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I can't help it! Something about that 80s sounding production mixed with Brian's 80s/90s voice is irresistible! ;D Where were you when you first discovered it, and where does it stack up in the solo canon?

I honestly think this has some of Brian's best solo material to this day. I particularly love the likes of 'Concert Tonight', 'Thank You (Brian)', 'Water Builds Up', 'Spirit of Rock 'N' Roll', 'Don't Let Her Know (She's An Angel)'. Much more endearing and completely Brian than almost anything on No Pier Pressure.

Smart Girls is of course awful and embarrassing but I love the novelty factor of it all. "I love hips and legs and breasts!"

I think if they released official versions of Sweet Insanity and The Wilson-Paley sessions they would honestly both be in my top 5 solo releases.

*I think some years ago a switch must have went off in my brain when I discovered I loved essentially everything Beach Boys/Brian Wilson related with a few exceptions (SIP of course) I even somewhat dig Salute Nascar, please call for help. :'(

Sweet Insanity is Brian at his purest and most eccentric. It fills my ears with some very catchy melodies. Not to everyone's liking, of course. I put my mp3 player on the speakers at work one nite and a manager turned it off cause the song that was playing (Brian/Thank You) was too weird Lol.

I found it online like 5 yrs ago when I was getting seriously into Brian and the Boys. Some of it sounded a bit garish and very much of its time. Most of it tho became favorites, like the raucous blasts that are Hotter (luv the surf guitar licks during the chorus) and Love Ya.

Fun to listen to the 2 different mixes and see what was changed.

Oh man, that's my favourite song on the album! Haha. I think its got about 8-10 tracks that would have made a fantastic sequel to the s/t album.

Worth it for "Do You Have Any Regrets?" aka "I Do," in my opinion. There's the core of a great song in "Thank You." Too bad the lyrics are so disturbing to listen to.

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

Trust me on that link.

I trusted, and I don't regret. This is the first time I realized how great this song is. The chorus still isn't quite as killer as I'd hope it to be, but so not.

I find it depressing to listen to and the production . . . disturbing.  There are a few decent songs destroyed by inane lyrics or horrible production. 

Somehow, through the years, I gained a reputation among my friends as some kind of 50s/60s rock purist. I guess that's because, while they were digging Def Leppard, Van Halen, REO Speedwagon, Journey and Styx....or Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, etc, I was collecting Beach Boys, Beatles, Byrds, Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Lovin' Spoonful, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Elvis, etc. But I didn't completely shut out contemporary music during the 80's and 90's, I heard all the stuff that was popular on CHR or AOR radio, and I liked a fair amount of it. I understand why Brian and the Boys recorded in the styles they did during those years. They wanted to put out music that could compete with all the other hot sounds on modern radio. So I find myself now defending records like the BB85 and BW88 albums. I enjoy the sound of those records. I do think Brian went a bit over the top on producting Sweet Insanity. Ditto for Terry Melcher on Summer in Paradise. Sweet Insanity definitely has the better songs, though. The lyrics are a bit embarrassing at times, but I like the sound of Brian's voice on these songs, and in fact, one of my favorite songs on the album is "Thank You (Brian)". I can't write melodies like that, I will never be able to come up with those kinds of chord changes. He might be considered "damaged goods", but IMO, Brian never lost his musicial gift. "I Do (Do You Have Any Regrets)" is another favorite, and this version of "Spirit of Rock 'N' Roll" is much better than the one that finally got released. I think it's easy to hate these recordings because of who his main collaborator was, and it's not up to the standard of the 1988 album, there's no "Rio Grande" here, but I like it.

Man alive, Sweet Insanity is fantastic! I suppose I'm not a big fan of "Power of Love," but other than that, I like every track on both mixes plus bonus tracks of the era! "Country Feelin'" really captures the hilarity of "Barnyard" at a faster pace with the rhythmic goat noises and other sound effects. That's definitely one of my favorite tracks from the project. I just started relistening to this stuff a few weeks ago, and I noticed how cool the instrumentation in "Someone To Love" is too. I'm pretty sure there's an oboe in there?

But yes, I love Sweet Insanity! It was the first thing I listened to in my car when I got my driver's license and could drive by myself, for whatever reason. I also recently listened to the entire Slightly American Music bootleg of Paley Sessions material, and that stuff equally blows my mind! As usual, The Beach Boys (together or separately) leave some of their best stuff in the vault.

Side note: I'm a huge fan of both "Smart Girls" and "Summer of Love." Those lyrics are straight cheese, and I get a huge kick out of singing them, showing them to other people, or imagining The Beach Boys singing them (which makes the "Summer of Love" music video that much better!!). I think they're catchy songs, too!

Could Sweet Insanity have been released at the time? I know it was rejected twice, but did every proper record company in town turn it down?

I'm wondering:  after being rejected... what release options were available to Brian/Landy at the time that could have given the album the highest profile release possible, given the era that it was?

I agree, I've mostly dug "Sweet Insanity" since I first heard a cassette dub back in '92. Brian's vocals are WAY better than on his '88 solo debut, and the songs use mostly organic instruments, compared to its predecessor. Are some of the lyrics daft? Sure, but isn't that true of MOST BBs-related endeavors? I've said it before, "Water Builds Up" is pure genius...who but BW would write a happy, cheerful song about being pissed off? Incredible song, incredible singing, incredible production.

As for an official release...last I heard, the master tapes were still mysteriously "missing". We DO have the official promo-only cassette release that turned up at Rockaway Records a few years ago...

Well...it's a MAJOR step down from the self-titled album. If the self-titled was a grand slam, Sweet Insanity was a foul ball. Other than a couple songs it's really not all that good and parts of it are just plain embarrassing. Smart Girls is terrible in a bad joke type of way, Brian (the song) is just uncomfortable to listen to, and the vocals just don't measure up to what was achieved a mere two years before. At times I feel like this is more of a Landy album than a Brian effort; the lyrics are among the worst Brian has ever performed.

It's unreleased for very good reason.

Mostly organic instruments? Are you sure? I hear a lot of synths - the disc I have is called the Millennium Edition. I don't know how that compares with others.

Well, we did get four Sweet Insanity tracks  (some altered slightly, some altered considerably) with organic instruments in 2004 with Gettin' In Over My Head was released:

Make a Wish
Fairy Tale
Rainbow Eyes
Don't Let Her Know She's an Angel

Perhaps they will mine the unreleased Sweet Insanity archives again for the next album. 

According to Brian, the "very good reason" is that the tapes were stolen. Said he went into the studio and found that the tapes were gone. In the interview he said something like "All that hard work we did, and nothing to show for it."

David Leaf was present for the interview and mentioned that the album had been bootlegged. "Really? Do you have a bootleg of it?" "Yes, Brian." "Well, bring it over some time! I'd like to hear it!"

Maybe they were 'burned' like the SMiLE tapes!  ;)

Whomever stole the tapes did the world a great service; Landy's psychobabble does not deserve to be aired in any form.

I'm not sure how likely it is that someone stole all of the multi-track masters and final mix masters for the entire project. That would amount to boxes and boxes of material. I dunno, maybe it was all digital recordings, but even then it seems odd that the tapes were *all* stolen, and I've never heard any indication that there was some sort of "Eddie and the Cruisers" situation where everybody badly wanted to release the album but just couldn't find the tapes.

Isn't it possible if they were really stolen, it was Landy?

you have them? ;D

If I did I'd burn them!  :lol

Real Beach Boy sanity!

I just want the innocence. Sweet Insanity is an atrocity against man, beast, and Love alike.

I could conceive of the possibility that maybe, Alexandra Morgan has them buried in boxes in a closet/storage unit somewhere?

I can only imagine what types of weird Brian-related artifacts, music tapes, alternate mixes, and otherwise, that Landy probably took with him when he exited the picture. Maybe the Sweet Insanity tapes exist in the same place where the Brian VHS tapes are, the creepy Landy goon-filmed documentation of nearly a decade of his life.

All I have to say on the matter is ...

'Metal ... Beach!'  8) ;)

Supposedly, all of that stuff was handed over to Brian when he and Landy separated. Not sure if it was by court order, or by other legal agreement. But Landy shouldn't have had much, if anything, in his possession regarding Brian once he was out of the picture. Perhaps pictures were okay to keep, I'm not sure. Evan Landy appeared to retain at least a few photo prints, as he gave them to the paper that published his interview last year.

Knowing Landy, I'd be surprised if he actually handed over everything that he had in his possession. Being the opportunist that he was, Landy probably would have assumed that some of that stuff could have future value, and may have socked some of it away - court order or not - I'd be pretty shocked if that weren't the case. I'm not sure how there could be any type of accountability to absolutely enforce a court order demanding Landy to turn over what had to be an unknown amount of video/audio tapes.

I think Sweet Insanity was the rock and roll album Brian is always talking about. It's the last project of his to have a lot of uptempo tracks on it.

Sweet Insanity is obviously completely unlistenable if you're not a devotee, but when I finally got around to hearing it at the dawn of the file sharing age, I was delighted. There's a great run of songs in the middle of the album -- Do You Have Any Regrets, Thank You, Hotter*, The Spirit of Rock 'n' Roll, Rainbow Eyes and Love Ya (I'm not a fan of Don't Let Her Know She's an Angel), and it's a particular pleasure to hear him do strong, upbeat material. In fact, I'm sorry to say that I think this was his last hurrah. I always thought the Wilson-Paley material was pretty weak, and when he's done anything really good since, I've been suspicious about his real level of involvement.

* I now see this may not have been intended for the album, but it's been at this point in the track order as I've always known it.

I like a few of the songs I've heard from the Paley sessions, but a lot of it is weak. Agree, SI may have been Brian's last hurrah.

I've asked Alexandra before if she had a spare copy of the SI cassette she could sell to me. She said she looked thru some boxes but didn't have any, and told me to contact this guy at Rockaway Records (she sold most of Landy's collection when she came back to L.A.)

Couldn't that be said for BW88 gems and sweet insanity too? I get that suspicion...but a song like 'Summer's Gone' is so quintessentially brian (and so fantastic) I think it merits consideration as an all-time great beach boys song.

As cringeworthy as it is, I gotta say...there's some gold on Sweet Insanity..."Someone To Love"..."Water Builds Up"..."Don't Let Her Know She's An Angel"...Geez, three killer tracks right in a row, actually....I'd put "Hotter" on the list too but it's so freakin' dated. Darian proved that there's some classic Brian in "Do You Have Any Regrets." I even like "Make a Wish" except for the "Wooo!" thing.

I'm sure this has all been thrashed out here many times before, but I gather it's understood that Brian's credit on Meet Me In My Dreams is cosmetic, and that Titelman and/or Waronker had a lot to do with the way Rio Grande was pieced together. In most cases from BW88 though, there are demos that make it pretty clear to me that these are essentially Brian's songs, and that the producers' input was just what producers normally do. Not only does the Sweet Insanity material feel authentically Brian to me, it doesn't seem he had anyone particularly talented there to cover him at that point, thanks to Landy. I hope Midnight's Another Day and the last three songs on TWGMTR are mostly Brian ...

I adore both.

 Sweet Insanity is such an apt title for the album. It's bonkers, confused and bounces between genius and puerile with wreckless abandon. Much like Brian at the time. It's absolutely one of my favourite BB/BW albums

 As for the Paley Sessions...oh for a finished version. Out of the two my heart is more with SI but I could listen to both albums on repeat for hours...

Also....and I'm sorrynotsorry about this

Sweet Insanity > BW88

I like to say that Sweet Insanity is a continuation of The Beach Boys Love You.

They are definitely the two most Landy-influenced projects in the catalog, I'd say.  Quite a bit more so than BW88.  So that theory makes sense to me.

Other than Landy and Morgan, who else worked with Brian on Sweet Insanity?  Was there a Paley-like musical guru who helped Brian put together the ill-fated album?  Or did Brian simply work with musicians to complete the songs? 

"Weird Al" Yankovic provided accordion for at least one song.  And allegedly Paula Abdul and (I think) Belinda Carlisle provide some backing vocals on "The Spirit Of Rock & Roll" although please don't quote me on that.  Bob Dylan is definitely present on that song.  The Wikipedia entry for this album claims Tom Petty was also involved somehow but I'd take that with a grain of salt. 

There were guests on the sessions (David Marks, Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, etc.) as backing vocalists or musicians.

But no, there was not any type of producer/co-producer figure on those sessions the way there had been for the '88 album and '88 pre-production (e.g. Gary Usher, Russ Titelman, Andy Paley, Jeff Lynne). The closest the "Sweet Insanity" sessions had to that was of course Landy himself.

Which obviously explains in large part the lack of any sort of commercial sensibilities on the "Sweet Insanity" stuff, not just in terms of trying to get a "hit", but even just in terms of getting a streamlined, listenable product that played to Brian's strengths. "SI" is still music that came out of Brian, and therefore it still has interesting moments. And certainly, the contents of those sessions helps speak to a larger story of what was going on with Brian at the time.

But I'm sure two of the main reasons the "SI" stuff couldn't snag them a record deal were 1) The material just wasn't very good, and 2) Word has surely gotten around the industry that the album was a mess and getting involved in something so heavily controlled by Landy was a bad idea.

You can tell in Gary Usher's book on the 86/87 sessions (essentially the "pre-production" period for the '88 album) that Warner (Sire) and everyone is trying to wrestle the album away from Landy as much as possible to get the thing to sound decent (and therefore hopefully do well with critics and sell well), and every step of that process from everybody involved was a knock-down drag-out fight with Landy.

It seems both sides learned their lesson in the aftermath of the '88 album. Most anybody in the industry wanted to say away from Landy (and therefore Brian) as much as possible, and Landy learned that the only way he could have full control over the project was to remove *any* potential interlopers, which meant no collaborators or co-producers. You can tell Landy still tried to sprinkle in some guest spots for the album, probably both to try to sell the album itself, and also because on some level he knew Brian needed some kind of external influence or motivator at some point in the project.

I think Paley was still involved to a limited extent — perhaps just the work on “Hotter” — and synthesist Michael Bernard carried over, too.

Except for the fact that “Rooftop Harry” on the SOS box comes directly from Brian and is nothing less than an early version of “From There to Back Again.”

As demos and early versions have trickled out, it’s pretty clear that the big man has pulled his creative weight the entire time.

If Brian gets a credit for co-writing a song, he co-wrote the song.

Well said Wirestone!

This. I really don't understand why people think Brian has been uninvolved in his solo work since 1998. Really all the evidence points the other way. In fact, the general pattern seems to be that Brian's collaborators tended towards the uninspired, and the more active a role Brian played in any given song, the better it ended up being. Which is the exact opposite of worrying that the highlights didn't really come from him! Witness Cry and Happy Days on Imagination - the two solo writing credits and also the only two really special songs on the record. Good Kind of Love and Message Man being the two catchiest things on That Lucky Old Sun. I remember amazing rumors on facebook and this board back in 2010 about how engaged Brian was in the instrumental tracking for the Gershwin record. That was before the record came out or anybody had heard it, but lo and behold, the instrumental arrangements were arguably the best of Brian's solo career. Coincidence? I think not. In other words, the only thing crazier than Brian Wilson coming up with a suite of four incredible songs to close out a new Beach Boys album in 2012 is the idea that Joe Thomas - one of the least-inspired co-writers Brian Wilson has ever worked with - somehow turned into a brilliant composer and arranger for about ten minutes, then promptly went back to being boring.

BJL, truer and wisest words have never been said about Brian and his collaborators.
In fact: suspecting that the last songs in TWGMTR were composed and arranged mainly by Joe Thomas, or whatever, is sheer lunacy, but sadly a lunacy we are all too accustomed.
(Sarcasm) So strange that there are a few people in the world who suddenly composed very good to great songs for Brian and then, equaly suddenly, were struck (again) by writer's block (/Sarcasm) ... or actually Brian himself wrote them?

The “Sweet Insanity” period is undeniably fascinating, and we know less about it than some other periods (e.g. the 86/87 Usher period) because Landy and cut Brian off even more from outsiders by that point.

Remember as well that they actually played a tiny bit of the SI material on the disastrous “Primetime Live” story/interview that Diane Sawyer did with Brian and Landy. If the chances of SI getting released before then weren’t already zero, they were by that point. (And frankly, they got off easy by playing, as I recall, a tiny bit of not-the-worst song of the sessions, “Rainbow Eyes”).

As to the issue of how much of a role Brian has played on his solo records since 1998, I think the two extreme sides of that argument have both done themselves no favors. No, it wasn't totally smoke and mirrors with someone else doing most of the work all the time. But also, it was not the same process or style that Brian had in the 60s/70s (and even early 80s). Brian sought out and needed a facilitator to varying degrees during the 80s/90s/2000s.

Certainly, Brian leaned sometimes very heavily on others to actually get the work done and released, meaning the production, mixing, etc.

When it gets into the songwriting aspect, it's obviously difficult to always discern. Demos (either vintage stuff that he re-used years later, or contemporaneous pre-production demos that are known to be all-Brian) obviously help us figure things out.

I also think, to *some* degree, fans could be forgiven for circling back around to some of his solo stuff and wondering if his co-writer was handling a lot of the heavy work, because Brian even back in the 90s and 2000s could be low-energy/lethargic/struggling both in interviews and on stage. We often never got to see the spark re-light in the studio and/or while writing. Even some of the upbeat footage of Brian seemingly "on" during stuff like the "Imagination" sessions was kind of questionable, only because it all seemed very polished, very EPK-ish.

I absolutely think there are items on his collaborations from 1998 and on where his co-writer was the dominant voice, whether we're talking about Joe Thomas or Scott Bennett or Andy Paley.

But certainly yes, the assumption or accusation that like Joe Thomas or Andy Paley were writing whole albums and having Brian sing them is certainly incorrect, and I do think a lot of the stuff was *truly* collaborative.

I guess it boils down to the fact that Brian has definitely not been "uninvolved" in his solo career, but has definitely needed a collaborator/facilitator/fixer to varying degrees at various points.

Also, as another aside, I have to say that I don't even mind cases where someone else wrote most of a song and had Brian sing it. If the song is good and if Brian sings it well, I'm down for that too. "Let It Shine" is one of my favorite Brian solo tracks, and that composition is probably easily 80-90% Jeff Lynne.

I wouldn't be surprised if it would take some forensic work to even collate a list of all of the musicians and singers on the SI sessions. But yes, certainly Paley was not allowed as far as I'm aware to play a role on SI in the same way that he did on the '88 album and certainly the mid-90s sessions.

Given Landy's increasingly isolationist attitude with Brian by 1990-1991, I'm surprised Paley got in there at all.

HeyJude hits it on the head as usual. The process obviously wasn’t always the same in his later years, and other folks contributed a lot, but the idea that he had nothing to do with songs he’s credited for seems silly.

Tom Petty, John Lodge, Jeff Lynne and Paula Abdul all added backing vocals to The Spirit of Rock and Roll, reported in some BB Stomp issues at the time. Belinda Carlisle and Glen Campbell have guest vocals on Make a Wish.

Hi all! I've been away for awhile but I still lurk.

Couldn't help but notice this discussion on the 1990-91 Brian Wilson sessions. Just so happens I did a huge deep dive into this about a year and a half ago. I found a lot of info thanks to some of the members here as well!

Don't know if this link will work to the previous discussion, but most of the info y'all are looking for is here!

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php?PHPSESSID=a9aa0b274b09f25e2c6cd3ea9cfcecad&topic=27917.0

Kudos to Jude, Will, BJL and Tante for refreshing this thread, as it definitely represents one of the most fascinatingly fraught periods in Brian's career (which, of course, is really saying something!).

My new take on reissues is that the team should strongly consider taking a three-pronged approach that expands the archive horizons to three simultaneous periods: 1) a rework of the 1968 period (as Jude and I have "sparred" about in the recent past; 2) the 74-77 period, up to and including selections from Adult Child; 3) if possible, a Brian-Beach Boys mashup possibly entitled IN THIS CORNER..., which captures the work of the two entities in the 1988-91 time frame, with especial emphasis on the Sweet Insanity material. It would make sense, of course, to tie in BW 88 in some way, if the type of rights issues that I suspect are somehow/somewhat in play can be worked out.

If the powers that be can bring these off in tandem, and package them modestly but sufficiently, that might create a kind of "wave of interest" for these more obscure/arcane periods that would gain momentuim saleswise from coverage emphasizing the "multitudes" encompassed in these widely divergent timeframes. The record company could bring off a 10-CD mega-bundle (three separate packages that could also be purchased separately) for a nice price (say just under $100).

Of course, this presumes that they can find suitable sources for the SWEET INSANITY stuff. But Tante's earlier thread suggests that there are some sources for it that might work out, and that the differences in some of the songs from the "Brian" and "Sweet Insanity" sessions would add historical value to our understanding of that truly tenebrous timeframe...

I'm currently listening to "Rooftop Harry" and am not really making the connection to "FTTBA"...unless maybe you're referring to the back half of the latter song.

Regarding Brian's involvement in writing his own material from his albums especially in the last 30 years, obviously he's involved.  I'm sure he's not just some bump on a log sitting there phoning it in.  However I wouldn't rule out the possibility that at least some of his co-writers may just take his old song ideas and freshen them up for his solo albums.  That's definitely been the case for songs like "She Says That She Needs Me" (formally "Sherry, She Needs Me") among others.  A lot of his more recent material originally stem from old unfinished songs he wrote dating all the way back to 50 or more years ago.  That's not meant to be a bad thing though and is probably a lot more commonplace with established artists than we suspect. 

There is a two-chord motif in "Rooftop Harry" that is similar to "From There to Back Again" (which Brian and/or Joe also re-used in "Half Moon Bay" on the NPP album).

While there are a number of mind-blowing, tantalizing embryonic things on those Brian "Sail on Sailor" set tracks that definitely led to later tracks, I'm not *as* convinced that "Rooftop Harry" led to "From There to Back Again." With some of the other stuff, there are three or four-chord sequences, or melody lines with a number of notes, that all match up making the link more obvious. With "Rooftop.." and "From There...", it's a two-chord pattern that sounds generically sort of vaguely jazzy enough that I could see that arising out of a lot of different writers/songs.

I'm not saying the link isn't there, and that one chord change *is* the same (probably in a different key, but the same still), and it's pretty interesting whether the direct link is there or not.

I also don't think we can ever fully understand the elements of Brian's brain composing this stuff, and what he knowingly grabs from the past, versus things that are just floating around in his brain, versus simply similar composing techniques that might tend to lead to similar chord changes or melodies.

Regarding releasing "Sweet Insanity" material, while I'd love to see all of the group and solo stuff cross-promoted and combined to make everything stronger, I'm not sure that the very strictly solo Brian stuff is likely to be smushed together with contemporaneous BB material.

Once we get into the late 70s and certainly early 80s, the material (both group and solo) gets increasingly niche, so I'd be fine with Brian and his camp releasing a solo box set with several discs of rare and unreleased solo material. Or hey, if they want to keep just dumping tons of rare solo tracks on his website like they did a couple years ago, I'll take that too! There's literally a full disc's worth of rare solo material on his website right now. Like a 5-disc set of *that* type of stuff would be wonderful.

With Rooftop Harry, there’s a specific motif used in the tune — I think of it as broken music box slowing down and unspooling — that is re-created almost precisely in FTTBA.

You can hear it several times in the tune, but try 1:10 at this link.

Rooftop Harry: https://youtu.be/LvVlcxaSjSs

It shows up in the middle of FTTBA, starting at 1:55.

FTTBA: https://youtu.be/JqwGVBeaTa0

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL23KYUB8gO5xJ0m5pqJZyfGMZW4LnLwsX 

Try this link, it's all the Brian tracks from 1990 pitch corrected, then OOPSed. Pretty interesting...

As best I can tell, of the 13 songs often associated with the ill-fated Sweet Insanity album:

- 1 (Country Feeling) was later released "as is".

- 4 (Don't Let Her Know ..., The Spirit of Rock N Roll, Rainbow Eyes and Make a Wish) were later released as completely new recordings (with tweaks - mostly revised lyrics)

- 1 (Water Builds Up) was later significantly overhauled and released as Let's Go To Heaven in My Car.

- 7 (Concert Tonight, Someone to Love, Do You Have Any Regrets, Brian, Hotter, Love Ya and Smart Girls) were never released in any recognizable fashion (to the best of my knowledge).

Of the 7 "missing" songs, I believe that "cleaned up" versions of Someone to Love, Do You have Any Regrets and Love Ya would have been welcome additions to the long list of officially released BW solo efforts.  It's much more difficult to imagine reasonable versions of Brian, Hotter and Smart Girls ever being released.  

I am confused- if Water Builds Up was refurbished as Let's Go Heaven In My Car-then why is Brian still working on a title by that name at an August 1990 session?

That’s a great question, but nevertheless it’s definitely what happened. He returned to the original form of the tune — either because he didn’t like what Gary Usher had done to it or because they didn’t have enough strong material for SI.

I suspect it’s the latter, myself ….

So, the sequence was (apparently):

- original version of Water Builds Up (WBU) (pre-1987)

- parts of WBU morph into Let's Go to Heaven ... (1987)

- WBU is brought back (with modifications) for the SI sessions (1990)

I should also note that a couple of other SI era tunes were released in revised form on Gettin' In Over My Head:

- "Save the Day" became "Fairy Tale"

- "Let's Stick Together" became "The Waltz"

I rather enjoy "Fairy Tale" and "The Waltz", which may place me in the minority of BW fans(?).

In my opinion, another unreleased BW song ("Turning Point') would have been a candidate for "sharpening" (and release) somewhere along the way.  Did that song originate during the Paley Sessions (post - SI)?

I welcome any and all fact checks by the Board readers.  

Turning Point/So Long dates from the Usher sessions, with a nice ‘clipped’ vocal from Brian.. You can also catch a backing track WITH background vocals on the demos section on BW.com..

Fairy Tale / Save the day is more complicated than that.

I believe it started off as Fairy Tale. Landy added Save the Day lyrics.

Co-writer David Foster then recorded it as Is There a Chance.

Finally, BW recorded the tune in its original form on GIOMH.

The original product of Brian and David Foster's collaboration was Is There a Chance, the version that Foster recorded, and his lasting contribution was a musical one. Save the Day was a Morgan/Landy rewrite, and Fairy Tale was a second Morgan/Landy rewrite (and it was actually recorded with those lyrics during the SI sessions, after Save the Day).

So....  there are other SI tracks in the vault as yet unheard?

Yes, lots.

It’s obvious that after BW is gone, someone will eventually green light a deep dive into his solo career-warts and all…it will be interesting to see all the various twists and turns that it took in the 1988-1999 period-which sadly resulted in very little released music at the time

Well, looking forward to hearing these. Thanks WillJC.   Me thinks Alexandra Morgan needs her cupboards search immediately!?

I'd just like to think that Landy was 100% responsible for the lyrics to Smart Girls.

I was working in Tokyo back in 1992 when I stumbled down an alley way to a music shop that sold mostly bootleg cd’s. .  I found a copy of sweet insanity and bought it.  The sound quality is perfect as a released album.  There are some hidden gems on there.  I think water builds up is genius in the music production and the tea kettle sound in the background.  There were also some added songs on this cd.  I always loved Being with the one you love.  I thought that song had a lot of potential.