The Smiley Smile Message Board

Okay, so we all know what Heroes & Villains sounded like on Feb. 10th . 5 days later he tinkered again, recording the “Country Western Clip-clop thing”. Also, maybe the Bicycle Rider theme in a H&V key. Then it was done again, supposedly. What would it have been like then?

Then for some reason he feels the need to re-record the “false barnyard” tag with Carl on Feb. 28. Why? Why waste time on the likes of this nearly identical rendition of the tag when half the album is sitting around in need of some lead vocals?

Then it was supposedly done again. So by taking the Feb 10 version and what we know he cut in the next couple of weeks afterwards before part one was proclaimed finished again, what do we have? Is there anywhere in the song where the country western theme fits smoothly? And what about “prelude to fade”? And what fade was it preluding? If he cut the bicycle rider theme on the 15th, is that the point when it became the H&V chorus?

This could have been what H&V they were working on but Mike seems to mess up the recording.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=qvfiPuFIK6g

Nope
This is a version cut at Wall Heider's probably for the Lei'd in Hawaii album and Brian told Mike what to say as I understand it

This has been discussed before - there's two trains of thought on this. 
1. Brian was revising the Feb 10th Heroes, and the new pieces he was recording - the Heroes "chorus" (bicycle rider in a minor key), the prelude to fade (which IS the clip clop piece), and the rerecord of the fade - were to replace or add to the Feb 10th mix.  And let's not forget "intro" recorded March 1 and 2.  It's easy enough to figure out where prelude to fade and the new fade would go - at the end, replacing the earlier fade.  Perhaps the "explosion" would go into prelude and into fade.  Maybe intro (to "pt 2) would go in there somewhere, and the chorus.

2.  Brian had decided to make Heroes into a 2 sided single - the chorus tape box says "side two" which is suggestive of that.  so on side one you have the Feb 10th version, on side two you have intro, the chorus, maybe some of the "sections" (dit dit dit, heroes and villains strung together as on the SOT mono mix done in January), then prelude to fade and the new rerecorded fade.  This at least explains why Brian rerecorded a fade almost identical to the previous fade, as it was to go onto Heroes "Pt 2."

I get confused by the title 'prelude to fade'. If the prelude is the clip clop western piece, then is the 'fade' the flutter horn? There's a recording of the horn with melting strings behind it that sounds like a fade to me.

Or is the 'prelude to fade' the Western theme + Flutter horn and both pieces were to be followed by a fade (perhaps false barnyard)?

Where can this re-record of FB be heard? I'm not sure if I've heard it or not.

The prelude to fade includes the flutter horn at the end - the rerecorded fade is virtually identical to the false Barnyard fade on the cantina version, but the tempo is slightly slower if I remember correctly and Carl is singing "doo doo doo's" live over the track.  I think it's on Secret Smile.

Thanks, I will check it out.

So does the fact Brian re-recorded FB around the same time as recording the prelude imply that FB was the 'fade' of Prelude to Fade? It certainly follows it well.

I’m not sure the flutter horn sounds right going into either of the fades. Maybe he did too, that’s why it never came out. During the prelude to fade recordings he says something about having to keep the tempo straight “for vocal purposes”. What sort of vocal could have gone over prelude? Maybe just some harmonies. I dunno. I just can’t make heads or tails out of his actions. And what about “bridge to Indians”? Since there are no indians in H&V, would this piece make more sense as part of Worms? The discarded last note, the “hmmmm”, can we detect the key of that note and figure out what it would have lined up with? Could it have overlapped “prelude to fade” as they perform it now on BWPS?

It seems nutty that he would use the H&V chorus only on side II and not feature it in the song. I guess we’ll never know, unless we tie him to a chair and ask him directly and not let up until he tells us.

I was thinking of the way the Part II vocal chants remind me a lot of the organ break in Good Vibrations. Any of them could have dropped into the song as an interlude like that. And many of them end the same way the organ break does; with a high, soaring “ahhh”.

The Carl sung tag sounds unfinished. I don’t understand the need for Carl to sing live. His need to rerecord it might be as flimsy as his excuse to re-record Wind Chimes and Wonderful over and over again. Still, I can see the idea of there being 2 fades for 2 sides of the record. If he planned on using the H&V piano theme as part of it, then the H&V sections track on the Box must be close to his intent, with only the wrong fade included, although the boxset track seems a bit lengthy for a single side, especially when he ended up using the minute long “You’re Welcome” in the end, so perhaps not all the chant sections would have been used, specifically the Swedish frog grunting stuff.

Has anybody ever asked Brian what Side II/Part II was all about? His lack of memory of anything about Smile further fuels the flames that he had little to do with its resurrection. Aside from apparently remembering the melody for “Worms” from the far reaches of his brain, he doesn’t seem to know what the album or songs represent at all, aside from his scripted “ three movements” answer. Where is the man who waxed poetic to Jules Siegel about the deeper meaning of “Surf’s Up”?

I wasn't aware that Brian recorded "Wind Chmes" and "Wonderful again and again...at least not for the original "SMiLE".  He just held two tracking sections for "Wind Chimes", right?  Aug. 3 and Oct. 5, presumably for different sections of the track, plus vocal sessions.  For "Wonderful", there was the Aug. 25 basic track session and Jan. 9 "insert", which I'm thinking is probably the bizarre "Rock With Me Henry" overdub, plus vocal sessions.

Of course, he re-recorded both songs later in '67 for "Smiley Smile". 

....plus the April attempt at Wonderful for a potential Vegetables single B-side.

Including the Smiley versions, he cut Wind Chimes 3 times and Wonderful 4 times. Meanwhile the whole album lay unfinished. Why not just keep what he had in the can and spend 15 minutes recording a lead for Worms or Cabinessence? His behavior makes no sense. He was obviously a confused man.

Well he said he went into a bummer over Heroes and Villains for months. I think when you get a creative block with something, sometimes you can't leave it alone even though it makes more rational sense to move on to something else and come back later. I think if Brian regarded H&V as a crucial element of Smile (plus the single to follow the hugely successful Good Vibrations) you can see why he would have wanted to perfect that, maybe before tying up lots of other loose ends (even if they just took 10 mins). Perhaps his failure to complete H&V to his satisfaction diluted his enthusiasm for the other tracks. I think there are obviously lots of other reasons why Smile wasn't finished, but imo a creative block explains an awful lot. I don't think his erratic working patterns during this period necessarily mean he was losing it. The gestation of GV could be described as erratic but nobody would argue that it wasn't worth it. Smile didn't work out because he bit off more tha he could chew imo.

I agree that the "sections" piece from the GV box, with the prelude to fade and rerecorded fade at the end, is too long for a side 2 of the single.

Remember that Mike played a tape of a five or six minute version of Heroes to a journalist just before the single was released.  This could have been an extended version of cantina, with some of the parts we're talking about added, OR it could have been side one and side two of the single on one tape, with a minimal or absent gap where the side break would be.

the tape with what BECAME the Heroes chorus was marked only "side 2" and was a Heroes Pt. 2 session, I believe - so there's no indication that when Brian recorded it he meant it to function as the chorus the way he eventually decided for the Smiley single.  It more likely was just one more section to fit into the jigsaw puzzle.

It's interesting that sunny down snuff was apparently an early part of the song - there is a report of a failed attempt to record it in the studio in December 66 - and it was another Van Dyke lyric that Mike disliked and apparently objected to.  If you listen to the Mike Heroes rant from the Lei'd in Hawaii studio sessions, his disdain for that lyric, whether or not Brian was encouraging him, is clear.  And I found it interesting that in Beautiful Dreamer there's a part where sunny down snuff comes up and Van Dyke says something like "we got that in there" - suggesting there was resistance to that part of the song.  Yet sunny down snuff doesn't appear at all in the Feb 10th cantina version, nor in the Humble Harv Miller demo in November.  It could have been written sometime between Nov 4th and the mid to late December sessions, or Brian may have just left it out of the demo.  But it certainly could have been part of this five to six minute version.

What was the date of the April "Wonderful" session(s)?  I know it was mentioned as a possible B-Side to a "Vegetables" Aoril single release, but wasn't aware of any additional sessions for it that month.
Again, I think there was only one "full version of "Wind Chimes", just recorded in two parts at two different sessions, with the intention of spicing it together.  Maybe the first session did produce a full version, but the second session was intended only to replace part, not all, of the original version.  And the January "insert" for "Wonderful" was just to add a drums, bass & guitar overdub track, and I think at some later point he thought about taking just that overdub track and turning it into a different song called "Rock Me Henry" (or whatever it is). 

Agree with you, though...all this meandering is the product of a confused mind. 

I don't know an exact date but judging by the engineer's voice I would say it was recorded at Sound Recorders and so probably sometime between April 4 and 14. Maybe.

Judging by all his purpose and placement notations on almost all recordings, I still can't see Brian as confused or lost.  Determined, dogged, and discriminating, just as with GV, but not confused or at loose ends.

1) As far as we know, the only lead vocals Mike Love recorded for SMiLE were the Cabin Essence tag and Good Vibrations hook. Common sense would dictate that Mike was slated for at least some of the missing leads for Worms, Great Shape, etc. and Brian has said that although he could have performed the remaining vocals needed himself, he wanted the BB blend. That doesn't sound confused. The confused one was the bearded guy looking his gift horse in the mouth. Pet Sounds probably would have never come out either if Mike had refused to sing That's Not Me and Here Today.

2) The 2nd Wind Chimes session produced the 3 sections heard on the GV box version recorded one section at a time. The 1st session featured a completely different arrangement cut live. Considering Brian added vocals to the 2nd version and didn't use any of the 1st session in his rough mix, I think the assumption that he only intended to replace part of the original version is off base.

3) The Jan. 9 Wonderful "insert" session did not include any of the original Aug. '66 harpsichord track. They're even in different keys. It is indeed a true rerecord of the entire track, as was the April version, which produced the piano track used on the Smiley Smile version.

4) The fact that Brian continued to experiment with arrangements for these songs while the rest of SMiLE lay unfinished doesn't necessarily mean that he was floundering creatively. As I mentioned before, all he needed was for the guys to put they're voices on tape, something he couldn't make them do. As far as I can tell, instrumental tracks had been completed for every song on the Capitol tracklisting by April, with the possible exception of The Elements. In addition, I understand that the master takes for OMP and Great Shape have been snipped off the multitrack tapes for a comp tape which is missing. Who knows how many SMiLE vocals were acually recorded that we haven't heard...

Yeah, I guess you're right about the"Rock With Me Henry" "Wonderful", it's a piano track with Carl doing a partial lead vocal, until he needs a drink of water and stops.  And it's a piano instead of a harpsichord.

But I still think Brian, at least when it comes to "H&V", was confused for awhile as to which direction to take the thing...there were so many possibilities, and all of them were good.  Alan Boyd has even gone so far as to speculate that in early '67 Brian was willing to toss everything that had come before in that song, and was "fishing for inspiration" by recording all those "H&V" vocal chants.  That may be a bit drastic, as I don't think he did toss everything...he used the track from October for the verse, right?   I for one, thogh, think the released 45 of "Heroes" is superior to the mix from January or February...if only he'd finished "Part II" for the flip, and included the "cantina" section, it could've actually topped "Vibrations". 

That may be true of "OMP" -- the only version we have with vocals is from an acetate, and as far as I'm aware (Alan?) no multitrack with leads for either the verse or the tag have been found. But it is not, as far as I'm aware, true of "Great Shape." The only "Shape" tape that's cropped up is the tape with the backing track for the only part we have confirmed. The recording from Oct. 17th has gone missing, presumably, and the only other "Great Shape" reference we have is on the "Friday Night" session log. In addition, a performance or partial performance of Great Shape is on the "Inside Pop" missing footage, and god knows what happened to the effort to track down those tapes. "Shape" is, even moreso than The Elements, the great mystery of Smile that will likely never be solved unless a new tape discovery is made (unlikely at this point -- it seems to me pretty much everything's been combed through in the vaults) or unless that Inside Pop footage is found (guys??).

Oh, I think, as evidenced by sessions and the eventual Smiley Smile release, that he could make them do just about anything. I'm more of the opinion that there WERE leads, or at least some leads, but that they were wiped. Or if they were never tracked -- there is a multitrack reel with MOST of the Smile tracks, which I still think dates from sometime around the time the Beach Boys returned from tour, i.e. late November '66, and I suspect it was made with the intention of cutting lead vocals -- it was more than likely at Brian's behest.

Alan said that the master take for the "eggs and grits" section was snipped off the multitrack and is missing. That's what I was referring to. It could, presumably, contain unlogged vocals. He also said recently that he hasn't even gone through all the SMiLE tapes, and I also don't think new tape discoveries are unlikely, especially with so many tapes missing. Misplaced/stolen and lost/destroyed are very different things. In my opinion, the 2004 arrangement of IIGS/IWBA/FN is pretty close to what Brian envisioned for the song in December '66. If you "wanna be around," you better be "in great shape." What constitued the earth, air and water sections of The Elements still seems more mysterious to me.

As uncommercial as Smiley Smile is, it's lyrically much more in line with the Beach Boys image. Little pads in Hawaii and getting hungry for women is much more Mike Love than columnated ruins domino and crows uncovering cornfields. I agree that Brian had supreme control in the studio, until December 15, 1966, that is. According to Domenic Priore, Mike "picked a fight" with Brian over the lyrics to Surf's Up in front of CBS TV cameras. Dom may just be inferring this from the Siegel quote about the session going badly, but that seems like a stretch as he had access to Wilson and Parks for his new book, and they are definitely being more candid about Mike's resistance of late. The fact that Love went through with Smiley Smile proves nothing about his willingness to complete SMiLE.

Actually? That was ME saying that, back in the day, hypothesizing based on the fact that none of the versions sounded accurate enough in terms of the tape explosion to be a final take. But I don't think Alan ever said that, or confirmed that. We should ask him to be sure, but that final take with the harp sounds pretty darn final-takish to me -- EXCEPT, that is, for the tape explosion. Its possible, I think, that a final take WAS snipped, but who knows?

I think Josh said recently that pretty much everything on tape -- minus "Jazz," from the IBWA/FN tape, har har! -- has been booted or at least logged. There are a few missing items (we haven't heard all the Barnyard tapes, for example!) but the vast majority we've heard at this point, or they've at least been booted or passed 'round.

I'm really not at all sure the 2004 arrangement of IIGS is anything at all what he planned back in the day. Just going by the structure of hte OTHER songs on the album, which are either very complex (H&V) or very traditional (Child and Worms, which follow a basic verse/chorus/verse/chorus/tag or verse/chorus/verse/chorus/middle 8/tag structure) the sort of disconnected "one verse, then some random stuff" arrangement of that song bothers me. Not that it isn't possible that IWBA/Friday Night were PART of the song -- just that the arrangement probably wasn't what it was in 2004. Maybe FN was conceived as a tag to a longer song with repeating verses, and maybe we're missing a chorus. Or maybe Barnyard was the chorus. Or the tag. I mean, honestly, who knows?

The Earth element confuses me not at all. The illustration saying "My Vega-Tables - The Elements" says it all, really, Cam Mott's unusual objections to same notwithstanding. At one point, at least, "Vega-Tables" was earth. This according to Van Dyke, his wife, and the illustration in the booklet. It might not have STAYED part of it, but I'll take the partial credit rather than the none at all. I'm still not sure Carl got the whole Elements tracklisting right when he wrote out the list, even maybe WITH Brian's participation, but who knows?

I still don't think Mike could have REFUSED TO SING LEADS. No proof of that whatsoever. There's nothing in the group's dynamic that said he was actually NOT SINGING LEADS -- helll, he sang "Over and over" despite objections, and eventually sang "Sunny Down Snuff" despite objections, too. But this way leads to THE THREAD.

Jesus, my brain hurts. What I remember was Jon Hunt quoting Alan about the Great Shape master take! I'll definitely ask on his thread. As for almost everything in the vault being booted or logged, I think that's largely true, but as I said, missing does not mean lost forever. I, for one, still hold out hope that we'll hear Durrie Parks' acetates (how's that for eternal optimism?) and see  the Inside Pop outtakes.

The thing about the 2004 IIGS/IWBA/FN that rings true to me is actually it's SIMILARITY to other SMiLE tracks in structure. Wind Chimes (at least the quasi-finished version) and OMP (including barnshine) also follow an A-B-C format. I also happen to think that the tape explosion works great going into IWBA.

I agree that Vega-Tables was the earth Element at one point, but the same could be said of IWBA/FN being part of Great Shape at one point due to the session log. Doesn't that get partial credit?

As to whether Mike (or anyone else) ever refused to sing leads, it's all speculation. I do think, however, that it's signifigant that Brian makes that comment in Beautiful Dreamer about being able to finishng the vocals himself, but needing the Beach Boys' blend.

I genuinely believe that IWBA/FN were always meant to follow Fire as Domenic Priore argues. It follows so smoothly out from the crashing bass-drum (presumably representing a crashing timber) at the end of Fire, the 'rebuilding after the fire' of the workshop is a very logical explanation, plus I feel you need something calm (and humorous) to follow such an agressive piece of music. Of all the Smile pieces that could go together this seems the most convincing and logical to me.

But we don't know for sure if there was a Beach Boys vocal session for "Surf's Up" on December 15. We know that they recorded "Who Ran The Iron Horse", bv for "Wonderful" and a "Do-wa-wa" chant  (bv for WF, CE or even the Water chant?) and after the boys went home Brian recorded his solo-version of SU in front of cameras.

"Earlier in the evening the film crew had covered a Beach Boys vocal session which had gone very badly."
I think Jules Siegel was expecting something exciting like the "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow"-session he attended a couple of days before, or simply a complete song. Instead the boys recorded 20 takes of just "Who ran the iron horse...who ran the iron horse".
David Oppenheim: "They were doing tiny little pieces that made no sense in and of themselves…just a few notes…also the sessions didn’t make a scene that was at all interesting".

Did Brian refuse to sing "sunny down" for H&V after taking the lead away from Mike? It is all confusing to us but I don't see where Brian was confused.

I dunno...to me, "Water" makes sense as something to naturally come after "Fire" (both musically, in the case of the two recorded pieces, and philosophically).  Dom told me (or I read him say, I can't remember which) that Carol Kaye was the one that told him "I Wanna Be Around" was supposed to follow "Fire".  And we know her memory is, shall we say, less than reliable?  Also, we should consider that even IF Brian indeed intended that to be the sequence when he originally recorded "I Wanna Be Around", by the time he got around to recording "Water"/"Da Da", his scheme MAY have changed, and now that the "Water" element was actually on tape, he may have decided it was better to follow "Fire" with it.  It seems the running order (at least certain elements of it...pun intended) was subject to constant change.

"The 2nd Wind Chimes session produced the 3 sections heard on the GV box version recorded one section at a time."

That is not correct, the first session produced the middle section, that was not rerecorded.  Only the first section and last were rerecorded.

As to Mike's fight in front of the cameras on Dec 15th, this has been denied by people who were present (Jules  Siegel) and is not on any of the Inside Pop reel logs that list everything recorded by the cameras.

RE: Televised “Fight” (session going badly)

We’ve already dismissed this bit of folklore. Simply boring backing vocals for Wonderful. Another misconception spread further by Priore's new Smile book. The last word on Smile, people. The only tool future generations will ever need.  :'( Anyone who argues his cold hard facts are internet geeks.

I too feel that what represents Barnyard and Great Shape on BWPS sound unfinished in comparison to the rest of the album. If this was Brian’s original intent, it seems pretty half-assed, which doesn’t seem like his style. I have to believe that some of those sections would have been repeated and a more traditional verse/chorus format would have been used, as that was how the majority of the album played. I mean, if you only had one verse of Cabinessence followed by one Iron Horse and the tag it would probably sound as poorly thought out as Great Shape. Still, with the materials we have heard thus far, it is hard to find any other way of structuring the songs. SO Barnyard and Great Shape sound like a collection of leftover scraps instead of working as songs.

I’m not sure about Great Shape following Fire. Anything is possible.

The only thing left to discover is the CBS footage. I truly believe that many new answers will surface there. Just from the notations alone we can see so much. We don’t even need a proper release. We just need someone who knows the questions to watch the footage and find the answers. Let’s hope someone, anyone, can someday view it and report it to the world.

I also don’t believe Mike refuse to sing anything. He say the two lines he complains about the most. He seemed perfectly happy singing about Vegetables on that early comp reel version. And he might even be singing on the fade for Sunshine (False Barnyard), although it is incredibly hard to make it out. That small fragment of a lead vocal only fuels my belief that there were more vocals cut than what we have heard.

About “Sunny Down Snuff”…since it is part of the original blueprint it must have been attempted during the sessions, I’d imagine, right? The Smiley Smile part is not of the Smile era, is it? It is designed to go straight into the chorus. If it was used before the Bicycle Rider theme became part of H&V, how would it have played? Would it have been sung over the main verse riff like the rest of it? I suppose it could have. Why is there no version of the song that contains all the lyrics? Three Score, Peace in the Valley, Sunny Down Snuff…..why not tell the whole story? Could Sunny Down Snuff work sung over top of the prelude to fade? I asked Van about the writing of the song and he said that all the verses were written that first night. The only later addition is seems was either “Great Shape” or “Cantina” depending on what stage the song was at. So Brian plays the verse riff at the piano and Van knocks out several verses of lyric:

I’ve been in the town so long/once at night
La la la,/stand or fall…(doesn’t “la la la seem like a cop-out? Was there something else there originally….something “inappropriate?”)
My children were raised/ three score and five
Been in this town so long to the city/Sunny Down Snuff

No chorus, but there doesn’t necessarily needs to be one. To jazz things up, Brian throws in nifty acappella part. He knows that there are several ideas that he want to work into the album somewhere: syncopated laughter (cantina and early Vegetables), an explosion of reverb (Great Shape or Cantina version. “exciting new recording techniques”, he claimed in an interview at the time), orchestra strings sliding downward (OMP or early attempt at Prelude to Fade). And we can see that he tries to throw these things into several songs.

 Who knows if and when Great Shape or Barnyard become part of it, but that’s the way he seems to present it to Humble Harv. Lyrically, neither of them seem suited to the song. These were probably just a couple of stray “feels”.  This was supposed to be their answer to “El Paso” and the Cantina section definitely reflects that, so it’s odd that they wouldn’t go in that direction from the start. So maybe the Humble Harv tape is a red herring. Although if we use Shape as the middle section and Barnyard as the fade, I guess it’s feasible. But if the tape explosion of Great Shape were used, then the whistling one from the Cantina version probably wouldn’t have.

I’d love to see Van’s original lyric sheet for the song. Who knows what other lyrics he might have written and not used (or at least never turned up in the vaults).

Yeah, exactly. And we actually DO HAVE a mix like that, from the December comp reel. We have similar messed-around A-B-C roughs of Child, too. Brian had a tendency to put three sections next to each other on comp reels, not necessarily meaning that it was the final structure. "Wind Chimes" I don't think was meaning to repeat (though earlier versions do continue on past the tag, so who knows?) but "Worms" and "Child" and "Cab" all are more than A-B-C.

It makes me wonder about OMP especially -- it, too, is on an acetate as A-B-C but it was Toby who suggested that a repeat might have happened THERE as well. We have no vocals on the "Old Master Painter" sections -- perhaps it *was* meant to cycle around again, with each appearance having a different part of "Old Master Painter" lyrics over it, and essentially "My Only Sunshine" as the chorus. In other words -- Old Master Painter, You Are My Sunshine, cello descent. Old Master Painter different verse, You Are My Sunshine, cello descent. Tag. THAT structure expands the song into a slightly more significant/similar length AND puts it more in line with the rest of the Smile songs in terms of structure.

Which is why I tend to think the A-B-C of "Great Shape" doesn't make sense, kinda. I really feel with a verse melody as lovely as "Great Shape" it would have been USED -- cycled around again, at least. With so many missing pieces, it really would take a play-through of the song (on the Inside Pop tape, possibly) to let us know anything about a structure.


It all depends on whether the "Great Shape" on the session log was intentional. It surely could have been, or it could have been an accidental transcription or confusion. If Carole IS to be believed (and that reminiscence happened long long ago, when her memory was much less faulty) that session was another "Fire" session, with the folks wearing fire hats on THAT day as well, while they were hammering and sawing. The specific fire hat detail is what makes me suspect, or at least wonder, whether she didn't have a correct insight there.

I agree, it sounds better after Fire than as part of any "Great Shape" structure. But that's just me. I've done many versions where it follows the last "thump" of the fire being put out, and the key of 'IWBA' works so well as the next thing you hear. Less so, IMO, with following the tape explosion.

And you know….there are three verses of OMP. Who says Brian wasn’t planning on using them all? This is what is looks like with all the words:

That old master painter from the faraway hills
painted the violets and the daff-o-dills
He put the purple in the twilight haze
then did a rainbow for the rainy days

You Are My Sunshine
My only sunshine.
You make me happy
When skies are grey.
You'll never know, dear,
How much I love you.
Please don't take my sunshine away

Dreamed up the murals on the blue summer skies
painted the devil in my darlin's eyes
Captured the dreamer with a thousand thrills
The old master painter from the faraway hills

You Are My Sunshine
My only sunshine.
You make me happy
When skies are grey.
You'll never know, dear,
How much I love you.
Please don't take my sunshine away

Then came his masterpiece and when he was through
He smiled down from heaven and he gave me you
What a beautiful job on that wonderful day
That old master painter from the hills far away

You Are My Sunshine
My only sunshine.
You make me happy
When skies are grey.
You'll never know, dear,
How much I love you.
Please don't take my sunshine away

That last chorus of Sunshine may or may not be the “false barnyard” tag with the sunshine lyrics over it. This makes sense on paper, yet seems too pedestrian for a track. Surely Brian would have thrown some razzle dazzle in there. But it totally fits the M.O. of the rest of the album, like Cabinessence and CIFOTM. All that's missing is a zinger like the piano/bass part in Child. It needs something like that. It's one part away from being something special.

I am not sure how long of a track this turns out to be. I’ll have to try to piece it together. It’s difficult to cut from the chorus back to the verse because of the saxophone riff. And where would that riff and the slide occur in a version like this? Maybe just before false barnyard? Doesn’t seem to flow right. Because I think it plays better cutting sharply from “sunshine away” into the opening cello riff.  The song might slide to a finish with the strings and then have a slight pause before the False Barnyard fade comes in, very similar to the Cabin Essence Coulee Dam fade.

Now all of a sudden this song looks like a frigging masterpiece.

Of all the possibilities of a bridge I guess Barnyard is top suspect because a) it had no home and b) it relates to the tag. But I don’t think it sounds particularly well here either. But it feels like something would have popped in just before the third verse of OMP to shake things up, no? Maybe Barnyard sans lyrics works best. Just a few Bars of mooing and crazyness, like the Wonderful insert, you know?

Hell, when you look at the track like this it’s almost like another Cabin Essence. It feels right, like a real track. Can we look at the recording dates and find anything else recorded around this period that Brian may have intended to use here? Soul Made Beautiful? Just throwing it out there…

I can't wait to get home and assemble this. This feels so right.

I think it happens twice -- at the end of each verse/chorus repetition. The cello descent leads into the cello playing Old Master Painter again.

Yes…yes….and that could explain the 2 slightly different edits of the horn solo.

As a matter of fact, it could. I never even thought about that.

As to where "sunny down snuff" could go in an early version without the chorus - there are several good sounding possibilities.  To go from "children were raised/three score and five" to "sunny down snuff" with a complete "heroes and villains" at the end, then go into the false Barnyard fade OR even better go into prelude to fade and then the false Barnyard fade (or rerecord of the same).

"By the heroes and"

It's setting us up for something. At least that version is. An earlier attempt might have done something else. There are more syllables in it than the other verses, so it doesn't work right over the verse riff. I don't think the alternatives to the chorus sound as striking. It's gotta jump out and hit you over the head. Who knows? If only someone would come forward with something else. Another mix. Another alternative. Come on, Bruce! Spill it!

Bubba I love your ideas about OMP/Sunshine!  I think that with another section or two that Brian would have presumably come up with, it could have been one hell of a track.  Makes sense that he would only put the verse and chorus on a comp reel, if he was just intending to go verse/chorus/verse/chorus/fade (maybe a bridge in there somewhere too).  All he had to do was the fade (which I don't think would have been false Barnyard, as much as I love it after the descending cellos).  The only thing about that particular sequence is that it seems too slow moving...Brian almost always had at least one relatively up tempo section within each song.  Like Child...the verses are slow, but the chorus is a faster moving chant.  I think that maybe OMP into Sunshine and then repeating both would have dragged a little.  It would have been amazing for sure, but I think to make it work Brian would have needed to record a few more sections.  I really like the idea of OMP as a full on song though!

Yes, it is sluggish, which leads me to believe something silly like a bit of Barnyard might have fallen in there, though the sax solo is sort of zany. Same with Wonderful (Smiley Version), he cuts in something whacky like that. It has precedent. Still, in the earlier takes of OMP there was a little more speed and even some strange, tribal beats going on, so it could have moved a little more on the verse and then cooled out for the chorus, like an inverted Cabin Essence vibe. I'm really convincing myself of this theory. It makes sense and helps out the album as a whole.

Hopefully one of our technically talented people out there will assemble what we've talked about here.  ^-^

Now if only we knew what to do with Great Shape/Friday Night!

Vosse, in the article on this very site, associates "IWBA/Friday Night" with "Old Master Painter / You Are My Sunshine" instead of either with the Elements OR with Im In Great Shape. Make of it what you will.

"By the heroes and"

You're assuming that an earlier sunny down snuff section would end like it does in the Smiley single version - I would contend that originally it more likely ended with the full "by the Heroes and Villains" - then it would neatly go into prelude to fade/C& W theme or into the fade itself.

What’s interesting about Vosse’s statement is he talks about the bassline from Brian’s sunshine rendition leading him to think of Old MacDonald's Barnyard and making it part of the song. The version of Sunshine we have does not really have much of a bass line. See, the problem here is that he cut false barnyard at the session and not the real Barnyard…unless false Barnyard really is an updated version of Barnyard, in which case we’ve got something here.

Do we have a concrete date for Barnyard? I think it was said to be from Oct. 20. OMP cut Nov. 14. I dunno, I don’t think it holds water. Perhaps Barnshine was a revamped version. Animal sounds over top of it wouldn’t be out of line. 

I don’t think Vosse was saying the saws were part of OMP, I think the mention of the animal sounds made him think of other neat sound effects and he just mentioned it chain of thought like.

Really the only thing holding back this notion of the Barnyard integrated OMP is that it doesn’t sound very good. Let’s be frank, it’s not nearly as impressive as the others.  If we assembled this thing with OMP/Sunshine/OMP/Sunshine/Barnyard/OMP/Barnshine we have a more complete song yet perhaps not a very engaging one. We can speculate that full vocal treatment would have helped, and surely more overdubs on Sunshine would have helped…I mean, what’s with the drumstick percussion? Sounds kinda cheesy, no?

Another thing, since we’re on the Vosse article, which I believe in quite a bit because it’s only 2 years after the fact….he mentions that the album would end with Surf’s Up and a sort of amen thing. Sounds like Prayer, right? Isn't there a comp reel with prayer with a piece of the end missing. The part just before the “hmmm” thing? I know I've got it somewhere. Was that a legitimate Brian Wilson edit? What if he decided to take that out and then have that and maybe “hmmm” again close the record. I mean, he’s got an intro to the album, and closing prayer is not out of line, no?

Another hypothesis – CIFOTM reprise not originally part of SU. Brian just sings “Ahhh” and then it would go “hmmm” and close things out. Although Child sure fits nice there. Just spit balling. See what sticks.

I've always thought of Barnyard as just an offshoot of H&V that would have either turned into its own song or just ended up as a part of H&V.  In context of OMP, nothing from Barnyard or false Barnyard really makes much sense (though it sounds damn cool).  I think it is possible that false Barnyard may have been another section for Heroes, or maybe as another section to be added to what we already know as Barnyard.  Like you said Bubba, Barnyard mixed with OMP doesn't really sound good.  Even if vocals had been added in places, I just don't see it working.  The thing is, Sunshine probably wasn't conceptualized as a part of a particular song...in whatever LLVS article its in, the journalist basically said that Brian just came up with the past tense Sunshine on the spot and played it, as if it had just popped into his head.  So maybe it was never meant to go anywhere, then Brian thought of doing OMP and decided to link the two.  I think that a track consisting of OMP as the verse and Sunshine as the chorus, with a few additions, could have been a great addition to Smile, but of course nobody knows whether or not that was ever Brian's intention. 

I like the idea of the album ending with Surf's Up, and then the "hmmm" from Prayer.  The keys fit together (the "hmmm" is a B flat and the end of Surf's Up has a G minor in it) and it's a very "spiritual" way to conclude the album.  I've not heard about a comp reel with the end of Prayer chopped off but if there is then it isn't hard to believe that there was a good reason for doing it.  You might be right about Child also, even though as you said, it fits really well at the end of Surf's Up. 

Anyone else thing a cool ending for Heroes would be Sunny Down Snuff, then "by the heroes and...", concluding with Bridge to Indians?  Kinda like on BWPS except without the chorus.  I don't think that ending the Sunny Down Snuff part with "by the heroes and villiains" would have fit, unless maybe he paused before singing "villains" and then brought back the verse track right as he sang "villains".  Even that way, it would sound weird.  That verse couldn't work like the others because the phrasing wouldn't work.  I also think that leaving off "villains" and then going into Barnshine would sound cool too.   

I've actuallly done that, I made a version of the BWPS version, where I inserted Great Shape instead of Bicycle Rider and out of necessity I had to end it that way.

Søren

I think OMP doesn't work as a repeated section, and I also think that part of what's so cool about SMiLE's modular structure is that you an get away with A-B-C tracks in between more traditionally structured songs. Also once you start repeating more and more secions, you quickly pass the 40 minute single LP limit.

Yeah, after doing a rough edit I see that it truely blows. No salvation for OMP and Great Shape....yet...

The comp reel version of prayer actually has the second to last section removed, not the final hum.

Oh really?  Thanks for clearing that up...thats kinda strange, I figured it would have been the hum.  Either way, it must have been removed for some purpose.  Very interesting stuff like always...

"By the heroes and" goes well into "How I Love My Girl"

You're right, that would sound cool as well.  In fact, I think almost anything would sound better than going into the chorus (I can't stand the chorus). 

I know I'm well over 600 days late in responding to this, but on my SMiLE! mix I have IWBA/Friday Night right after OMP/YAMS...the descending cello line melts right into IWBA; while the theme is not comprimised, as it is dealing with heartbreak....


BTW, this is one of the best threads on SSMB,.....