The Smiley Smile Message Board

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTkM3uqWctg

Great video with studio footage of Brian, Al, Jim Keltner, Scott Bennett, and Don Was with lyrics.

Not sure what David Marks' contribution was to the song as session player Dean Parks is the guitarist in the video.

Cool video, great to see Brian and Al so happy working together.

Pretty funny that it's not David Marks adding the "authentic" guitar sound... Did they mean to expose that?

THis discussed elsewhere in earlier threads with explanation from Carrie - the filmmaker wasn't shooting during David's sessions as Brian wasn't on top form. David's isn't the only guitar in the mix, either…

Ah, thanks.

yes, Carrie made clear that Dave is playing the intro and the outro; I asked further if he is playing the call and response guitar parts that serve as the "solo" section as well, but no response as yet.  You all should know never to believe your lying eyes when it comes to these contrived videos.  Dave is assuredly playing those two masterful sections on guitar in what for me is a major artistic contribution to the song.

I wonder as well about the billing: who wrote this song, and who are the official artists legally?  That is, if it won an award, whose names would be nominated: BW? BW AJ and DM as a trio?  The term "featuring" always confuses me. To me the video is deeply disappointing in that it , evidently, misleads people to think DM is not on the record. My urgent posts are not likely to remedy that except within the sound of my own voice.

Bummer Dave wasn't in the video due to the camera guy snafu with Brian being sick one day. I'm glad we at least know why. Sounds like the baffling modern day equivalent of the integral member Al being missing from the Summer Days photoshoot due to illness... and I'll bet that comparison must have occurred to some of the parties in this instance.

My favorite part is Brian doing the "Baaahhmmm Baaaahmmm... Baaaahhhmmm Baaaahhhmmmmm" parts.  I think his greatest genius was his harmony stuff, even something simple like that is like seeing the master at work.

Do you like the song and wish it was longer?
I made a quick edit with double verses before each chorus.  Enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/ste_xxx/trt-long (https://soundcloud.com/ste_xxx/trt-long)

Thanks for doing that, kind of works - although makes me a bit dizzy!

The stuff about Dave is interesting. The opening and closing guitar are excellent. The licks in the middle I think are quite cheesy. It's also a totally different tone. So makes sense that it's not him in the middle.

Didn't say Brian was sick, just "wasn't on top form".

Haven't searched through the posts again, but the first post I saw from Carrie said Brian was sick that day.  Later someone said "wasn't on top form."

Wylson, thank you. That was my thinking too, that the "solo" guitar was of a different stripe. I'm sure if I thought Dave did it, I would like it nonetheless and would have judged its perceived cheesiness as playfully ironic. But I do agree that Dave's confirmed parts are nothing short of magical, and if he, Brian and Al are as happy with their collective work as I imagine that they are, then I am very happy for them all.

I maintain that they would have been a fantastic BB song with M and B's voices, and I certainly wish that this was a song that M and B wrote together in a room. But it is not.

Love this song--cannot stop listening to it. I hope it's a hit, however those things are measured. They should be on all the late-night TV shows NOW doing that song.

edit: Carrie Marks on this board in the topic on the song itself has just written that Dave did many takes with different effects and that the solo bit may be his as well, though she said the style did not jump out at her as distinctly Dave. We may not know until an engineer or Dave himself does a taxonomy of the final parts. But I am content that we know enough to celebrate 3 BB as artists, contributing to the excellence of this song in distinct ways, as singers, arranger, writer, and guitarist, variously. Who is credited a having written the song? B and A?

Nice to see some proper fact checking....thanks Guitarfool and Debbie!!!

Wow! I'm really looking forward to the album! This coulda-shoulda been a Beach Boys record. Well, it is anyway! I hate to say it but shame on Mike and Bruce for not being involved. That being said I'm thankful for Beach Boys 50! Rock on Brian, Al, and David! Blondie, too!

Still waiting for 'Almost Summer' and 'Country Pie' to be released on CD. C'mon Mike!  8)

Nice, but I think there's a beat missing before the first chorus.

The verses are so short on this song, which I think is a major flaw. It's like a super rush to get to the chorus with no proper build-up. It could've been so much better if there had been an effort to write some additional lyrics to properly develop the song. As it stands it gets quite repetitve. Instead of a Wow! it's just a Yeah, OK.

I love that the first preview we get from the album (other than the one track that was released on another album) is a track that features Al as the lead vocalist rather than one of the other special guests.

I like the video and I love how animated Brian is whilst singing :)    Al sounds great as always.

For the record (that thing):

OK, now the ears have been sorted out again and I can actually hear anything above mid-range, a few pithy comments on this track:

Alan's not auto-tuned. Sounds to me like they did to him what they did to Brian on the recent "GOK" release, i.e. double tracking with a light frosting of bells & whistles. Compare with his vocal on "From There To Back Again", which is auto-tuned.

Brian probably has the best bass vocal in his band.

It's a sweet tune and a complete earworm.

Alan & Brian: The Beach Boys they ain't, but it's close enough to be rather special.

This isn't going to be a "WOW !!" album, more one that inspires an ever widening grin. I think it's going to be a keeper.

Andrew, surely you meant to write Brian, Al, and Dave.

I don't hear David in the vocal stack.

the way this sounds, it could have been tacked onto 'TWGMTR' and put under 'The Beach Boys' banner......

some of those tracks have no or inaudible BB vocals too...

RickB

Good song, great falsetto. Al goes w/o saying. Someone in another thread advised to compare the 2, incl. "From There to Back Again" to see if the song has AT or not. That's clever, I did the same & can safely say there isn't. However, I think it would benefit if the " right time. could it be the right time" line didn't drag for long. And I'm not sure if I like the guitar at the intro.
The video is nice, sans the lyrics.

Has this song become a hit by any measurable standards?  Is it on the radio; it it in the charts?  I fear no and no. So what is it's status and function.  I was hoping it was a "hit" but that now seems ridiculous.

The Beach Boys as solo artists have never had much chart action in terms of singles (and the band hasn't for that matter either).

I don't think they expected "The Right Time" to be a hit. It was a teaser, and enticement to pre-order the album digitally. It wasn't even tagged as a "single" on iTunes or Amazon from what I could tell.

Singles charts are tabulted to include radio airplay as well. None of their solo stuff has receive much airplay. Brian had a bit of chart action in '88 with a single or two, and I think Carl had some good regional airplay with "What You Do To Me."

In any event, the only action Brian will see chart-wise would be on the album charts when the album comes out. Considering the amount of promotion it's getting, I think it will easily make it into the Top 200 album charts, and we might even see something in the top 50 or 75. I think #13 with "Smile" was the best he's done as a solo artist. So maybe even Top 40 or 30 or 20 could be possible.

Do we know yet who's singing falsetto on this track?  Sounds like Matt to me, but I notice a difference in sound (or is it placement in the stack) between the chorus and the harmonies near the end (where Brian sings the "bom-bom's").  The chorus falsetto really stands out, and is a decent throwback to young Brian's "whine," whereas the falsetto in those end harmonies sounds quite buried.  Which is really unfortunate because chorus-like falsetto there could have really shined.  Can any of you smart people offer any insight there?

think it's Matt. Bottom line for me is that hearing Matt (if it is he) really shows just how poorly Jeff's voice blends. One the the biggest mistakes the BB made in the live album and in Radio and in all public appearances was to let JF sing so much; he ought to have been relegated to one solo feature for charity on DWB and the celestial ending to ATIT and otherwise a bit of doubling Brian when he needed to. But hearing TRT and also OSL from NPP, neither of which have him I believe, reveals just how badly the band's work was harmed by JF's singing. I hear him everywhere to no good effect on both those 50th celebration albums I mentioned. We need new mixes sans JF.

My sister was in a garden centre on Sunday and heard it played there on BBC Radio 2 (most popular station in England) for what it's worth.

I think it was Radio 2's record of the week a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah, much as I like Jeff, I have to agree.  Thing is, in his own work, JF sounds very Brian-esque (my fav. is "Through My Window").  Not so much in TWGMTR.  I'm liking Matt's falsetto much better.  I just wish it wasn't so buried in the latter part of "Right Time."