing it by himself and sound like a funky cat up in the mountains somewhere singing to a chick by a fireplace: very simple - and that's all there was to it."

Michael Vosse

So, it sounds to me as if Vosse heard a test edit of the Grand Coolie section of what is now Cabinessence, paired with Bicycle Rider.  And it also sounds as if Brian took that Grand Coolie section out of Who Ran the Iron Horse.  And wasn't Who Ran the Iron Horse a part of an early Heroes and Villians, or am I not remembering correctly?

Well there you go!

Or Michael didn't fully understand what Brian was planning or doing.  That said it does seem like WRTIH was a separate song or a previous title for the same song.

Weren't all three backing track sections recorded at the same session on 10/11/66? 

While clearly not conclusive, it does indicate that the three were associated together, not to mention that that's how it ended up anyways... 

The specifics of Cabin Essence isn't even my point here...  It was the Look-Child Hypothesis.  But I understand what you are saying, pieces came and went. 

First off, NOTHING regarding SMiLE was "Derek's decision." A publicist doesn't just make the sweeping announcement "hey, y'know that new album that's been hyped for months and partially demoed on TV? That's over." Good way to get fired, I'd think. The idea that Brian would see such an announcement and think "Well, I guess I should abandon this masterpiece I've been pouring my energy and soul into" is laughable.

The only "dicking around" during the SMiLE Sessions was the Jasper Dailey tracks, and depending on how important you think they were, Psychedelic Sounds. You could argue the focus on singles since January was misguided, but it was still purposeful work.

I do agree though that eventually the moment passed, the need to "be God" was gone, and Brian moved on. Still ambitious, just not in the same way. Smiley is very innovative and perhaps a microcosm of what SMiLE wouldve been. It's just not the sweeping grandiose statement on America.

Trombone Dixie. Fact is, sometimes artists record more for a project than they need.

There's precedent for the idea of reusing parts of one track for another. But I'd argue Child quickly became one for the scrap pile, not the other way around. The chorus was planned on being recycled into Vega-Tables at one point, and eventually was recycled into Surf's Up.

The Vosse article provides fascinating insight, but it's not gospel. Unless there's another source for this claim that Cabin Essence is the conglomeration of two previously unrelated songs, I'm skeptical. And in any case, that's not proof Look and Child wouldve merged.

Not being sarcastic, but what's the proof of the "Child"/"Vegetables" connection?  Are you thinking of the "Child" piano section similar to the water chant?

If I'm mistaken, I apologize. But yes. I was under the impression that that bit was recorded during the Vegetables sessions. I always understood it as Child was to Veggies as Worms was to H&V

Does anyone remember an interview in 2004 (an audio interview) where Darian describes Brian being curled on a sofa in a depressive "we can't do it" mood and then, on hearing Look, leaping up and shouting "That goes after Wonderful!"?

I'd be very fascinated to hear this too. I always heard it as Brian listening to Darian playing back some tracks he had on his computer. Look came on after Wonderful (by random coincidence or because that's how Darian had sequenced it) and Brian's eyes lit up as he said "That's how we'll do it!" Not saying you're wrong--just that I'd be interested in clarification too.

Because it was 40 years later, Brian's mind had been to hell and back, he never 100% made up his mind in the first place, he wanted to hear what fresh ears had to say, etc.

I don't take BWPS' sequence as vintage by any means. But it isn't completely unreasonable to assume he had other things going on in his mind from '68-'02 other than the SMiLE songs, hence why he couldn't sit down and lay out a blueprint on the spot. However, it's completely reasonable to assume that in the process of working on the material again, things came back to him. He chose (or allowed Darian) to put this sequence together. Now, obviously he wouldve forgot some things, purposely changed some things and so on. But there's connections between the Second Movement tracks even listening to them outside of the BWPS context. It's possible, i'd say even likely, that those songs were supposed to go on the same side at least back in 1967.

I don't but I will admit I nearly pooped my pants when I first heard it on the bootlegs of the SMiLE shows.   :o

I know it's not totally on topic, but since there is a great and lively Smile discussion going on here I figured some of you might know more about this: has there been any news the past couple of months, or even longer, about any possible release of the complete Barnyard track including the backing vocals? There was a lot of debate when the box came out about the exclusion of this fragment, which is really quite essential in the history of Smile in my opinion. There was some talk of possible online-only releases of this and some other tracks such as the complete CIFOTM acetate...does anyone know anything about this? Is it likely that these tracks will ever be released?

I have to chime in here too, since Paul2010 brought this up.

Where IS that "Barnyard" track with those backing vocals?
Surely, SOMEONE in the "community" managed to get hold of it?

I would GLADLY pay for that if it were offered as a lossless download. The CIFOTM acetate is another one I'd like to hear, though I suppose you can make your own version of it with what they gave us on the SMiLE sessions release.

And whatever happened to the Durrie Parks acetates?

 :)

Have wondered about these omissions myself and hope there might be some kind of anniversary release in 2017, with these as bonus tracks (and maybe the Durrie Parks acetates that were omitted, if any…). You know, the year after the Pet Sounds anniversary release in 2016…

Can't imagine any thing's been held back from Pet Soudns by now tho'≥

There lies an opportunity. Maybe that's also a good moment for some other stuff that, again in my opinion, has been missing from earlier releases, mostly some other mixes of completed tracks which only have been included in a re-edited form, and that can't be possibly reconstructed using the box set.

Things like a stereo mix of Do You Like Worms, a stereo I Wanna Be Around in great quality, I Love To Say Dada without the fly-ins (in stereo), the complete unedited mono mix of The Old Master Painter...there's lots of possibilities, I think.

From this quote I always imagined that the bicycle rider theme (from Worms) may have started out paired with Who Ran The Iron Horse (the fast section of Cabineesence), possibly as a sort of verse chorus, verse chorus thing, then ending with the Grand Coolie section. Those sections certainly would have all fit together well and created a real 'railroad' feel.

I'm not sure if Who Ran The Iron Horse was part of an early Heroes? Quite possibly. It seems like another variation on the ascending/descending thing that Brian also did in Fire and Heroes Intro, so quite possibly is related to Heroes.

The unfinished puzzle piece is a good analogy.  I believe Brian's 2004 solution was simply an attempt to "finish" the pieces into a suitable artifact.  I do not believe it was to continue the work and development of the material.  Or to pick up where they left off. 

The better analogy for me, maybe a dinosaur fossil/skeleton.  SMiLE is an incomplete skeleton.  BWPS was simply an attempt to display the remains.

(http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/content/2014/0415-wankel-t-rex-smithsonian.jpg/18337624-1-eng-US/0415-wankel-t-rex-smithsonian.jpg_full_600.jpg)

How I interpret Vosse's quote - Cabinessence and Who Ran the Iron Horse started as separate songs, and Grand Coulee Dam was part of Iron Horse.  But by the time of the recording, all three were part of Cabinessence and recorded at the same time and edited together.  Session tapes make that abundantly clear.

Vosse says Brian was "thinking" of putting Bicycle Rider into Cabinessence, not that he did it.  No test edits or evidence exists that this thought was ever followed up on.  Instead he tried putting it into Heroes in January, and when that didn't work, he rewrote it in a minor key and it eventually became the Heroes chorus.

There definitely was the possibility of shifting sections from one song to another, as we see with Heroes getting Worm's BR and OMP's barnshine ending (at different times), Vegetables getting Do a Lot from Heroes, and Great Shape (with Barnyard I would argue) moving to its' own song.  There were also sections removed to the reject pile like cantina, Barnshine fade (two versions), Intro to Heroes (two versions), and whole songs bypassed (Look/I Ran, Holidays).

I love that boxset to death. I've repeatedely stated it's one of the most cherished things I own. But I can't help but feel disappointed at some of the exclusions. They filled 5 CDs to the brim, which is great. But was adding just one more too much to ask? I wouldve loved to have the Child acetate they found in full, any surviving vocal sessions, Brian's test edit for Child and any others he did, some of the more interesting Psychedelic Sounds bits (yes, they included a few snippets but not enough for my taste) some Smiley sessions for the reworked SMiLE tracks, more With Me Tonight, more "pseudo-SMiLE" tracks like Little Red Book and Can't Wait Too Long (if they could include Three Blind Mice, why not these?) and so much more. If nothing else, I'd say take a few GV sessions off Disc 5. Maybe that's blasphemous to some, but I thought a whole disc of the same song over and over was excessive and unnecessary.

/rant.

I didn't know there was an alternate Barnyard floating around though. Do you know anything about it? And by backing vocals, are you talking about something besides the "oooo" vocals and animal sounds?

Regarding the Durrie acetates...as far as I know, they've been backed up and cataloged. I don't think there was anything earth shattering on them, but apparently there was an alternative H&V that included Great Shape as a verse but with H&V instrumentation. Obviously I'd love to have that in my collection. Hopefully that gets released someday...

I was under the impression that Brian knew more of SMiLE's layout than we thought. The excessive tinkering and recycling of other sections seemed to be in the service of making the perfect singles--H&V, Veggies. But now this shuffling and merging between CE, Worms and 'Iron Horse' throws that completely into question. I'd still like to see another source tho.

There are quotes from others - Anderle?  about Brian shuffling sections, how a part of one song might end up part of another.  Maybe Siegel's description of the acetate party mentioned this also.  When Brian recorded something, he had a definite idea where he wanted it to go.  It was after he recorded it and got ideas about other sections to record and doubted whether the first section was what he really wanted, and so recorded new sections, then doubted if those were adequate, and reconsidered old sections . . . you can see how eventually Heroes became very difficult to make it to a final version.  And how when he stole sections from other songs for the singles, that created holes that became difficult to fill.


Brian's mono mix of the backing track of Child, Barnyard with the animal sounds/backing vocals, and the Child acetate with the new vocal line all should have been included in the box set.  The Durrie Parks acetates that were auctioned came to light after the box had been completed, and had very little new on them - although the edit of a new Great Shape instrumental section, previously unknown, into the "my children were raised/three score and five" sections is new and possibly revelatory.

Interesting. I was under the impression the adhoc rerecording was solely for H&V and Veggies and didn't start until 1967.

I'd argue the Great Shape bit is revelatory. It shows that even after GS was replaced by Cantina, it was still intended to be in H&V at least for a time. This further casts doubt on what a finished "Great Shape" track wouldve been, assuming the list is accurate--or even if Great Shape wouldve been one of the tracks at all.

I don't think just because part of a song is quoted in another song, it means that it wouldn't have been a song on it's own. Like how the H&V riff is found in other songs (and probably other riffs), it's easy to imagine Smile being completely intertwined, with bits and pieces from one song showing up in another.

However, that's just a complete theory of mine without any actual proof that I know of other than a few pieces of music that seem to show up.

If we had a recording of the Great Shape vocal session we could put this to bed. But as far as I know, that single line is all that was written for GS. This is why I assumed that a finished GS track wouldve been perhaps a four part medley like The Elements. It'd explain nicely how various other bits like IWBA, Workshop and Barnyard all fit into the SMiLE puzzle as well.

While I don't rule out the idea of recurring music motifs, using the same chorus for two songs, the same exact vocals in two song and stuff like that seems out of the question. Imagine listening to an album like that, where you essentially hear the same chorus with different lyrics, then the same verse with different instruments again and again. That's not being innovative or free thinking, that's just...lazy. and Brian was not lazy about his art. It makes more sense that the album fell apart because as he kept shuffling things around, creating holes, trying to patch them up and doubting himself that he eventually lost sight of the original idea and then started fresh. If what you're suggesting is accurate, and H&V/Worms and VT/Child wouldve shared choruses...then what's the problem, from Brian's perspective? If that was really the plan, he had pretty much all the material he needed.

Well, I don't mean entire musical sections coming from different songs, like a full chorus and verses. Just occasional references to the other songs, bits being incorporated. Just sort-of scattered references. Again, that's just an idea - one that I don't necessarily buy into completely. I'm completely out of my depths here, as I am nowhere near as knowledgable on the subject as others.

Anyway, that sort of thing wouldn't make Smile any easier, in fact it would probably be more difficult to put something like that together.

That, I can agree with.

I would say The SMiLE Sessions would be the attempt to the display the remains. BWPS on the other hand didn't just display what was there, new things were added for better or worse.

Sure hope that these Parks acetates provide us smoe new stuff..also would love to hear more BW 66 mixes in decent shape...

But to get to the TOPIC, I prefer an album with songs , not suites... Brian never did those nad I´m certain if an album did get finished in 1966/1967 it would be in line with a handwritten list..some americana some elements songs (for instance DYDW - WC)..not restricted to side A americana side B elements..

Also I wonder where SU belongs? It could certainly be a part of an americana theme, but also elements theme..I wonder...

Y're right… even the three "suite" songs on TWGMTR were just three songs aligned in a particular order.  Effective, but equally valid as stand-along tracks, and not musically interwoven.

Yes the vocal session which preceeded the instrumental session - what the hell was that?  Was it the "eggs and grits" lyrics of the Heroes demo, with Brian playing piano?  With backing vocals presumably?  Or was it something else entirely?  If that could be found, and matched tempo wise to the instrumental takes later, we'd have Great Shape.  I used to think the vocal session was for "Do a Lot" - it seems to fit with great Shape's theme and of course was a capella on Wild Honey - but it seems he was fooling with that section for Heroes in January.  This session would answer a lot of questions about GS and Heroes!

Do I prefer SMiLE in movements or 12 track? The middle movement of BWPS makes all four tracks work better. I guess I like the tracks connected to movements, but you couldn't do it as well using the 60s recordings; only "Wonderful" sounds like it is going to go right into some other section.

Paradoxically, my pre-BWPS compilations all have lots of connections between the tracks, and my only post-BWPS compilation more or less follows the BWPS order but is standalone tracks! :-D


IIRC, the only "proof" of that is the Vosse interview, but even he states they "felt" Surf's Up would be the album rather than "Brian said so". As my own pre-BWPS SMiLE compilations ALL ended with GV, it didn't strike me as a "revisionist touch" at all! :)



Keywise, that could very well be the case, that Prayer was to lead into GV. I've never heard that Prayer was in C# originally though. Did I miss something? "Prayer" does not lead well into H&V, and at the time it was recorded, GV still was THE hit single. H&V was the next single, so startng with GV would have made sense. Interestingly, Prayer keywise also leads well into DYLW, which is first on the handwritten tracklist... :)



IMHO, the fact that OMP on that list was put in brackets, and then the brackets were crossed out again, proves that the list was being thought about even while it was written, and thus has no more meaning than the Pet Sounds preliminary tracklist with GV still on it. I'd guess it was done for the graphic department to be able to prepare a preliminary back cover - which never went into print.

The back cover and the booklet show how badly coordinated the whole project was. The booklet contains the earlier "Home On The Range" title for Cabin Essence, and "Vega-Tables" still being part of "The Elements" which obviously had been decided to be a track of its own by the time the tracklist was written. So much for Brian having a completed conception of what SMiLE was to consist of!



I absolutely disagree. Whenever Brian recorded a section, he had a certain spot in a certain song in mind. For instance, when he decided to put the Bicycle Rider theme into H&V, he rerecorded it. The several sections of "Cabin Essence" and DYLW all were recorded seperately, but the same day.



Absolutely!

What makes you so sure of an "elements side/theme" in the first place?

You're right.

To belabor the dinosaur fossil analogy... BWPS is more like the standing skeleton, with a menacing pose.  Plaster bones added to approximate the complete skeleton.

But the full fleshed beast -- SMiLE -- is anybody's guess.  Most importantly -- I don't think its creator saw the finished product.  There's no blueprint.  It was a painting in progress and that's it.  No way is it finished.


Addendum:  For all intents and purposes The SMiLE Sessions is what I call the "completed product."  As best as it can be, of course.  It must be heard and thought of as the SMiLE Project.  Great box.

I hope this thread and the speculation aspect of SMiLE discussion especially, continue on. But as before, I feel we could end the thread with your last post as a final word and in a sense, it'd be perfect.

That's no longer possible though…

If you're referring to my last post...yeah. I mean...I don't want this thread to end, but Bean Bag has a talent for summing it all up perfectly.

   Thanks to everybody who has contributed to this Smile discussion after getting off to a rocky start. I realize it's become somewhat out of fashion to discuss a lot of the things that have been brought up in this thread. It seems like since BWPS  the pervading feeling is sort of "been there done that" with the more jaded Beach Boys fans, but personally I still enjoy expressing and reading about other people's thoughts on the possibilities of a '67 release. I understand it was left unfinished and we may never know much more about  a '67 Smile  than we know right now, but for me, the very fact that is was left unfinished is what makes it a great topic for discussion such a source of fascination. So, I hope this thread can continue in the spirit it was started, and not let the people who dismiss further discussion put the brakes on it. There are plenty of other threads here  for people who want to speculate on Dennis Wilson's love life or Jeff Beck's opinion of Brian Wilson. Those are fine and dandy by me, but Smile still remains the most interesting and pivotal chapter in The Beach Boys story.
     

I agree, this has been great.  I'm an old lurker from the Smile Shop days about 10+ years ago, and it is nice to have real Smile conversations from time to time.

Thirded. I've been a lurker on this board since the sessions boxset was released. It was fun to read all the discussion then. It's been fun adding my own thoughts now. I understand people who consider BWPS definitive, but not those that comment for the sole purpose of shutting down meaningful discussion other people are passionate about. Just my two cents on the matter.

To follow up on Micha's comments - yes, Prayer sounds amazing leading into Worms.  It's my preferred opening track to the album.  We try to figure out a track sequence by what. Brian did in the past - use singles to start or end sides - but wasn't Smile all about thinking outside the box and defying convention?

When was Prayer in a different key - during the rehearsal session?

In terms of the booklet, it was done much earlier than the track list and Frank was relying on Van Dyke's information regarding titles and lyrics.  That may explain the lack of coordination between the title list (submitted by Diane or Carl at Brian's behest) vs the booklet info (submitted by Van Dyke earlier in the process).

Brian may have had a convention for track order of all the albums under his full control at least though Friends. Did he?

On the other hand, having an introduction to the album would have been unconventional and unprecedented for Brian.

On the third hand, how can we be confident that an introduction made the cut in Brian's mind?

Exactly why I don't put nearly as much weight on the booklet or back cover as some people do. You're right, it's possible Brian wouldve defied convention and done something else for SMiLE. Just vote with your ears.

I think it's cool how Brian was exploring the religious/enlightening effect of music and laughter in this LP. One side beginning with Prayer and the other with Moaning Laughter (or ending with it) could be a cool concept that ties it all together. Maybe.

While I'm still not 100% convinced of this shuffling sections between Worms/CE/'Iron Horse' I think it's interesting and actually further proves my theory that those tracks were linked in Brian's mind, and wouldve been on the same side in 1967.

You're quite right, I think, to question whether anyone can speak with confidence that Prayer would have opened the album even though there is a recording of BW saying that it is  indeed intended as an untitled album introduction. The only thing we can say for sure is that at the time of the recording that was the intention. Things changed so often, who knows if it would really ever have made the cut? I do like to use it as an intro to the album, followed by DYLW, and the case can be made that Prayer ties into that song's lyrics about the Pilgrims coming to America to have religious freedom and the subsequent desecration of the "church of the American Indian". So. personally, I am of the mindset that DYLW would have been the album opener if Prayer was used as an intro, just because it makes a lot of sense. Plus, it was the first track on the Captol tracklist memo, which I believe was a lot less random than a lot of people hereabouts think.

It's true...no telling if Prayer was scrapped or not. It wasn't on Smiley, even though it was basically done. Could that be proof it was part of Worms originally then? It couldve easily been tacked on to GV or H&V, but not Worms as that was abandoned for Smiley.

Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree. In Smiley-Wonderful, someone says "don't think you're god, just be a cool guy." Maybe Brian saw this "spirituality of music" idea of SMiLE as untrue to his muse or beyond his powers of expression.

This.

I don't know man, SMiLE is one of those ever changing things isn't it?...Like a lot of us, I've been through SO MANY head trips over this dang album. Kind of like Paul McCartney's lyric in "The World Tonight" (I go back so far, I'm in front of me)

The evolution of SMiLE perceptions is as interchangeable as the album itself.

I can remember discovering it, and thinking about how brilliant it would have been if only "those assholes" would have gotten out of Brian's way and let him lead the way as he had always done. (remember those days?)

Now of course, I realize that NO ONE except Brian Wilson could have stopped that album. Did he encounter resistance? OF COURSE he did. EVERY ARTIST who's ever tried to do something different has encountered that. BUT he could have said F**k you, I'll do it without you if i have to. (and in those days, he COULD HAVE)  

The damn thing was ALMOST complete enough to assemble, save for some GLARING OMISSIONS. (how could "Worms" NOT have had a lead vocal put on it? Oh, that's right, Brian was busy recording Jasper Daily!?)

As far as what SMiLE would have been, that's IMPOSSIBLE to say because the goal post was moved every time the whims of the creator changed, which was the only thing about the project that was CONSTANT.

Look at the tunes. as a cohesive set of songs, they barely even fit together. Oh, they work all right, but that's because they all (most) have the Beach Boys wonderful vocals to make everything gel.

There's the Americana trip. (H&V, Cabinessence, My Only Sunshine, Barnyard)

The Health trip (I'm in great shape, Do a Lot, Vega-tables)

The Spiritual trip (Prayer, Child is the Father, Wind Chimes, Wonderful, Surf's Up)

It seems he was recording songs in line with his current obsessions, which is very creative and "in the moment" but a bit of an obstacle when it comes time to assemble a cohesive whole.

Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE SMiLE no matter WHAT order it's in, but you guys know what I mean about this stuff.

A couple of other things I want to mention.

The Elements: BRILLIANT idea, but it wasn't finished. All we REALLY have is "Fire", so, for me, I don't even try to incorporate "The Elements" into any of my versions of SMiLE. Sometimes, I don't even USE "Fire" at all.

H&V: Ahh..The Bigger, Better, followup to Good Vibrations. NOT. This tune REALLY had Brian working his tail off. I seem to recall him saying something at one point about it putting him on a "Three Month Bummer"

Count me as one of the people who think "Vega-Tables" would have been a better followup to "Good Vibrations"

Speaking of H&V, I don't know if this is the right thread to do it in, but I would like to see a "Evolution of H&V " thread happen where we try to combine contemporary comments/musings, along with trying to construct edits as we go (using what we have) to get an idea of what state the song may have been in at the time.

Example:
What was that May 1966 version of H&V supposed to have been? Did anybody ever say how much of it there was, and is this the version AL Kooper was talking about when he said it incorporated "You Are My Sunshine?

When was Al Kooper on the scene anyway, and was he at the studio, or up at Brian's House?

Just for kicks, I did assemble a version of H&V that mimicked the demo played for "Humble Harv" and was pretty happy with the way it turned out. (though I never finished it up proper)

Has anybody here ever made a H&V edit incorporating "You Are My Sunshine"? I would like to hear how that would work. I will do it myself eventually if no one else has.

As near as I can figure, It always started cold with "I've Been In This Town So Long" and went up to the part where the second section would go (Sunshine, Great Shape, Cantina, H&V Chorus) any body else have any thoughts on that?

 :)

Oh Yeah, I almost FORGOT! I prefer my SMiLE as songs instead of suites!









 

In case of Smile there is absolutely no certainty!  ;D
So, therefore neither can I be certain..I just feel there is some unified theme amongst some songs..but to make myself clear I didn´t write Smile and cerainly I am not BW so my opinioN doesn´t count   :-D
Just wanted to say that these songs somehow go together..if I made myself clear...
For me THE SONGS not suites is the way to go, just so justice can be done to each song itself!
To qoute Mikie: "it was just 12 beautiful tracks with lives of their own. A bunch of songs about a musical journey across America from East to West; about modern American history and culture, including the Wild West. .."
THAT´S RIGHT..

There are so many pieces of SMiLE that are really short - too short to be counted as 'songs'. Maybe they were intended to be one of the layers in a song. Some could fit into more than one song. These things make it hard to imagine SMiLE as the normal type of album with a collection of songs. I therefore quite like the idea of suites. I'm not sure whether this would have worked had it been done in this way in 1967. Some would have considered it pretentious. SMiLE is like a piece of kinetic art. It is possible to assemble it in a multitude of different ways (and God knows it has been given this treatment and not just by Brian).  "Time will not wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety'" - if SMiLE is a She.

SMiLE is too beautiful to NOT be a She  :)

I"m a little sceptical about Kooper's linking of Sunshine with Heroes - he was never booked on a session for Heroes, but he may have been an onlooker.  It was in his biography that this was mentioned, I have the quote back home somewhere.  It was likely the May session which was scrapped, and interestingly was BEFORE Van Dyke started collaborating with Brian, so he must have had the title and presumably the verse section music already written.  Maybe Sunshine was the middle section, to be replaced by Shape and then cantina?

That explains why the coordination was bad, but doesn't excuse it. My point was not, however, to ask why the coordination was bad, but to state that it was bad right from the start. Another thing: It would have been much more sensible and respectful to lay out all of the Frank Holmes drawings full page size instead of just one of them printing the others in thumbnail fashion. They obviously thought band photos were more important.



Absolutely. Personally, I use You're Welcome as intro as it is in the same key as H&V and leads nicely into it. I like to believe that YW actually was intended as new album intro, although there isn't any proof for that whatsoever. Anyway, I think "Prayer" is not a good intro to an album called "SMiLE" with a funny album cover like that, but "Prayer" would be a perfect opener for an album called "Dumb Angel"...



My H&V edit for my "12 tracks reflecting BWPS" SMiLE incorporates it. It is, obviously, the ending, edited in after the "tape explosion". Basically I incorporated it to reduce the number of tracks to 12! ;D In my earlier compilations "Sunshine" ended side one.



Absolutely!

We'll have to agree to disagree Micha

The original plan of the booklet was 6 pages of illustrations by Frank, 6 pages of photos.  Frank was surprized when he got the proof and his pages had been reduced to two.  I was hoping with the Smile sessions they would restore the original plan but that was not to be - I even suggested that as a way to get Frank to license the art.  As it is he got additional artwork into the accompanying book with the box set.

I don't remember what his book said but Al told me in 2000 "IT WAS ACTUALLY JUST A BIZARRE ARRANGEMENT OF "SUNSHINE"
HE MUST HAVE DECIDED LATER TO MAKE HIS OWN SONG OVER THE TRACK ".

My memory is Al said in his book that Brian played them (he and Anderle) a recording of the track just shortly before Pet Sounds was released.

PS. the all caps was Al, not me.

Conceptually and musically, SMiLE makes more sense as 3 movements than 12 songs. Historically, I don't think either Brian or VDP ever had any real idea of its final structure in 1966/1967. The infamous 12-track list almost everyone drools on is something some suit (or suit-minded people anyway) tried to force on Brian, and one of the reasons he called it all off.
If he had believed in that list, he could have released the album fairly easily, but he didn't believe. The only way SMiLE could have been released in 1967 is some geniuses at Capitol and elsewhere endorsing the idea of a double album. Then we would have something similar to the BWPS vinyl: first side with the great "Americana" songs, second side "Cycle of Life" songs (almost everybody seems or seemed to agree that they flow very well together!), third side the more chaotic and fragmented, but still extremely brilliant, "Elements" (or health, or whatever). Fourth side, good extras (H & V outtakes etc.) otherwise left on the cutting floor. I am not saying this would have happened (probably not), I am saying it was the only chance.
Or so I think.
Switching from speculation to reality, I love Smiley Smile, the SMiLE section in the Good Vibrations box, BWPS and the Sessions box. My fav: the "BWPS recreation" with the original recordings in disc 1 of the Sessions box.
Unreleased? SMiLE? Must be the most released album ever.  :smokin

I disagree. I think he certainly had all of the songs thought out and he still had them thought out when he restructured them. That is what the physical evidence tells me. Brian also was proud at the time of and explaining publically how he spent a lot of time in advance and planned out each song taking into account the groups strengths and capacities.

He did talk about movements, but movements within songs and not albums.

The albums were well thought out and planned, Brian was also explaining how he also thought out in advance the whole album. He gave an interview after the release of Pet Sounds while he was working on GV and explained “If you take the ‘Pet Sounds’ album as a collection of art pieces, each designed to stand alone yet belong together, you’ll see what I’m aiming at."
Not "was aiming at" but "am aiming at". So not movements within albums but separate songs with movements that were designed to belong together as an album.

That to me all means 12 song album, no album movements, each song well planned out, and the whole album well planned out in the way Brian envisioned it. Probably not the way we envision it.

I agree Cam. A song like 'Cabin Essence' fully supports what you are saying!

Yep. Between Rio and Cam's theories, I personally think Cam's got it closer. I advocate for 2 suites, but even then each suite, I would argue, was to be composed of fully independent tracks. To say SMiLE makes more sense in a 3 movement structure is just flat out wrong. There's so many fanmixes out there that have alternated the structure and I'd argue they all work in their own way. There's some I vastly prefer to BWPS/TSS.

I would agree that the infamous Tracklist is a red herring that was probably made up by Carl, Diane or David Anderle for Capitol's appeasement. Not necessarily made behind Brian's back, but so that he wouldn't have to deal with their nagging. Brian wasn't good with dealing with the business. Aren't there reports of him refusing to leave his room to speak with David about certain ungoing business matters? This seems to be the same type of situation.

Are you saying that H&V started out as OMP/Sunshine? Wild. Brian did have the H&V music written before VDP came on board--there's that anecdote about him coming up with the opening line on the spot. Could it be Sunshine merely inspired the idea of H&V? A song about lost love?

I agree with all of this. Just, I personally dislike your version of a second side. I agree there were linked themes. But I feel like just looking at what was recorded, there's no proof of this "elements side/suite" that seems so popular. I think that LLVS, years of fan speculation and later, BWPS have caused this false connection to be anachronistically applied to the original fragments when there's no real solid evidence for it. And just listening to the recordings and voting with my ears, Chimes, Veggies, Fire and Surf's Up would sound horrible together. There's no flow musically and no bridging themes or anything.

I don't remember and I'm too lazy to dig out the book...what was the reason Capitol requested the list of SMiLE tracks that necessitated the infamous hand-written list?

Wonderful was never finished, but a tag wouldve probably been added. Barnyard and GS were H&V fragments, possibly recycled into "Great Shape" the finished track, which I argue would be a medley. Fire was part one of an unfinished medley called "The Elements." OMP is short. I'm probably in the minority, but I think it wouldve ended up on the cutting room floor come a 1967 release. CIFOTM wouldve been about 3 minutes according to Brian's test edit. Prayer wasn't supposed to be a track initially. IWBA/Workshop wouldve been an element if you believe Carol Kaye, or part of GS perhaps.

So yes, there's small bits. But no proof that means BWPS-style suites. Keep in mind, Prayer/Barnyard/Fire were never originally meant to be standalone tracks. I'd argue having 30 second fragments rubbing shoulders with the likes of Cabin Essence and Surf's Up is one of BWPS/TSS's greatest flaws.

To make the back cover slicks in advance so they could press the album the minute Brian was ready, I'd imagine. The album was already late and GV's popularity wouldn't last forever. Gotta ride that wave while it's high.

That's what I thought but I wasn't sure. OK, from all the stories we've read about Brian's irresponsibility, drug abuse, and various other things preoccupying him in late 1966, one could make the argument that he didn't give a sh-- about fulfilling Capitol's request for the song titles. However, I have a different opinion. If a record company is asking an artist - even Brian Wilson in 1966 - for a list of songs titles because they want to begin printing album covers, I find it hard to believe that Brian would fu-ck with them. What kind of jerk would give the record company the wrong titles, and then knowingly have Capitol print erroneous album covers? If he didn't think the songs were complete enough or he thought the titles were subject to change - COULDN'T HE JUST RESPOND BY TELLING THEM SUCH AND REFRAIN FROM SENDING THE LIST? And I don't know who actually wrote the titles on the piece of paper; I think it's irrelevant. The list was delivered. Needless to say I've always put a lot of stock in that list.

A very valid point. And perhaps that list was accurate--for a week or month or two. But then why work on Dada and Tones, sacrifice Worms and Child's choruses to other songs, and never finish GS/Elements or add more to make OMP a full length track? Like every SMiLE mystery, there's no clear cut answer here.

I just ignore it, BWPS's Tracklisting, LLVS and fan speculation and most interviews about SMiLE and try to go by what makes the most sense and what sounds right. Not a perfect system, but then nothing is. I just don't see OMP--even with its original fade--as a track. It's too short, too fragmentary even by SMiLE standards, not up to snuff quality wise and wasn't written by our star collaborators. It just...doesn't fit to my ears. Again, just my opinion and speculation. But it just seems like a wasted track, not on par with the other songs or Brian's previous work. Look and Holidays are considered lower tier SMiLE tracks, but they'd be far worthier inclusions, I'd say. Look even had vocals at the time. It's possible Tones (which also had vocals) and Dada/All Day were attempts at making a track to replace the lackluster Sunshine.

I agree that the list might've been relevant/accurate for only a week or a month or two, but I still think that's pretty important. It might only be a snapshot in time, but what an important time! It's quite possible SMiLE was about ready to be released at that particular time (when the list was submitted), only to have Brian blink. Again, the list WAS able to be submitted, and I tend to put more emphasis on something tangible like a handwritten note than some of the interviews by observers (though they can be valuable, too).

I don't know if OMP was a separate track or not, but I wouldn't base it entirely on its short time (and I know you're not). "And Your Dream Comes True", "Meant For You", "Do You Remember", "Whistle In", and "You're Welcome" were short stand-alone tracks to name a few. OMP also provided a rare Dennis Wilson lead vocal, and finally, Brian had cover versions on most of his albums.

More good points. I'd argue December '66 was the last time Brian really had a handle on where he was going with this. I believe that's when the list was submitted, so...

I've speculated it was second thoughts on Fire and the inability to write the other 3 elements sections which caused all the confusion and rewrites. Perhaps without the Elements, GS was also abandoned, and Tones/Dada were new tracks being worked on to fill that void?

I edited my post just after you responded. One more last point and I'll get off of it. I admit that OMP/YAMS is far from the best or my favorite SMiLE track, but it does get a Dennis lead vocal on there!

I wish he had sung lead in CE as (apparently) was the original intent...

It's interesting that there isn't a Dennis vocal for "Cabin Essence", considering that was obviously the original intent and he apparently had a hand in producing the 20/20 version.

I agree with you. And wouldn't you think that an earnest attempt would be made to put the song titles in the correct order rather than randomly, even though they included the caveat  "see label for correct playing order"? It was a work in progress, after all, and I understand that BW wouldn't want to commit completely to a run order, but he must have had some idea as to how the sequence would go. I would think that, at the very least, BW had a plan for how the album started and ended and that would be reflected in the submitted list. Honestly, if you're just writing down the titles from memory or something, how is it that the biggest record on the planet is THE FIFTH SONG that you think of? Sorry, but that just doesn't wash for me. It's interesting to note the placement of Cabin Essence as sixth on the list. If you assume, just for the sake of argument, that each side would have had 6 tracks, and the list was an honest effort to present a  running order, that means Cabin Essence was planned to close out Side 1. Of course, as we all know, Cabin Essence closes out the first suite of BWPS. Is that a clue perhaps?


If you combine OMP/YWMS with Barnshine it's not all that short.


It's long seemed to me, especially given it's association with Cool Cool Water, that the May '67 I Love To Say Da Da sessions were an  attempt to complete a proper 4-part Elements.

That's absolutely fine with me, no ill feelings, but about what point exactly? :)

During the Christmas break '66 Brian's seasonal effective disorder kicked in and instead of wanting a great album he decided he needed instead to top Good Vibrations as a single. "Good Vibrations" his number 1 in December of 1966. Coincidence? So now it's "Where's the single, Brian?" So now "Heroes and Villains" took precedence over everything. In desperation to make "Heroes and Villains" the greatest single ever he started taking all the good ideas he had for Smile as a whole and in the process dismantled the rest of the record. Heroes and Villains is a black hole that sucks the rest of Smile into it. This was not some grand suite of reoccurring themes - this was an album that got consumed by a single track for the sake of topping the untoppable. When the priority changed from album to single...THATS when Smile died. And evidently this revelation came at the end of December.

Dada began life as All Day, a H&V fragment. The title 'Dada' the "wah-wah" vocals, the anecdote about Brian drinking chocolate milk from a bottle...it all points to a Child/Innocence/Life/whatever-you-wanna-call-it track. I don't know why this elements connection seems so certain in everyone's mind, BWPS revisions aside. Plus, I distinctly recall a user on these boards claim you can hear a 'third movement' within this song as the sessions fade out that sounds like CIFOTM. Dada wasn't listed as "The Elements: Water (or Air)" like Fire was.

I'd argue that The Elements as it was initially conceived was abandoned. Maybe CCW and later MOLC & IBH grew out of it. But the four part instrumental with crossfades was not to be. The initial idea for water was water sounds spliced together, air supposedly was going to be on piano. As far as we can tell, none of these exist if they were ever even attempted. That's why I urge people to just forget about trying to find the other elements and forcing a connection where there is none. As far as SMiLE 1967 is concerned, it's just another track that wasn't finished. Probably the least finished track of the lot. Just accept that, and let it be.

Now we know the real reason(s) of SMiLE's "demise", at last. Not evil Mike, nor evil Capitol, nor evil drugs, nor evil '60 recording technology: it was a conspiracy between an evil (albeit effective) disorder and that source of all evils: H & V, the Black Hole.  >:D

All I can do is state my preference for how I listen to and enjoy the SMiLE music, since we'll almost certainly never truly know what the original plan(s) for the album in '66/'67 were.  Brian clearly feels the matter is settled now, and I'm not about to argue with him, but it's also true that BWPS is not the album that would have come out in the '60s, so I don't even try to reconcile the two in my head.  I feel lucky to have a "finished" SMiLE album now *and* to have all the tracks from the original sessions.

I greatly enjoy BWPS as it is, with the three movements, so I prefer to listen to it as Brian and company intended.

I greatly prefer listening to the vintage tracks as an album of discrete tracks when I put them together on my iPhone/etc. for day-to-day enjoyment.  I basically just cut out all the fragments, all the obviously unfinished tracks, and just take complete, listenable, enjoyable *songs* and put them in a sequence that sounds good.

Best of both worlds.  :)

Obviously my post made so much sense that it was doomed to invite mockery.

It's possible you are perfectly right, but only Brian could ever confirm that.  However, I don't think he ever thought of "The Elements" as a big MOLC, 8-odd minutes of chaotic "elemental" instrumentals. For all Brian's avant-gardeness at the time, we are not talking John Cage here! For me, the 4 Elements are there in their full glory: Vega-Tables, Wind Chimes, MOLC, Water Chant/In Blue Hawaii. I know only that they are there to hear, far more real than any speculation, and they work beautifully.

By the way, I like your fanmix. Though I belong to the minority Church of the Three Movements, I like fanmixes with different structures: beauty in variation.
However, even your excellent mix shares the usual problem: while the songs distribute very naturally on 3 suites (Americana, Cycle of Life, The Rest), if you try to split them in 2 parts choices become so much more arbitrary. Where do you put MOLC? Wind Chimes? Vega-tables? Any of the "fragments"? No two mixes agree on that.
One 12-song album and no suites solves the splitting problem, at the price of making the sequencing one completely unsolvable.

That's my argument for the 3 movements: historical or not (and I guess not myself!), it's by far the more natural structure, given the songs as they are.

Well, at least now you know that somebody reads your ******* posts.  :)

Thanks man. I'm glad you like it. Obviously you're content with 3 suites and I'm not trying to diminish that for you, but I'd like to defend the 2 sides structure, not because that's what I used but because ultimately that's what Brian would have had to as well.

I don't think there's any connection between Veggies/Chimes/Cow and Dada. None whatsoever. They are all wildly different in tone and instrumentation. I think the third suite of BWPS is by far the weakest because of it. Veggies with its upbeat silliness into Chimes' serene meditation into Cow's pure horror into Dada's tranquility...it just doesn't flow at all.

I think Brian of 2003 wanted to express the elements in his show, but the original track (and I can't emphasize this enough: the elements was ONLY a single instrumental track in '67, NOT a four song suite) was never finished and long forgotten. I think the fans influenced the structure of BWPS. Either Darian (if you believe he sequenced it) or LLVS/fan speculation lead to Veggies/Chimes/Dada being repurposed as elements when there's no proof that was the original plan. This is another reason I don't consider BWPS definitive.

I've said it before, I think Chimes goes into the Innocence/Life suite and Veggies into Americana. Chimes could be interpreted as a song about the anticipation of death. One of the people on this board proposed that and wrote a wonderful 'essay' about it. It features prominent horns similar to Wonderful/CIFOTM/Surfs Up. Barring some great new discovery, I'm completely convinced these four tracks belong together. Veggies sounds like Heroes' musical twin. Got the same upbeat sound with dark undertones, fits in with the Americana theme (agriculture, fertile land.) Again, unless we find some long lost recording of Brian saying otherwise, I'm convinced H&V/Cabin/Worms/Veggies were meant to be together.

After that, it's up in the air. I guess OMP would go into Americana, GV into Life/Innocence, and the Elements and Barnyard suites into whatever side. I chose to use Cow in Americana to represent the 'reforging of America' under the white man, and CCW/Dada in Life because all life comes from water. Of course Brian wouldn't have done that, but I can only work with the fragments he left us.

I believe  the title LTSDD was making a reference to Dada, an avant-garde art movement, as the concept of The Elements was certainly that (at least in the world of The Beach Boys). This from a Wikipedia entry: "Dada was born out of negative reaction to the horrors of World War I. This international movement was begun by a group of artists and poets associated with the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. Dada rejected reason and logic, prizing nonsense, irrationality and intuition."  I think the Elements connection persists because the song would evolve into Cool Cool Water, and even in BWPS,  it is part of the water section of the third suite along with the chant. At least that's what I take from BWPS.

I agree Elements doesn't flow if you put Veggies/Chimes/Fire/Dada.  The only other piece besides Fire we know at one time was slated for Elements is Veggies (cornucopia version).  But without the other sections it doens't make much sense either.  Elements was unfinished - however, when Carl put together the track list for Smile in 1972 planned as a release with Holland, he included I Love to Say Dada (incorporating Cool Cool Water).  That's one reason why some feel Dada was to be the water element, besides the musical similarity to Cool Cool Water recorded later, and besides the fact Preiss identified it as water (but in his description he was talking about the water chant recorded during the Wild Honey sessions).

The track list is crucial in understanding what Brian's concept of the album was in December 66, as it was planned for release in January.  He had a month to finish it - what tracks could he finish in a month, and what tracks did he want on the album?  The list tells us.  Of course he was wildly optimistic about being able to finish it all, least of all in a month.  The Pet Sounds track list submitted did not follow the album sequence - but then that list wasn't used to make a back cover slick, which gives it more permanance but the fact that the back cover was never printed while the front cover was is probably significant.

It's definitely a double-meaning. No argument there. Just as Vega-Tables is an oblique reference to astrology and Cabin Essence is a play on the word cannabis. But I still don't see how that connects it to water.

Excellent argument for the 2 suites, Mujan. Want only to point that 4 music pieces representing the Elements are supposed to be wildly different in tone and instrumentation!
And "Veggies with its upbeat silliness into Chimes' serene meditation into Cow's pure horror into Dada's tranquility" is exacly what I'd expect from an Earth -> Air -> Fire -> Water trip, and the reason it works for me.
I'm not saying that I am "right", mind you. Rather, that everyone is right, as we can't know how the "original SMiLE" would have been after all (I think not even Brian ever knew that!). So everyone is free to imagine it as they like, and that's the beauty of the whole thing.
But the full-fleshed (and maybe with multicolored feathers) "T-Rex SMiLE" was doomed to inexistence in the real world. Poor Brian wanted to make a 40-odd minutes album, every single piece of it as perfect as Good Vibrations, and nobody in the world could have pulled that out.

I obviously agree, as I posted most of this ^ above. I don't think there is ENOUGH discussion of the handwritten list. Either you believe that Brian was trying to comply with Capitol Records' art department...or you don't. If you believe that Brian tried to be as accurate as possible, then more time should be spent picking apart those song titles in search for answers. It's one of the only concrete pieces of evidence we have.

If you don't believe that Brian was being sincere, and I can understand that point of view, then it falls into something like this:

(in the studio sitting/lying around between sessions)

Brian: I got this phone call from Capitol; they want the titles for SMiLE so they can start printing the album covers. They wanna get going on it.

Carl: What are you gonna do?

Brian: Well, I told 'em last week that I'm almost done, but it ain't done, do you know what I mean. I'm pretty sure I know what it's gonna be. I just have a couple of vocals to do then I'm done. But, right now, I'm not totally sure.

Carl: Are you gonna call them?

Brian: No, they want something written down. They said the titles were weird (laughs) and they want it in writing (laughs again)! Hey, do me a favor. You know all the songs we've been working on. Just write 'em down and send 'em to Gene at Capitol. I'll call him later and explain things to him. Me and David are going to look for a ping pong table. See you later tonight...

Carl: (nodding, sighing)

Things were going well when the list was submitted, but it was later in December that Smile got derailed . . . and Brian halted work on everything but the singles.  The Cabinessence deal went down - now, don't get me started on all that, we don't want the discussion to degenerate, but that is significant - and maybe Brian did have a meltdown of sorts.  And suddenly the track list was ignored and pieces of songs were uprooted for the singles.  But later in April 67 Brian is giving interviews still talking about a "12 track album" that is almost finished except for the Elements!!

I'm pretty certain at this point that the Cabin Essence incident is way overblown, as was Mike's objections in general. Far more likely Brian himself lost sight of the end game and gave up. I've said it before and you've sort of confirmed it here, the Elements broke the back of the album. It was that one song that Brian was afraid of/couldn't finish, yet paradoxically was determined to convey in some fashion.

Thank you.

I guess...I'd expect some kind of continuing melody line or something between all 4 pieces. It was supposed to be crossfaded, so you would expect to have some kind of flow between them even if each piece is distinct. Similarly, tho each one lacks lyrics, there should be no doubt when you listen which element you're hearing. Fire sounds like fire. But none of the other proposed element pieces have that same instant familiarity. Dada, if I heard it without context, doesn't immediately convey "water." Nor do Veggies and Chimes convey earth and air to me. The only one I might buy is Workshop as Earth. But even that's a major stretch.

If the BWPS suite works for you tho, that's great. Just as long as you can agree it wouldn't have been that way in 1967 I have no issue.

You think it was that important to him?  I know Brian's comments aren't always trustworthy, but at one point he credit Van Dyke with the idea for "The Elements."

Also, why do you think "The Elements" was one composition instead of one track connecting multiple composed pieces?  If it was just one piece, why record part one alone?

I don't think the "Dada"/water connection is so arbitrary.  It did turn into "Cool Cool Water."  And I'm not sure the whole "child"/"youth" theme is so blatant within the tracks to be its own section or "movement."  It's a thematic element, but it seems to me that all the thematic elements of Smile tie together.  Doesn't water nourish just like a bottle nourishes a child?  Brian put the fire music in the chorus of "Cabin Essence" because fire burns coal to run the train.  He didn't keep the ideas separate because they were beholden to different sections of the album.  Likewise, we have that "Child" piano section similar to "Dada" which ends in a way to mimic the so-called "water chant."  It seems that in his mind these songs were all quite connected.  I think that's also why 12 tracks works better: you get a lot of relation between the songs, but not all the needless repetition that a 3-sided album has.  I think this idea of "movements" is much more contemporary, and I don't think it really scans well against the actual tracks, which are typically more nuanced, not unlike Song Cycle.

Yes, I do. So what if it was VDP's decision? Why does that matter? But the fact that he was still working on CCW/the water chant long after the album was canned, that he deemed SMiLE unfit to release in spite of the abundance of recorded material, that interview where he said "a third movement" allowed him to finish SMiLE...clearly he wanted an expression of the elements in there. It makes up a good chunk of the Psychedelic Sounds skits too.

I didn't say it was one composed piece. I said 4 bits crossfaded together. Goes without saying though, there's got to be some kind of link, be it a common melody or instrumentation or SOMETHING to tie these four pieces together. Otherwise it'd sound terrible (maybe Brian realized that and *that's* why the initial concept wasn't finished?) As for why they weren't recorded at once...well, why wasn't Surf's Up Part 2 recorded the same day as part 1? I don't know, that's just how Brian was working at the time.

It's not that the Dada-water connection is completely arbitrary...but at the same time, there's enough doubt that I don't see why it's so unquestionable. From what I remember reading in Catch a Wave, the original plan was for water sounds to be spliced together. Going by my own ears, Dada doesn't grab me and scream "Water!" like Cow screams "Fire!"

It's not a Child theme so much as a Life theme. Why is an "elements side" so commonly accepted yet a Cycle of Life side so impossible? As I said, Chimes/Wonderful/CIFOTM/Surfs Up all have similar instrumentation--horns and pianos/harpsichords. They're all "twists" on the kind of things the beach boys usually sang of. They play off each other--anticipating death, anticipating the future man from the growing child, love for children, love for a woman (GV), harming a woman (ironically, with "love" and then the idea that that experience will determine the woman she grows into, for better or worse.) I could go on. We all pretty much agree Movement Two was the best of BWPS. Darian said it was genuine Brian. It makes sense there's a link here. Just forget all preconceived notions of SMiLE and listen to these 4 (5 if you include GV) songs together.

 I get that you don't believe that 3 sections of a proposed Elements suite were ever recorded, Mujan, but why do you say the sections would have been crossfaded had it been completed? Has BW ever used that word in the context of The Elements, or have you read something that leads you to believe he may have said that? I don't know that that's a technique that even shows up elsewhere in Smile; I'm not aware of it myself.

Unless I'm gravely mistaken, AGD has said that VDP has said that. So basically, because I said that AGD said, that VDP said so :P

Edit: Also according to AGD (again, unless my memory's wrong) this would be the only SMiLE track to utilize crossfades. So there's a reason you haven't heard it regarding any other SMiLE music.

I think it almost a certainty that the covers were proofed and mocked up and approved then fabricated by two contractors to completion with front and back liner, including a track list, and shipped to Capitol.

First we have memos and corrected proofs of the front and back liner in December.

Second, in late March mock ups of the covers with front and back liners with track list were seen and reported on in the press with the song titles mentioned all from the corrected back liner proof (the 12 track list).

Third, in July a magazine reported Mike saying about the SMiLE album "We knew the title and songs months ago already" and "Capitol finished the sleeve in April already. I don’t know how many sleeves they can throw out now, just because the lineup of songs and some songs have changed completely." So the covers were finished with a tracklist that the titles had been known for months and they were in Capitol's custody.

Fourth, in August 1972 Capitol had memos showing they did in fact have 100s of thousands of SMiLE covers in two warehouses and they wanted to throw them out. Covers, not just front cover liners.

Besides, the fabricators printed the back cover liners when the covers were fabricated so the fact that they were covers means the back cover liner had been printed on bond paper by the fabricator at the fabricators and assembled into a cover along with the fabricators cardboard and the lithographer's front cover liner. The two cover contractors were BertCo of LA and Queens Litho of NY. Back then BertCo did its own litho front liner and bond paper back liner printing and assembly to cardboard in-house. Queens Litho did the front liner litho printing in house then shipped the litho prints to a sub-contracting fabricator (not Capitol) who printed the bond paper back liner and assembled the litho and bond to cardboard and shipped the finished covers to Capitol's Scranton plant.

Brian did seem obsessed with the Elements suite and the water section in particular.  He had Vosse recording water sounds in Oct 66.  Psychedelic Sounds has chants related to the elements. In April 67 he speaks to a reporter about having troubles with the track The Elements, and a few weeks later records Dada.  Then he records a version of Cool Cool Water in June (that shares that child like part 3 of Dada if I remember correctly), then rerecords CCW and the water chant later in the year during the Wild Honey sessions. 

Then a year and a half later Brian has Desper recording water sounds and programming them into a synthesizer keyboard for Brian to play which he never touched for a remake/rewrite of Cool Cool Water.

Of course Brian has always had a tendency to obsess over things - recording arguments on tape, astrology, Spector, Proud Mary, Shortening Bread, the Bicycle Rider theme, the All Dressed Up for School chord changes, etc.

And another thing...
The only thing recorded for Smile that we're all like 99% sure would have been a part of  The Elements does not even have a fade, just a drum pounding the fire into submission. So it makes zero sense to me for that to fade out; I just can't really picture that being a likely possibilty.

Crazy thought of the day: Brian finished The Elements and it's called Diamond Head (yeah, I know that it's not written by Brian alone).

Bubba, I think this is quite on the mark, despite some mocking sh*t from other posters. Who knows if it was for seasonal effective disorder, but it seems pretty obvious that things are being worked on pretty consistently through December, and then something changes. Sure, he's still working (and working very hard), but instead of thinking about the album, he's only thinking about one song.

I think I'm gonna take your theory a step further too. I think maybe the reason the album died was partially because Brian was behind the times still. He was worried about making this untoppable hit single, whereas a lot of the rest of the big respected groups were worried more about their albums. And while Brian was obviously tuned into making album "statements" like Pet Sounds, something in him must have made him feel that this single was more important. And I think it just might that in some way he was still tuned into that early '60s mindset of "the single is what's important" and "the album is just something to sell the album on". Because even though people say SMiLE getting canned broke Brian, it didn't seem to be as back of a hit to him as the groups lack of hit singles. I think if they consistently kept having hits from '68 to '73 like they did from '63 to '67, I don't think you'd hear the Brian from the '73/'74 interviews who was somewhat "through with The Beach Boys" since they hadn't had much success on the singles charts.


I agree that the fans influenced the structure of BWPS. More directly, at least one (Darian), just but being there and asking Brian questions and whatnot, he influenced the thing.

I also somewhat agree that those songs were kinda "repurposed" as "elements." However, don't forget that in the booklet "Vega-Tables" was titled as "My Vega-tables" The Elements. So apparently it was thought of as part of "The Elements", right?

And once again, not to bring up the same old crap, but what do you mean by "definitive"? Definitive to what. The album if it had been released in early '67 woulda been different than the album as released in middle to late '67. Which one woulda been definitive? Would a release from '72 or '73 have been definitive? I think BWPS is Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks definitive statement on what SMiLE is. What it would have been is incredibly interesting, and that's why we're here. But BWPS is the creator's final assessment. And, well, so is The SMiLE Sessions since there's a few differences there, like the placement of "I'm In Great Shape" and whatnot.


Super interesting. I forgot that Brian was still talking about the album like this by that time. It is just so odd seeing that he hadn't touched stuff like "Do You Like Worms", "Cabin Essence", "Surf's Up" or "Child Is Father Of The Man" in a while. And that during that month, he did a third version of "Wonderful" for the album. And on top of that, how about whatever "I'm In Great Shape" was supposed to be. I have to assume thatAnd there was no finalized version of "Heroes And Villains" by this point. Unless maybe he was already sure about what he was gonna do with it in a few months time (doubtful).

Exactly. And just listen to the smog skit. He goes on and on about the importance of the elements to your health and happiness. It was an essential component of the message he was intending to convey at the time.

Nope.

It sort of does, though doesn't it? It gets quieter, less intense, less orchestrated then the drums pound it out. Maybe it was to lead into a bombastic, percussion-heavy Earth section? But this is a silly argument as none of us can say. Maybe two elements would buttend to each other with a fade in the middle? I'm just relaying what I heard--the elements would crossfade.

Not that I disagree with the twelve track thing, and I'm aware Brian's quotes should aleays be taken with a pinch of salt, but I was amused to stumble on this particular quote and thought it worth posting here:

Interviewer: Since most people will be importing Smile into iTunes, should they change the order of the master takes in the folder? Or leave it as is?
BW: They should leave it as is. Because it’s the adventure I want them to take, the order it is now.

I agree Brian's focus on the single contributed to the derailment of Smile - aparrently Capitol was pushing hard for a single, as was Anderle, and the pressure on Brian was tremendous because he wanted to top Good Vibrations, which really couldn't be surpassed although Brian was trying.  If he had released cantina in February and then focussed on finishing the album, maybe it could have been released in April (as the ad in Teen Beat seemed to imply).  Bag The Elements, release Mrs. O'Leary's Cow as its' own track on the album.  His obsessing over Heroes meant the album could never get finished.

The booklet contradicts the back cover which lists them separately. Which one supercedes the other is anyone's guess. I try not to put too much stock in either, but if I were to place bets on which one is more accurate, I'd go with the cover. At least that has a small chance of being overseen and approved by Brian himself. The booklet, as I understand, is all Frank Holmes based on what VDP told him. It's possible VDP got mixed up, Frank got mixed up, or because the booklet was done earlier, plans changed. Plus, the elements was supposed to be an instrumental.

When I say "definitive" I mean, essentially, 'true to Brian's intentions (as best we can determine) for the album in 1966 before the initial concept got muddied by a variety of factors which have been discussed ad nauseum.' Obviously that's quite a mouthful, hence I just say "definitive."

I think my criteria for that would be, a presentation of the material with a two sided LP in mind. With however many (ideally 10~13) tracks of finished, fully realized musical statements. Standalone 30~60 second fragments don't count. With Brian actively taking the lead, VDP offering counsel, the Beach Boys ready to command, and with the Psychedelic experience in mind. Supposedely the inspiration for SMiLE was an acid flashback in a bookstore.

So, I personally don't consider BWPS to be "definitive" because it doesn't fit on two sides, wasn't composed or arranged with a studio LP in mind, isn't the Beach Boys, stuffs unfinished little fragments in which cheapen the presentation and ruin the flow, debatably (not saying *I* personaly think this) is more Darian's sequence, and loses the Psychedelic 'vibe' that was part of that initial cathartic spark.

TSS isn't definitive because it's just the old, unfinished fragments forced into the BWPS sequence, with each track remixed by Mark & Alan, presumably with only passive ("yeah, that sounds fine") oversight from Brian.

Essentially, any SMiLE from '66-'67 would be definitive in my book. Would a '72 album be? Possibly. If Brian took an active hand in it and finished what he started. Not if Carl and Jack just threw together the fragments in some way that pleased them, though.

And before anyone asks, no, obviously my fanmix isn't definitive either. Nor is anyone else's. It's just us Smile-o-philes playing around with what we have and trying to make some kind of cohesive musical whole out of the mess.

This is a great post. Of course Capitol ordered a complete cover, what kind of business would order just the front covers, have them shipped to them, warehouse them all, then ship them all the way back to the printer to be completed. What’s the point? Even if you question the band’s approval process of the tracklist, the back covers had gone through the steps needed for Capitol’s approval and more importantly they were expecting to start filling them with records and booklets within days of receiving them for a mid January release date, not much time to send them all out a second time for more work.

Also don’t forget the Vosse Fusion article where he states that “While the Beach Boys were in England, … it (the album) was a totally conceived entity…” . I seem to remember Anderle making a similar statement somewhere and Van Dyke stating that the reason that he was not at the Fire session in early December was that his part of the work was done and, while still available to Brian, he was no longer attending sessions.  So by the early part of December ’66 Brian Wilson knew what he wanted for the SMiLE album and this is right before the tracklist shows up. Easy job for him to come up with the list. He also stuck to working on songs from that list and a few articles from ’67 mention some the song titles from that cover so not only did Mike Love know the “songs months ago” but anyone keeping up with the music press would have too.

If you really want to know what Brian’s plan was for SMiLE in 1966, read the article “Meanwhile…what’s BRIAN doing back at base?” it includes an interview with Brian from November 1966  “While the Beach Boys were in England”. In my copy of LLVS it’s on the bottom of page 30.

Mind posting some highlights for those of us without a copy? I'm interested. Very interested. It's a bold claim to say one article essentially holds all the answers. Not that I'm doubting you per say...just that you've got me interested. Have I mentioned that already?

Earlier in the thread someone mentioned the old Smile Shop essays… just found this by chance:

http://archive.today/l8Bfa

Thanks for the link. I wish I had been around in the old SMiLE Shop days. The info in that link seems pretty outdated (claiming Little Red Book and Untitled Instrumental aka Spanish Guitar were recorded in the SMiLE Sessions) but I guess that's to be expected since it's presumably ~10 years old.

I couldn’t find a link online, but here’s the whole article from the book (which you should really look into getting.)

Meanwhile … what’s BRIAN doing back at base?
HOLLYWOOD Tracy Thomas
 
  While the Beach Boys are rocking Europe, BB-mastermind Brian Wilson, has not been resting on his and their laurels!

  This week Brian’s working on the next Beach Boys’ single, another adventure in pop music, called “Heroes And Villains,” which will be, as the BB boss describes it, “a three-minute musical comedy. I’m using some new production techniques that I think will surprise everyone. I can’t actually describe the effect- you have to hear it.”

Brian’s also working simultaneously on the next BB album, now entitled “Smile.”

  “This LP will include ‘Good Vibrations’ and ‘Heroes And Villains’ and ten other tracks,” says Brian. “I’ve written them all in collaboration with Van Dyke Parks, who’s been a studio organist in Las Angeles for ages-he also records on his own.

  “The album will include lots of humour- some musical and some spoken. It won’t be like a comedy LP- there won’t be any spoken tracks as such- but someone might say something in between verses.”

  Brian’s been in touch with one or the other Boys nearly every day, if not directly, then through one of the wives. “Carl and Dennis usually call Annie and Carol each day, and Mike and Al will call, say, every other day. They just can’t believe how nice everyone is and how much attention they’re getting.

  “To tell you the truth, we were all worried about their reception. Especially since the records that have been such big hits in Europe have been the ones that are the most difficult to reproduce on stage.

  “But I understand that the audiences are taking this into account and find the boys voices make up for the lack of violins and French Horns. They are about the best harmonisers around, if I do say so!”

  Before the Boys left, they made their first film for TV that they’ve had complete control over. “We’re excited about it because it’s a new medium for us.”

  Brian adds that “1967 should bring a series of surprises for everyone from the Beach Boys.”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The book doesn’t give the source or the date but I found them online: New Musical Express, 18 November 1966. Actually, the week ending with November 18, to be exact. Notice how that matches up with the timeline: the Vegetable arguments with Hal were that same week, the Psychedelic Sounds stuff was that week or the week before, “George Fell” was November 7. On the other side: the Beach Boys last show of the tour before coming back to LA was November 24, the Fire session was November 28, the “Crow Cries” lyric argument with Van Dyke was December 6, and the track list was received by Capitol December 10. So this was, by ALL accounts, Smile at its most expansive, experimental and un-compromised.

He already knows it will have 12 songs including GV and he is also putting the writing of the 12 songs in the past.

I never thought about the fact that Brian states that “I’ve written them all” past tense, but you’re right. That also matches what Van Dyke said about never having heard “fire” before because by that time (November 28) he was no longer attending sessions because his part of the project (the lyrics) were done and we know that by early December he was already taking other projects. It seems like at the time of this article Brian was just waiting for the guys to come back from tour to do the vocals, and every session in December, except that one lost Heroes string date on Dec 19, is a vocal session. At the point of this interview, Smile is still set for a pre Christmas release and would not be officially pushed to 1967 until the memo on December 18.

And; something to think about with the date being push to January, there is that Capitol memo from December 8, 1966, the Purchase Order for 100,000 booklets, “to be finished by 1/3/67” and the booklet Proof was sent to two printers on December 19 for 400,000 booklets to be received 1/3/67 and 1/6/67. So for the question as to why Smile was pushed back to January 1967, because that’s when the booklets would arrive. Even if the music was done he had to wait on the covers and booklets. That also matches up with the planned album release date of the week of January 15th, gives Capitol a week ( the 6th to the 15th) to assemble and ship the record, booklet and cover.

I've since updated the primer extensively with the release of c-man's session info in the Smile box set.  If anyone wants a copy PM me.

His plan for the album that he outlines in that 1967 article is very Zappa-ish.

This period around Mid-November is the last time we can put VDP and Brian together until late February I believe. Brian implies the songs are written. Earlier in November he told Humble Harv "they" were still working.

Would this Mid-November period also then be the time Siegel refers to as when VDP left the first time, tired of Brian's dominance? That suggests the two collaborators were having problems between them even before this mid-November period while they are writing the songs. This is before the Boys come back from England.

Vosse implies Brian and Van Dyke were writing well together then they were not but he has also suggested they were still collaborating right through H&V.

Anderle also claims they worked well at first and then very much not and their split around February was the main problem for the album.

This might all be baloney but I think there is a lot left to explore in the relationship between the collaborators back then.

No the last time we can put Brian and Van Dyke together is not mid-November, it’s at the Crow cries session, that was after the Beach Boys came back from tour after November 24th, with the first vocal session in December (I think for My Only Sunshine, maybe on the 2nd).

Siegel is writing from the point of view of early 1967. The paragraph preceding the one mentioning Van Dyke leaving starts with, “As 1967 opened it seems as though Brian and the Beach Boys were assured of a new world of success; yet something was going wrong.” Then the next paragraph is, “Van Dyke Parks had left and come back and would leave again, tired of being constantly dominated by Brian.”

Van Dyke is on the session contract for January 5, 1967 and there are pictures of him in the studio with Brian dated January 6, 1967. Van’s record contract was signed, if I’m remembering right, on January 6. He is heard on sessions in mid and late January, Mid February (Prelude to Fade one on them) and is playing on  sessions at the very end of February to the first or second of March, then nothing after that. 

So Parks is gone the first time in early December (kicked of the project over the lyrics) , called back by Brian by January 5th and is “around” after that through the start of March then making himself unavailable due to working on his own album.

My understanding is that Van Dyke is still working on Smile through all of November, the main part of his work of writing lyrics is done so he is no longer around all the time but still able to be called in for help as needed by Brian. That’s what happens when Brian calls him down to the Beach Boys vocal session to explain his lyrics. The most likely date for that session is December 6.

I agree that the relationship between Brian and Van Dyke really could be explored a lot more. Vosse talks about how Brian would push Van around just because he could. It seems like in ’66 Van was at the mercy of Brian Wilson, looking for his big break, but once he had his own record contract in ’67 Van Dyke eventually decided he didn’t have to put up with Brian anymore (being dominated) and stopped working on Smile and only on his own album.

Of course we also know that in March, according to Vosse and news reports, Brian had created a Heroes mix, possibly 5 minutes long so it seems like maybe Van stopped showing up in March at first because Brian was done with him. But when Brian went back to work on the rest of the Smile songs (late March early April) Van was deep into doing Song Cycle and wouldn’t come back to work with Brian, so Brian had no choice but to dump it all and start over. Keep the stuff he thought worked but write a bunch of new songs to fill out a new album. That Mike Love interview from July ’67 mentions that “We knew the songs months ago” but that Brian was “going through the tapes again.” So we got Smiley Smile.

I've never seen anybody make this connection but the premise of Civilization Phaze III is almost taken directly from "Brian Falls Into a Piano"

OK.  Another personal preference question.  I'm hoping to find a consensus.  Which release, including boots, do you think includes the best mono mix of "Cabin Essence"?  I remember hearing complaints about the version on TSS when it was released.  I usually prefer the stereo mixes so I'm not sure what mono mixes are out there.  Thanks in advance! :)

edit:  And for that matter which release has the best sounding "Good Vibrations"?

My favorite Smile sequence:

(all from Smile Sessions, except where noted)

1. Our Prayer
2. Heroes and Villains (Smiley)
3. Cabin Essence
4. Wind Chimes (Good Vibes Box Set)
5. The Elements: Fire
6. Good Vibrations (Smiley)
7. Wonderful
8. Do You Like Worms?
9. Vega-Tables
10. Surf's Up
11. You're Welcome

Great.. that´s what I like. One little album with "songs of an american dream" in it´s purest..
The more I look at this list the better transition between VT to SU looks..
Having said that in my mix i have to have Holidays and CIFOTM..Love those...

Interesting.  Where was this stated or released?  I remember hearing about different mixes but don't remember seeing/hearing anything this definitive.  I appreciate the info.

On the surface of it, repeating the chorus 4 times sounds like a terrible idea- repetitive and boring.  However, I would still love, love, love to hear what a finished product would have sounded like in 66/67; probably not repetitive or boring at all.

It actually sounds really good.  I just wand to confirm where the information came from.

I suppose it'd sound something like this...  ;)
http://www55.zippyshare.com/v/83910205/file.html

Of course, we'd have presumably two different verse lyrics.  It could have essentially ended up much like "I'm Waiting For The Day", in which the initial chorus is more like an intro, then verse/chorus/verse/chorus, then the bridge is more like a middle eight, and ending with a chorus (probably fading out).  This to that mix I made above, it certainly seems solid, as the sections are so quick, the whole song keeps moving and doesn't seem redundant (it only seems redundant because we only have vocals for the chorus...).  

As for sources, hold on, I'm compiling them... 

Much of the spoken parts for Civilization Phaze III were recorded in 1967. Looks like they were both on the same wavelengh on that one.

Wow, that is a great sounding version/mix. I'm wondering if you have a similar one that would start at the 23 second mark?

OK so apparently the 3 min instrumental version can be found on disc 2, track 3 of the bootleg Archaeology.  It is a vintage BW edit compiled on 10/11/66, before vocals were even recorded.  Also note that the edits were really well-done, unlike BW's vintage test mixes.  Possibly this is a 1988 Linett edit reproducing a BW vintage edit from 10/11/66?  There's tons of tape hiss so it's not sourced from the below reel.  Maybe someone has some info on that...

Once the vocals (for the chorus, anyways) were recorded on 12/6/66, the length seemed to have shortened as we have test edit acetates that Brian compiled on 12/18/66, which can be found on the Vigotone boot and then alternate tape sources of both also on Archaeology...
- bridge / verse / chorus (with vocals 1:41)
- bridge / chorus / verse / chorus (with vocals, 1:56.  Is the BW test mix that Linett based his TSS mix on)


Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here...  

So I think this is an instance of BW not really knowing, at the time, how the song would be structured, because as we know the 2004 version had a completely different structure of verse / chorus / verse / chorus / bridge.  

Oh you mean like this?
http://www64.zippyshare.com/v/58104282/file.html

Also, attach that to the end of Wonderful and see what happens... ;)

Thank you so much, as I quickly pull out my SMiLE fanmix to make a welcome addition. Thanks again! :police:

I would suggest that he did know the structure - it was the 10/11/66 3 minute edit.  When he went to work on the vocals, he did it piecemeal, so then mixed down the vocal parts with varous instrumental sections, like he did with Cabinessence - there are lots of partial mixes of verse/Iron Horse/verse and verse//Iron Horse/Grand Coulee Dam with partial vocals on different sections.  As he was recording vocals he wanted to hear how they sounded so would do these "partial" mixes.  The Durrie Parks acetates are filled with these partial mixes of Worms sections, Cabinessence, Heroes and Wind Chimes.

Hello everyone! Big Beach Boys fan, been a lurker for a while. I likely won't post too often, but I figured I should have an account anyways just in case.

With that out the way, if you listen to "My Only Sunshine Pts. 1 & 2" outtake on The Smile Sessions, near the end you can hear Brian say "This is the big finale".

Could it be that My Only Sunshine was intended as the album closer? Also I find it interesting that was listed as the last track on the infamous Capitol letter (though I do question the letter at times). Also makes me wonder where Surf's Up goes.

Thoughts? I'm sure it's been discussed, but I have yet to find anything on it.

Yeah I can see that.  But why go to the trouble of making a test mix of the incorrect sequence?  Why not just make it right the first time? 


I've always interpreted Brian as meaning the big finale to the song itself, although that is an interesting observation.

Also, I love False Barnyard but is it really a big finale?  Cabin Essence or Surf's Up and maybe even The Elements depending on how it's made are big finales.  But False Barnyard? 

Could be though.  I would be lying if I said it wasn't a cool ending to the album nonetheless. 

I would also like to learn more about Brian and Van Dyke. It seems to be in Brian's character at this time to be difficult. He spurned Mike, David, Al and eventually the entire Vosse Posse at this time. I think Al and Bruce have said they felt personally humiliated with the Farm noises and how Brian laughed at them, didn't seem to care about their feelings. VDP he set up to debate with Mike without giving him a heads up or defending the project he had previously seemed dedicated to. Brian wasn't being very considerate to others at this point.

Excellent job on that. Thank you for sharing it!

I think at the time he recorded it, he meant for it to be the finale for one of the sides. Not necessarily the album. I think he abandoned it once he used the fade in Heroes, though. Maybe he'd still had some kind of plan for OMP as a track, but no longer as the finale. Maybe he was recording a fleshed out standalone Dada or had Carl work on Tones to take its place.

Thanks for the input! I'm going to test out a few different mixes and see what happens. I personally love the idea of using the 3 minute Heroes and Villains as the first track and My Only Sunshine as the last track on either Side 1 or 2. That way "False Barnyard" ends the first song and last song of the side/album. Feels full circle.

I agree. When I still believed in the 3 suite structure, my only real significant change was replace GV with a "Dumb Angel" suite of outtakes like You're Welcome, With Me Tonight, Bicycle Rider and Barnshine. Now I see it as the closer of the Americana Side and Surfs Up the closer of the Cycle of Life side.

I agree with this. OMP + YWMS + Barnshine= OMP.  The end of the album. Done. Print it. Big Finale- BDW said it himself. It's on the list to Capitol as being last. Surf's Up (without CIFOTM ending) probably follows H &V just like the list says.

Would you be interested in sharing a resequencing ?

I agree, Surfs Up in 67 is without the CIFOTM vocals. Maybe if my theory of the wailing sounding parts of Talking Horns playing over Brians "ahhs" is right, that could be a cool transition or buttend to the horn intro to H&V.

Just curious, but do you follow the Tracklisting from January completely? Would you place Prayer before Worms too, in that case?

I wonder if the whole "genius" thing that was being bandied about in the press got to his head.

An official tracklist in January? Or is this your sequencing from what had been done up to that point?

Possibly. It'd probably go to mine. It's a lot of pressure to live up to, he realizes Mike's not up to snuff, his anxiety and/or inability to handle "business matters" perhaps frustrated with a collaborator who challenged his ideas (and, I'd argue, improved them as a result) it was just too much at once. He didn't think he could or didn't want to be God/genius/a rival to the Beatles, Zappa and Dylan. He saw what it was doing to him, how he wasn't enjoying it anymore...

Ironically, he was way ahead of the Beatles and equivalent to Dylan by going "Back to Basics" in Smiley and the Basement Tapes at roughly the same time. I feel like what makes Smiley so unique in the world of music is it was psychedelic arrangements played in simplictic arrangements but very warm, well meaning and honest. Not any kind of punk rock or garage band, more of a gathering around the piano room and express ourselves warts and all style.

I mean the infamous note delivered to Capitol and printed on the back cover.

I posted my preferred sequence earlier in this thread. It goes something like this:

Side 1
(Prayer)
1)Worms (with insert of Holidays a la BWPS' On A Holiday)   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWCh80PqEes
2)H&V (a 5:46 Cantina version)
(George Fell Into His French Horn)
3)Surf's Up
4)Good Vibrations
5)Cabin Essence

Side 2
(He Gives Speeches)
1)Wonderful
2)CIFOTM (comprised of Look/CIFOTM)
3)Wind Chimes
4)The Elements ( comprised of Second Day-Air/Mrs, O'Leary-Fire/Dada-Water/IWBA & Workshop- Earth
(Brian Falls Into A Piano)
5)Vege-Tables
(H&V Reprise)
6)IIGS (comprised of IIGS/Barnyard/Do A Lot)
7)The Old Master Painter (comprised of TOMP/YWMS/My Children Were Raised/Barnshine)

So, no, it doesn't follow the memo sequencing exactly. It's close, but not exact. Wind Chimes moves to after CIFOTM on Side 2 and IIGS moves to after Vege-Tables. Then of course there's the 5 short unlisted tracks that are fun to hear.

I like this a lot. My apologies for not remembering from earlier. Would you be interested in sharing?

What is Second Day? I see it around here a lot. Is it a section or an outtake?

"Second Day" is a Love To Say Dada (part 2) outtake session, that features a completely different instrumentation of the song.  It's on TSS, disc 4, track 13.  It's very "elemental".  It's the version with the chimes and flute flourishes in between the breakdowns. 

They are referring to the track labeled "Love to Say Dada: Part 2 (Second Day)" on the Smile Sessions box.  It is referred to as "Second Day" in between takes.  It's worth noting, in regard to the "Dada"/water connection, that in Genesis the second day involves water.

And God said, "Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."
So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so.
God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

Well whattayaknow! 

Yep, I shouldn't have shot from the hip on that. I'm thinking VDP was around and involved more than Asher had been in PS.

Now I call foul on it being documented that VDP was at a CE vocal session, that seems like speculation or presumption. What can he be documented at though and when. Wrote together, lived with Brian and Marilyn for some period, at several sessions. Was he at the CBS taping/session? 

I floated this theory a couple of years ago, but it never got much traction back then. Here's what I posted:

It occurred to me today looking at the sessionography for TSS box that maybe the title for LTSDD  Part 2 (Second Day) had some special significance. I always assumed it just meant the second day of sessions for LTSDD, but what if that is not the proper interpretation? 5/18/67 was actually the third day of sessions for LTSDD, although it was the second day for LTSDD Part 2. But why is the session labeled this way? I don't see anything else in the sessionography notated as Second Day or Third Day etc. We do know that at one point in December LTSDD was being labeled as 'All Day'. Not being a Bible reader, I thought I would check out how the Second Day fits into the story of the 7 Days of Creation, and found out that it was on the Second Day that God created the sky. I wonder now if LTSDD Part 2 (Second Day) was intended to be  it's own thing, separate from the standard issue LTSDD. If sky might be considered to equal Air, I think it does give extra mileage to the theory that LTSDD Part 2 (Second Day) was indeed intended for The Elements as Air. There was a session scheduled for 5/19/67 (vocals  for Second Day perhaps?) that was canceled. Am I reading too much into this, or do you think there might be something to this theory?

And then this post:

Just to follow up on this wild-eyed idea of mine, I offer the following quote from BW about the Air element (which I know most of us have read before):
“Yeah. There was a cut-a piano piece, an instrumental, no vocals-we never finished that.”
-Brian Wilson (“The Beach Boys” by Byron Preiss. 1979)

So they "never finished that", implying that it was started. Remember that they canceled the session for the day after  LTSDD (Second Day) was recorded. Was Brian going to finish Second Day at that session, but never got around to it because the session was canceled? Could it be that the mysterious "piano piece" has been hiding in plain sight all this time?

The shrill flute at the end also makes for a good transition into the whistle that starts off "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow".

Genius!


WHAT THE HELL ARE EARTH AND WATER??!?!!?!?

What do you suppose part 1 is?

Good on ya!

OK now we're cooking!  Two things though:

1) According to that Bible passage I just posted about the Second Day, God creates both air and water.  So we can't say that it is specifically Air, because if we are looking at Genesis as evidence, there's 50% chance of it being water and 50% of it being air.  Now, keep in mind that this song eventually became Cool Cool Water (a connection that puts Water above Air) and then was specifically called out to be the Water section in BWPS (another edge above Air).  Neither is conclusive of course, but how I look at SMiLE is by the probability--nothing is for sure this or that.  But we can look at the probability of it being this or that. 

2) That BW quote suggests that this illusive Air track was just piano, nothing else.  So that excludes all of the May Dada sessions, because there was pretty thorough instrumentation, especially on Second Day.


But this thread made me go back and try to make a new SMiLE mix based off the Capitol list, and in doing so I made a new Elements exclusively for it.  This new elements uses pieces of all four Dada sessions strung together between each breakdown, so each section sounds different.  And you know what occurred to me?  That Part 1, with all the heavy percussion sounds like rocks and boulders and pebbles...  the pieces of Part 2 sound like water trickling down a spring, and that Second Day, as you observed, reminds me of things blowing in the wind.  In a way, if all four sessions are but together, it's almost like all three remaining elements are in one song.

So that got me thinking: what if we are looking at The Elements wrong?  What if there isn't a rigid set of rules that there must be four separate musical pieces for each element, making a 4-part suite.  And instead The Elements is a longer pieces with musical motifs contained within it that elaborate on the four elements and how they interact with eachother, how they are circular...



Also it transitions into the 'Whispering Winds' segment from the Smiley Smile Wind Chimes...  

I wouldn't necessarily put water ahead of air just because of what a certain part of it turned into. The part that's being cited as air didn't evolve any further after Smile was put off and wasn't part of "Cool, Cool Water" as far as I know. But, like you say below...


It certainly does seem like all the parts work together. Part 1 has the percussion and castanet-type thing that sort of sounds like it could be rocks, part 2 has that melody that moves through it and something that could sound like droplets landing, and part three has what sounds like air with the flutes. So, it almost seems like you could edit together a section from each piece into one, collective "Dada." Then you just gotta put "Fire" somewhere.

Sonic,

Listening to your Super H&V today (fun but exhausting) had me thinking about the two versions of "Intro to" that you included early on. Given their eventual connection to Fire, I thought about their use in a way similar to what you just described regarding reprisals of the Dada variations. Friggin' Smile, right?

Jus' saying.

Oh thanks! 

I was actually going to mention that, and it occurred to me that if you listen to a) Mrs O'Leary's Cow, then b) the series of HV Intros and then c) Fall Breaks and Back To Winter, it's all the evolution of the same piece.  The song began life as the Fire Element.  After BW perceived it as a failure and actually causing flash fires, it was shelved and rewritten to be an intro to H&V a month later, rewritten and revised again to modulate from Ab to E for the Do A Lot chorus (which I mimicked in my Super H&V), then revised again three months later for an intro to a revised H&V, and then finally revised on Smiley Smile as Fall breaks.  That would explain why the piece was "mistakenly" called Fire Intro which was perpetuated to this day even on BWPS--because it was/i] Fire at some point in time. 

Also, I must have seen someone pre-edit, asking about which Dada piece was which.  Both Part 1 and part 2 were demo'd as All day during the H&V Sessions, although the performance seemed more disjointed and unrehearsed.  By May BW had figured it out and was tight.  Then one of those singular sections from Part 2 became Cool Cool Water, not the entire Dada Part 1 and 2. 

This is a rough, quick edit, but something like this:
http://www32.zippyshare.com/v/28841782/file.html

I can't say I agree with this idea, but I'd still like to hear what you've done.

To me, LTSDD Part 1  has always suggested a rolling river, cut from the same cloth as the "great big river" section of 'Rio Grande' from BW88. To my ears, the two are quite similar in feel. I don't really hear Earth in there at all.

 Now, to me LTSDD Part 2 suggests raindrops, at first starting slow, then building into a full rain shower, but I can hear your "water trickling down a spring" description as being apt also

For me, I Wanna Be Around/Workshop IS Earth. The "rebuilding after the fire" and all just seems so right (regardless of the source). Plus IWBA just sounds like Earth. I don't think I would ever be convinced it's not Earth unless  BW knocked on my door and told me otherwise. :-D

For what it's worth, even though I've given up on finding out what "the elements" was, and I think it'd be best if others do the same, I always thought the Second Day/Air Dada theory of yours was pretty cool, and well thought out. I think Second Day is a much better track title than Love to Say Dada or Cool Cool Water, though I hate to lose the LSD initials you get from using Dada as a title.

Again, quoting AGD from memory here so forgive me if this is wrong, but hasn't he stated that someone (I forget who, sorry --maybe AGD himself can step in to clarify?) told him Fall Breaks was Earth. Another poster built on that and suggested that the elements would be two variations of two different themes. The two versions of Dada for Air and Water and Fire n Fall for Fire and Earth.

Personally, I think any reconstructed Elements suite sounds...not very good. And it's all conjecture really, since at the end of the day nothing was billed as part of The Elements except Cow, so it's silly to think Dada or anything else was definitely an element. I personally think Brian realized a four part suite with such drastic variations in mood wouldn't sound good, hence he dropped it. Maybe Dada's three parts were an attempt at reworking the idea. But then if we go by that, we're still missing Fire (and if you shoehorn Cow in, it sounds wildly out of place.)

Even though it's not a vintage 1966 idea, I think Mark (and later, Mok) did a great thing by fleshing out Fire into its own separate, standalone track. Following that standard is one of the few revisions of BWPS that I think actually strengthens the material. Dada works fine as a standalone too, especially with padding from the earlier CCW sessions. The original intent may have been to string them together, but they work way better separately, imo.

It can't be, because IWBA is already in IIGS ;)

I think if anything recorded was supposed to be Earth...it was definitely Workshop. Not IWBA. Workshop. But then, I don't think it was an element anyway--I'm of the opinion that the track was dead by January, the initial ideas for the other 3 were never recorded, and all attempts at reconstructing this particular SMiLE song as an absolute waste of time. Totally baseless speculation, but I'd put Workshop in a proposed 4-part Barnyard suite (probably what Great Shape the track was slated to become) with GS, Barnyard and IWBA. Just seems right.

Regardless of the source (or her selective memory), I just can't wrap my head around it.  From every comment Brian ever made about "The Elements" before 2004, I can't see any way he'd include a cover song as part of it.  I was always under the impression that he planned for "The Elements" to be fairly innovative.  In addition to using the "burning wood" for "Fire", I'm convinced "Water" was (at least at some point) going to be constructed from and/or based around the fabled recordings of running water.  Using "The Old Master Painter" to help evoke "Americana" is one thing but I just can't see the logic of including a Tony Bennett song in "The Elements", in relation to the other things we've heard. 

In contrast, "I Wanna Be Around" makes perfect sense (to me) where it eventually wound up.  We know Brian eventually decided to separate "I'm In Great Shape" out of "Heroes And Villains" and into its own song.  I don't know off hand when the "rebuilding" session took place in relation to the session for "Fire" or the decision to excise "IIGS" from "H&V" but my guess (depending where it fits chronologically) is he either recorded "IWBA/Workshop", maybe even with the idea of actually using it as the rebuilding in "The Elements" before changing his mind regarding the latter's scope, or came up with it to specifically fill out "IIGS".  Because together, the first section talks about "great" physical health, while the second (and third) refer to the sorry emotional state and humorously dealing with it through actual physical repairs. 

As always tho, your mileage may vary.

 In the spirit of the earlier mention of a possible Biblical refernce with the title 'Second Day', I just wanted to interject another earlier post of mine since we're talking  Elements here:

The long slow low notes of IWBA/Friday Night have that inert quality just scream out "Earth" to me. Lately I've been thinking that the "rebuilding after the fire" is actually the land, once leveled by fire, slowly coming back to life. The tool sounds are symbolic of  the earth's rebuilding process. If you accept this theory, then "I Wanna be Around/Friday Night" makes perfect sense as the earth section of The Elements. Aside from that hunch, maybe the title itself is a clue in the form of a pun (Smile humor?)- I Wanna Be A-"round", as in the Earth is round. In the context of new life springing forth from the ground, "Friday Night" could be a Bible reference, Friday Night signifying the end of the Sixth Day of Creation:

" Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food." GENESIS 1:27-31

Yeah, I never bought into the "but a cover is very sturdy and dependable--like Earth!" defense for IWBA. That, to me, is just as laughable and forced as the whole "GV was supposed to be the fifth element...because...reasons" nonsense.

I believe IWBA/Workshop was recorded shortly after Fire. And GS wouldve been its own track shortly after that if you go by the January note to Capitol. So...whatever that means to you.

I think it's possible the other elements wouldve been scary like Fire. Earth could be an earthquake with pounding percussion simulating falling debris and Water being water sounds starting with a tidal wave and into a raging flash flood for example. Obviously this idea was scrapped when he decided Fire was too scary and should be scaled down to a candle.

Thanks for the info!  I've never been good with dates (beyond years) and that definitely applies to my knowledge of Smile, regardless of home much time (since 1979!) I've spent dissecting it over the years.  It seems although you and I have our different beliefs regarding Smile during the 60's, I think we have a lot in common as well.  This thread has led me to recreate my version for the THIRD time (following two previous hard drive crashes!) and I look forward to hearing your opinion of it.  I'm attacking it full force (again, re-inspired by this thread) and hope to have it done before the end of summer.  :)

Any thoughts on the sequencing of "The Elements"?
I've been trying out a few different things, and conceptually, the thing that makes the most sense to me is this:

Air -> Fire -> Water -> Earth
We have the wind going out and spreading a flame, creating a fire. Then, water comes and washes it away, leaving the people to rebuild.

Although, I've also thought about this:
Fire -> Air -> Fire -> Water -> Earth
The beginning of "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" would start it off. Then, the wind picks up this small small fire, turning into a large blaze (the second part of "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow"). Then it's just the same as the last sequence.

Great discussion!  It's fun to get back into this after all these years -- especially the elusive "Elements."

Personally -- I think the Elements (and much of SMiLE) would jump around a lot more than we (and even he) allow for today.  More snippets/cuts.  The best (completed) example of Brian's work in this area is Good Vibes.  And it jumps around a bit more than most of us would ever allow if it were left, as is SMiLE, as just a bunch of exploring, extended feels.

I realize Brian was testing/venturing outside the bounds of song structure -- but, in the end, SMiLE was going to be a pleasing, flowing work.  I think the goal of a completed Elements would have been to find a way to combine these different segments in a more daring fashion than just butting the different elemental suites together.  More of a collage than distinct movements.

Air jumps to water, back to earth, then to fire, through the air -- diving into water, crashing back to earth and burning -- a bubbling cauldron of creation -- all matter coexisting, together.

Sounds about right. I would add though, that I think that the Earth can rebuild itself

Interesting but remember that the Jews celebrate the Sabbath (the Day of Rest in honor of the 7th day) on Saturday, but the Christians celebrate it on Sunday.  So the question is, which would Brian Wilson most likely consider as the Sabbath, Saturday or Sunday? 

I'll put my money on Sunday.


Well remember
1) FN/IWBA was literally labeled as IIGS on the recording tape box.  It was NOT labeled The Elements Part 4: Some Random Jazz and Then Rebuilding After The Fire (Thanks Carol, Wink Wink)
2) The fact that IWBA was recorded the following day after MOLC shouldn't reflect anything, because Cabin Essence, Our Prayer, Wind Chimes, Wonderful and Child were all recorded in the same week, day after day, and they are obviously separate songs.  The fact that IWBA was recorded directly after MOLC should simply tell us the studio was open and The Wrecking Crew was available to record, not that they are somehow joined.

Also, maybe I be so bold but how is everyone associating Workshop with The Earth in the firstplace?  What if they were building a boat... wouldn't Workshop be the Water section then?  Or maybe they are building a plane... then it's the Air section!

I'm sorry but I don't see how the act of people building should just be associated with The Earth.  It's more likely that we are hearing a farmhouse being built, on a barnyard in the great shape of the agriculture, ifyouknowwhatimean. 

I agree with you but it is interesting to note that many cultures believed there were FIVE elements: Earth, Air, Water, Fire and AETHER or the VOID... or as the Buddhists and Hindi considered it the four elements of matter and then the fifth element that exists beyond matter and the material world.  In this sense, telepathy would be considered that fifth Element and GV perfectly fits that bill.  BW would have probably been aware of this in 66/67... 


I was researching this the other day, and it seems that most cultures give all four elements an equal ranking and they flow in a circular fashion.  Thus there is no starting and ending points.  Aristotle made this apparently:

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ce/Four_elements_representation.svg/333px-Four_elements_representation.svg.png)

But with that said, in Hindi mythos the elements were actually created in a specific order by The Creator, who began with one element and used it to create the next element:
Aether -> Air -> Fire -> Water -> Earth.  

Looks like that's the order you posted above lol

But again, we should ask ourselves: WWBWD?  In 1966, which philosophy would Brian Wilson have bought into?  Is it the Hindu order of how the Elements were created?  Or a more Classic Greek philosophy that all four are equal and cyclic?  

I'm aware there's a fifth element. I just don't buy into the idea that GV was it, or that there even was one. Aether, as I understand it, was a divine material which was said to make up the heavenly bodies. It was "perfect" so it formed into smooth, spherical shapes in the heavens. This has nothing to do with being in love...so the connection is incredibly forced and arbitrary as far as I can see. Plus, again, in 67 the elements was one standalone track. GV was its own completely separate thing. I don't think Brian, even in 2003, would've agreed with this interpretation. If it adds a new layer of meaning to people, fine. But to claim this was Brian's intent all along in the face of so much evidence and common sense pointing to the contrary is something else.

Your connection to the Eastern ideas of elements is interesting tho. I've referred to another Smiley Smiler's theory that Wind Chimes was a song about death. Part of his evidence was some symbolism of Wind Chimes meaning death in Eastern cultures. So, in that context, it's possible Brian was going in an "Eastern direction" with his elements too. Only problem I have is, weren't there more than four elements in ancient Chinese (and, I believe, Hindu) schools of thought? Like Wood and Metal in addition to Earth? That could explain Workshop (needless to say, this theory is extremely unlikely tho) and perhaps the order of the suite. Or I could be talking out of my ass and this is just another red herring

Well I'm not claiming that, I already said I agreed with you.  I believe GV would have began side B...

But the orignal Asher lyric of Good Vibrations was about telepathy; the fact that it's a love song is incidental.  Or rather, the song proposes that what we perceive as love is actually telepathy...   

Also, again if we should consider this seriously, we should look at what context Brian was putting this in.  Was it more likely Brian is referencing Chinese mysticism or white-washed Westernized Hindi spirituality as was the counter-culture at the time?  I'd say the later (no offense to Brian Wilson). 

The tapebox for IWBA/FN said "Friday Night (I'm in Great Shape)" not just I'm in Great Shape.

In LLVS there's a press article in April describing The Elements as a four part suite earth/air/fire/water.  That may have been the reporter's order of the elements but he was talking to Brian so I presume that was the planned order.

That could just mean Friday Night was a section of Great Shape. Like, the parentheses indicating which track that this section (which is called Friday Night) goes into.

I find it interesting that the order this reporter gives is the order of the third suite in BWPS. I always thought it was a huge mistake to put Veggies right after Surf's Up, but if Brian had planned it all along for the elements to be in this specific order it makes slightly more sense. Only problem then, is that Fire was billed as The Elements Part 1.

Well Friday night/workshop is the one that would make sense in I'm in Great Shape along with Barnyard - the problem is the cover tune doesn't really fit with the theme of barnyard animals and barnyard work with tools and fresh clean air.  Recorded at the same date and edited together at the end - can we still postulate that IWBA was not meant to go with Friday Night, that they were meant for separate songs?

I know there are those who disagree, but I feel one can postulate ANYTHING when it comes to Smile (just don't claim it is FACT).  Why couldn't I"m In Great Shape have followed the Elements?  If one positions Mrs. O'Leary's Cow at the end of the Elements, with I Wanna Be Around/Friday Night (Workshop) constituting the POSTULATED rebuilding after the fire following it and leading into the Great Shape/Barnyard piece - well then that's alright.  You can dig it, until you don't, and then you can shuffle the deck once more and come up with a brand new POSTULATION.  There are no rules In Smileville....other than not claiming FACT where FACT is not in fact factually factible.   :3d

THAT is a fact.  SMiLE is whatever you want it to be.  And every possible angle has already been explored many times over.

As I said earlier:



I appreciate the clarification on the chronology, especially as it backs up what I've felt since hearing BWPS. 

Not speaking for everyone here, but when I'm saying "IWBA" I mean the two-part piece of "I Wanna Be Around/Workshop Song".  I'm not just meaning one singular piece.

As I said earlier in the thread, there is no absolutes but you can look at the probability of something happening. 

What you just postulated above is possible, but less probable than it appearing in I'm in Great Shape. 

I said it earlier as well, others have said it earlier than that. 
I disagree that every conceivable combination has been tried - I personally have never heard a mix where anyone has separated the Cabin Essence verses from Iron Horse/Coulee Dam (doesn't mean no one has, just that I have never heard it) - I have wanted to try this myself as I think the CE verses would go nicely with IIGS/BY, et al.    Iron Horse and Coulee Dam could fit nicely in Worms.....there are nearly endless combinations of the individual pieces. 

I have to say that I was drawn back to the site by this thread. A few thoughts:

I do think that Brian was working on songs rather than suites.

Memo: I think that no matter who wrote the 1966 memo regarding the songs, the memo is important and instructive. That being said, I don’t think that the memo necessarily tells us anything about the order of the songs, hence the note about the correct playing order.

Do You Like Worms?: Personally, I have a hard time seeing this song as the album opener. It’s too slow and Brian tended to open his albums with a fairly hard hitting track or, in the case of Surfer Girl, a major single. Worms was neither of those. Also, I can’t even imagine a version of Smile that doesn’t pair up Worms with Cabinessence. Position Cabinessnce after Worms and you’ll see how beautifully they both complement each other. Same theme, and the chords fit together. I think this is why at listening parties people seemed to hear parts of the two songs mixed up because I can imagine Brian played them back to back a lot. That being said, I always considered Cabinessence to be more of a final track of a side song, not track 2.
 
On the other hand, DYLW does have the lyric, “Once upon the Sandwich Isles” in it. Now imagine that lyric were sung first and that the song was the opening track. That would make the first two words of Smile “Once upon.” It seems very Smile-esque and quite Parksian to begin a narrative with “Once upon the Sandwich Isles.” Interestingly, when Brian is singing the verse part in the studio, he sings the “Once upon” lyric not the “Waving from” from.

Heroes and Villains/Vegetables: Many people suggest that Heroes makes the perfect opening track because, for one, it is hard hitting and, on the other hand, it was the planned single. Furthermore, it was the opening of Smiley Smile. So at a certain level, Brian considered H&V to be first track material. Yet if we use Smiley Smile as a litmus, I wonder how far we take it. Could it follow that track 2 of Smile might have been Vega-tables?

There is some logic to this, though I’ve never seen a Smile compilation where the two were side by side. Yet on SS they are together and there is a lot of overlap between the two tracks. After all, Heroes once had the “Eat a lot” section that eventually went to Vega-tables. And the Vega-tables demo includes the underlying laughter that Brian eventually incorporated in the Cantina section of Heroes. That they ended up as track one and track two on SS isn’t too surprising. It reminds me of the time that I listened to Neil Young’s Massey Hall concert from the early 70s and heard how Heart of Gold was originally part of his song Man Needs a Maid. When he released Harvest afterwards, they were two separate tracks yet Heart of Gold followed Maid, preserving their connection in some way. While Vega-tables and Villains were probably never one track, they were connected in some ways and then appeared one right after the other on SS.

And while we’re on the subject of Villains, I don’t understand the use of the Smiley version on Smile comps (and yes, while I love BWPS, I don’t understand what was behind the decision to use that version, other than the fact that it was the hit single version). In my opinion, I can’t see Brian using both the chorus of H&V and the Bicycle Rider in DYLW on the same album. And when Smiley H&V and DYLW are placed side by side, I find the result staggeringly repetitive.

Old Master Painter: Despite some objections to its quality, I can’t see it not on Smile. In some ways, it appears very much connected with Villains too. Today I made an edit of Villains where I used the early Smile edit of H&V, removed the fade, placed OMP/YAMS, followed by the Prelude to Fade and then the  Fade. It sounded not bad.

Great Shape: The fact that this was a singular track on the memo is a mystery. Clearly there would have had to have been more to it than the track we have on the Smile box. It seems probable to me that it would have been paired with Barnyard and maybe I Wanna Be Around/Friday Night (more on this below). Maybe, as was the case with Worms and Cabinessence, there would have been a return back to the verse (the only part of Shape we have) after a chorus or another section.

I also think that while there have been good mixes of Barnyard with the Brian demo that none of them capture how the final song would have sounded. As Brian himself admits, they hadn’t finished Barnyard yet and there was probably going to be more lyrics (maybe they were written and forgotten). He sung them together on the demo but the lyrics are broken up when they are mixed with the backing track. They probably would have been together on the final track, along with other lyrics.

The Elements: Whether they would have been a “suite” or not, who knows? But they were going to be more than just Fire, otherwise he wouldn’t have called the Fire track Part 1. While I do have a good version that goes from track Vega-tables to track Fire (I tend to cut Vega-tables off before the “ba ba bum” part), I don’t think Vega-tables would have been part of The Elements. It is possible that Brian might have moved Great Shape/Barnyard to the Elements. To me that would make the most sense: Fire, Dada, Shape (with Workshop), Barnyard: Fire, Water, Fresh Air, Earth. Maybe there were more tracks on the way, but there wouldn’t have been much more album space for them.

Child/Wonderful: Yes, it sounds nice on BWPS but BWPS really was looking for those connections. I don’t particularly see them going side by side on Smile because they are so similar. Maybe Child was a cowboy song after all and would have fit in better with the Americana tracks.

I like this idea of your's for Cabin Essence. Any other off the wall SMiLE mix ideas you may have? I'd be interested in trying my hand at them, unless you'd prefer to do the honors yourself?

Thanks for writing up this fantastic reply.

I agree, I don't understand the use of Smiley H&V in BWPS/TSS. It ruins the individuality of both songs and makes it seem like Brian was lazy or losing his touch at the time when that was far from the case.

Aside from similar chords, CE/Worms also have similar motifs of travel. Bikes, Ocean Liners, Iron horses. I agree, these songs are very closely related.

I think the idea that Prayer was originally to lead into Worms is interesting. Until reading this thread, I never would've thought about it. But now I'm 50/50 on whether H&V or Worms should kick off a "definitive" SMiLE. Your insight about the "Once upon" lyrics only strengthens my newfound belief in Worms as Track #1.

OMP kinda fits with He Gives Speeches, and YAMS kinda ties into Margarita from H&V and/or Wonderful. Just a thought. I still think OMP/YAMS is a weak spot that detracts from the overall journey, but that's just my opinion.

I agree with your decision to exclude Veggies from The Elements. But then you threw me for a loop saying GS/Barnyard might've been elements. Totally disagree. As I've said before, I highly doubt any vocals were to be recorded for this track. Just because a song references "fresh clean air" that doesn't make it the Air element. It's just a lyric in another song. Perhaps an intentional motif loosely connecting two otherwise totally unrelated songs, but nothing more. I must ask, on what criteria then, do you base your exclusion of Veggies? If the memo, then why include GS which is similarly listed as a separate track?

To me, what makes it crystal clear that Child/Wonderful go together is the similarities. I must point out that your reasoning again seems contradictory here. You put Cabin and Worms together for being similar, yet Child and Wonderful together is out of the question? I'm not following you on this point.

Starting the album with "Once upon the Sandwich Isles" while a cute idea, doesn't make sense lyrically. The first verse has to "Waving from the ocean liners" because you have to make the journey  before you get to the Sandwich Isles. It just doesn't jive if you switch them around. My 2 cents.

That's also a fair point. As we all know, for pretty much any theory there are just as valid reasons to discredit it.

I will say, Prayer makes a lot of sense as part of Worms. It goes with the "*church* of the American Indian" chorus. It points out the hypocrisy of the pilgrims running from religious discrimination only to discriminate (and, you know, kill) the Indians. And as we know, Brian circa 1966 clearly stated Prayer was the intro to the album. Im parroting points others have made, but they're so strong they warrant a repeating.

Then again, H&V is the single and stronger overall track. It's gripping, it's catchy, and as others have said, it's the perfect in media res opening. I interpret it as an old man looking back on his life and his country and trying to find meaning. We start off in the old west, CE/Worms show how we got there.

I just wanted to throw this out. Feel free to hammer it as I'm not totally sold on it myself, but I am trying it out right now. ;D

This thread has me thinking a lot about the placement of "The Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine". For years I shoehorned it in near the beginning somewhere, even at times using it after "Worms" as some kind of landing/docking song, then leading into "Cabinessence", utilizing the "light the lamp" lyrics. I can't quite pull the trigger on ending with it, but it is intriguing.

Then I had an idea. I wanted to utilize it more as a love song, AFTER "Good Vibrations". When you think about "Good Vibrations", other than the theremin, what is the other dominant instrument? The cello, just like in "TOMP/YAMS". And then there is the lyric "...and the way the SUNLIGHT plays upon her hair", and "gotta keep those lovin' good vibrayions a-happening". OK, let's just say Brian continued that thought/theme, first with the cello, and then with the "You are my sunshine, please don't take my SUNSHINE (sunlight?) away". Get it - cello - cello and sunlight - sunshine. There are both kind of wishing/longing songs. I then follow "TOMP/YAMS" with "Wonderful" - she belongs there left with her liberty. Also, how close together were "Good Vibrations" and "TOMP/YAMS" recorded? Just curious.

What'd ya think?

Hey Rock&Roll, how ya been?

Well, mostly I was just floating an idea. Certainly, I'm in Great Shape and Barnyard first came to life not as Elements tracks but as part of Heroes and Villains. What I was suggesting might have been possible is that these tracks could have become Elements in lieu of no other possibilities. It is possible that the Elements was meant to be fully instrumental, but there is no evidence to suggest either way. If all the tracks were to be as long as Fire, would that mean that Brian would put a six minute instrumental on Smile? Maybe, but a part of me would is strongly suspicious of that. I will admit that the evidence supporting Great Shape/Barnyard is not stellar but consider this: I'm in Great Shape has been paired with I Wanna Be Around/Workshop, while Workshop has been paired with Fire. Others here suggest that Workshop might be Earth. Furthermore, Great Shape and Barnyard are indeed connected - one song celebrates air, the other song celebrates dirt. It's not simply that Great Shape includes the word "air" - the song is essentially about feeling good because of being out in the open air. But your point about the memo is well taken.


Cabin and Worms though don't necessarily sound similar - they simply complement each other nicely and are in the same key change. Child and Wonderful, to my poor ears, sound like they use a very similar piano riff and they are both quieter and more laid back songs than other Smile tracks. For the same reason, I wouldn't put Wind Chimes in with them either. I feel like Brian would want to space out these tracks and not have too many big epics or more laid back tracks in a row.

Been okay, Mikie! Good to see you're around. I still remember you as the first person who ever responded to me on a Beach Boys message board, back in the old century.

Thanks, man. You should post here more often - they need more knowledgeable guys like you on the board.

Thanks!   If you would like to try this, please feel free - I've toyed with the idea for ages but haven't got round to actually doing it.  I'd love to hear any results you come up with, should you choose to explore this. 

My SMiLE mix does just that.
http://albumsthatneverwere.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-beach-boys-smile-1967.html

del

My problem with this theory is that both IIGS and The Elements are listed on the memo.  So IIGS cannot be a part of The Elements as air or earth or whatever because it is it's own separate thing.  Same with Wind Chimes, same with Vege-Tables.  The Elements suites have to be their own thing, otherwise "The Elements" wouldn't have been listed that way and instead we'd see "Mrs O'Leary's Cow" and possibly "All Day"or whathaveyou. 

This is why I don't think The Elements was ever finished aside from Fire and maybe Water (if you believe that either Dada/Second Day or the Underwater Chant or maybe even the scrap of 'Water' from the Wild Honey sessions is a SMiLE leftover somehow).  All the contenders for Air and Earth were apparently not apart of The Elements.  There might be that "piano piece" that we were talking about earlier in the thread, but that's not really much to go on. 

Perhaps I'm just dense (I've been informed countless times that this is so) but... I just can't follow the whole "Smile is a musical journey from east to west across America" narrative that is purported to exist. I don't see the point of it if there is a narrative because the individual songs from the "Smile" sessions proper that trickled out in the late 60's and early 70's have always stood perfectly well on their own respective two legs for me:

"Good Vibrations"... the "pocket symphony" is precisely that.

"Our Prayer" is glorious and gorgeous.

"Heroes And Villains"... I think Hendrix referred to it as "psychedelic barbershop"... seems he meant it to be derogatory but I think of the track as just that and love it for what it is.

"Cool, Cool Water" is infinitely more interesting to me than "In Blue Hawaii".

"Cabinessence" is like... an illegally created, black ops genetic project chimera of "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes And Villains" -which is to say I like it.

"Surf's Up"... I still have to pick my sorry ass up off of the floor sometimes when I hear the 1971 version of this song. It's just... words fail it.

I prefer the richer, more orchestrated versions of "Wonderful", "Vegatables" and "Wind Chimes" from "BWPS" but I don't dislike the minimalist versions that appeared on "Smiley Smile". In fact, I wish to hell that the vocals from the latter could've been used on the tracks from the former (sorry, but for my money, vocals from The Beach Boys in their prime trump vocals from one Beach Boy and a collective of non-Beach Boy singers trying to recreate said vocals nearly 40 years later).

So, all that yammering aside... I think I like the 12-14 track concept just fine.

my preferred SMiLe for the moment is the 12 tracks one, with 2 sec of silence between each tracks:

Side A (19:22)
(prayer)
1. H&V (Cantina mix to distortion/Smiley "my children were raised/sunny down snuff"/Bridge to Indians+C&W theme/Flutter horn)
2. DYLW
3. The Old Master Painter (Barnyard/OMP/Sunshine/Barnshire)
4. Wonderful
5. CFOTM
6. Cabin Essence

Side B (19:31)
7. GV
8. Vegetables (Smile Sessions mix)
9. Im' In Great Shape (GS/I wanna be around/Friday night)
10. Wind Chimes (GV box mix)
11. The Elements (Fire SOT 17 mix with sfx/Dada pt 1(sounds really earthy with the percussions)/Dada pt2 with water sfx/Holidays whispering winds tag with wind sfx)
12. Surf's Up

I've thought about this, but never tried it.  Seems like a good solution to removing the Fade from the Cantina mix and putting it back on OMP. 

I agree, partly.   The journey, or trip, across America, in this case at least, is there but it is not a linear direction.   It is being used, IMO, as a metaphor/allegory for the present (which at that time was 66/67).   There was a cabin in Laurel Canyon, owned I think by Frank Zappa, it was, I believe, called The Cabin.  Many parties and shindiggy things went on there....Cabin Essence?    I also don't see the worms beneath Plymouth rock or the musical march of Empire which is DYLW as being solely imbedded in the past.  It's being used, I think, to echo the current state of affairs, as Brian and Van Dyke saw them.   In fact it's as relevant a song today as it ever may have been.
As well, I have long wondered about the myth of Custers smile, and if, with Van being the erudite fellow he was and is, this might have played some inspiration in the retitling of the album from Dumb Angel to Smile.   I'm not saying it did, was or is.  It's just something i've thought about for a while, because, to me, there are many ways in which the legend/myth of Custers smile would/could be poetically apropos as a title (outside and beyond simply because "it's a happy title for the happy music within".)   If you are unfamiliar with the Custers smile thing, take a read of it and see what you think.   It's only a bug I have in my pajamas - not something I am declaring as anything more than that.  :angel:

Whether intentional or not, I like to think SMiLE is a reference to Tim Leary's philosophy of S.M.I^2.L.E. The album is all about finding alternative means of inspiration and enlightenment aside from nationalism and traditional organized religion. But, like the best track titles of the album itself, I believe it's a double meaning and also invokes the idea of "a happy title for happy music."