The Smiley Smile Message Board

Has anyone posted this? If so my apologies. Really interesting though. I've heard Blondie - of course - Carl doing it on a live recording Dennis on an A I version but listening to Brian just testing things out is so wonderful. At times almost jazzy. It makes one realise what a great job Brian and Dennis together could have made of this song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04CcCmD4KoM

Great! More than a demo, it is a bit like Brian is composing the song "on the fly", with the help of VDP.

Very cool! Thanks for sharing.

This is just an edited-down version of what's on the "Sail on Sailor' boxed set, right?

Yes - you're right. Here's  what was written:
'Took the revelatory songwriting session Brian held with Van Dyke Parks for "Sail On, Sailor" and removed as many false starts and talking as I could to make it a more seamless demo. Apologies for the roughness in a couple of areas, this could’ve used some more editing but I was so caught up in the excitement of getting this out there.

'Taken from the Sail On Sailor 1972 boxset

'I transcribed as much of Brian’s lyrics as I could:

'(Hypnotize me and tell me I ain’t crazy, I’m insane)

Born into Brooklyn
So many people
I (lit a doobie)?
Where I be seein’

——-
San Diego
Sail on
Sail on
Sail on
Sail on sailor

Well
Greyhound is a quiet bus
Sleepin got to get us
Where we goin to
Play our next show
Don’t take airplanes
Might try
A boat

I knew my buddy
I did some snow
I need to try some
I’ve got to buy some
We know we are foreign
But we can —-

——
Way down in Trinidad
They stole all the drums in my steelband

Way out
Way out
Way out
Way out
Way, way, way out
Way, way out'

I should have checked that out before - so much music and so little time!

Thanks, Angela...man, those lyrics are (literally) all over the map...clearly SOS was a tune that Brian had worked on before, maybe as a feel, and might have had 2-3 different sets of lyrics from Ray Kennedy and Tandyn Almer from when they were banging it out while "slightly altered" at Danny Hutton's house...at this point it looks like VDP gets into the act and the smorgasbord of lyrics will take another spin around the buffet table...but the rudiments of a stellar song are all there, which is exactly why VDP popped over to Warners with the tape when the first version of Holland was tossed back,
and Jack Reiley grudgingly came back to LA to help salvage the album project he'd convinced Carl to so lavishly invest in, finally bringing some kind of narrative coherence to the lyrics.

Another great legendary origin story for a great tune that, if the gods were truly beneficent, would have its own CD showing how it worked its way through the serpentine process of creation, all the false starts, all the variations along the way, until finally culminating with the final version, and, as coda and in keeping with the soulful vocalizing by Brian on the songwriting demo, the epic version of the tune sung by the great Ray Charles.

All of that would be endlessly fascinating, but I'm just glad to have that clear take of the SOS backing track so kindly provided by Alan Boyd lo these many years ago, which is just a fab example of Carl channeling Brian and adding his rock chops to the rolling sea-wave rhythm that embodies the uniquely eccentric soul of his older brother.

Thanks - so appreciate your input.

Jack Rieley did a weblink at a British convention and he told us that he thought some of those credited for the track were just named to cut down his (and perhaps VDP's - can't remember!) share of the royalties! I'm sure we can all guess who was being blamed for that.

What I do find fascinating was Brian incorporating Morse code for SOS into the song. I also understand that some.. er.. disagreement over Ambha Love possibly singing this contributed to the ending of the C50.

I don't think that caused anything to do with the 50th reunion ending. It was more a symptom of things than a cause. 

Regarding the lyrics on the demo, Howie Edelson mentioned in one of his "Sail on Sailor" podcast interviews that he has spoken to Ed Roach, and Ed had been at the house/studio the previous day working with a band from New York, and they deduced that some of the lyrics on the demo recorded the next day had been influenced by that, topically.

I don't believe the reasons Mike gave. I think Mike didn't like the amount of adulation Brian was getting on stage. At the penultimate show Mike described it as 'a show in two halves - first half and second half'. Of course it was a show in in two halves in more ways than just that. Maybe Ambha wanting to do SOS was one of the flashpoints. Maybe there were other flashpoints  too.

From what I remember, there was no problem with her singing SOS. Back then the anecdote was that Mike asked Brian if Ambha could sing SOS and Brian replied jokingly "But I was gonna sing it!" but had no problem with it. Of course even back then people already said that Mike wanted to push his daughter in the spotlight etc. but that was not what the report I heard suggested.

From what I've heard, it started off as a disagreement between the wives. 

The C50 "Sail on Sailor" Ambha story is in Mike's book.  It was obviously a legit little mini controversial incident on the tour.  I'm just saying it's not a *CAUSE* of the reunion falling apart,  but rather a *symptom* of the politics that did lead to it falling apart.

Ah, ok. I didn't read Mike's book. I just remembered what someone reported after the show took place with Ambha singing.

Found the report re: Ambha singing SOS. It was posted by our member CoolWater:



From the soundcheck on you could tell Brian was having a good day. When Mike's daughter came out on stage Mike walked over to Brian and said something to the effect of 'If it's all right she's going to sing Sailor tonight." Brian joked back saying "But that's one of my lead vocals." Mike's daughter was okay on "Sailor". Her singing was fine, but she didn't really connect with the words in the verses, but she hit the tag perfectly.

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,13127.msg280436.html#msg280436

The story as told in Mike's book sounds at its core totally plausible. Mike just *told* everyone his kid would be singing the song, Brian probably didn't give a sh*t one way or the other, and the political apparatus around both camps turned it into a big thing because Mike was making a kind of unilateral decision, and then any suggestion that having his daughter sing wouldn't be preferable was immediately construed as a personal family insult, etc, etc.

Goofy stuff that you'd think people in the industry for 97 years would have been able to navigate and get over, but that's the Beach Boys. It's ridiculous, and also I'm surprised that kind of stuff didn't happen *every other night* and derail the whole thing half-way through. Which it probably almost did numerous times.

I think the part Mike left out in his book is that I think Mike might have been a bit taken aback himself if Al came on stage and announced that Drew Jardine would be singing "California Girls" tonight.