The Smiley Smile Message Board

Just a little note...Sean Lennon was interviewed in this month's Rolling Stone and was asked directly what he thought about BWPS.  He said:

"I prefer the analog recordings.  There's Smiley Smile, which Capitol put out, and then there's the bootleg of Smile, which came out on vinyl a few years later.  I love 'em both.  At one point, I listened to "Our Prayer" - from the bootleg - every morning, to sort of begin my day on the right foot.  It's like Bach on LSD."

He also says that he remembers talking to Joe Strummer when he was 16 and Strummer telling him that he wouldn't have made music if it weren't for the Beach Boys.  Lennon said that at the time he thought the Beach Boys were cheesy because "my brain couldn't wrap itself around the complexity of their music."

Very interesting little article...oddly he listed Phil Spector as one of the 5 greatest songwriters of the 20th century but not Brian. 

Sean Lennon has good taste in music.

Perhaps he isn't a nerd ;D

Are you being sarcastic? Beach Boys fans are nerds, eh?

I got Sean Lennon's first CD before I ever heard any of his music, just because I thought he had an excellent taste in music, because he's John Lennon's son, and because the Beastie Boys released it on their label. Based on that I figured it HAD to be good. Unfortionately it wasn't.

Just because someone's got 'good taste' doesn't mean they're gonna make good records.  What's the difference between Sean Lennon and most of the rest of us?  He's the son of a rock music legend - his passport to mixing with the right people and making records.

Has there ever been a legendary pop star's offspring - that is even a tenth as good as their famous parent - I don't think so.  Rock stars should be sterilised.

Actually, sorry, no they shouldn't - that would have eliminated Jeff Buckley! ( Although, somewhat tellingly, I don't think growing up as Tim Buckley's son carried quite the same pressures and expectations as being John Lennon's).

The sons of the great Murray Wilson caused quite a stir back in the 60s...

What, you mean THE legendary Murry Wilson?! 

about time i heard the source of his smile fasination. I always thought he was just talkin it up on the Endless Harmony docu, but he does know what he's talking about

Well, I happen to be a big fan of the Beach Boys, the Beatles and the Beastie Boys, so if the Beastie Boys release an album by the son of one of the Beatles who happens to be an obsessive Beach Boys fan, than I'm interested.

And the CD was just 5 euros.  ;D

I *really* like the Sean Lennon record. I think if it came out with a different name attached to it, people would be fonder of it. Its a lovely record -- gentle and highly melodic and also damned cool, with tons of sort of Bossa Nova and twee influences. It was certainly my most-listened-to record of that year. I think people go in expecting JOHN LENNON, whether they want to or not -- even if you say you didn't, you did. It isn't like that, and his voice is so shockingly different from John's that it freaks people out. I think if anything Sean's been HAMPERED by his celebrity offspring status.

Yeah sure, I understand your interest.  I was just commenting on why one shouldn't be too surprised if said album turns out to be crap.

I saw The Beastie Boys once - the concert lasted 10 minutes and then exploded into pandemonium after missiles were hurled between the group and some members of the audience.  Which was a shame - we never got our money back.  And I was enjoying the go-go dancers in cages.

I didn't say he MAKES good music, I was just saying he LIKES good music.

I don't like their early stuff and the attitude they had back then. I'm glad they've grown up and distanced themselves from that incredibly dumb, sexist first album.

And I didn't say you said he makes good music, I was just saying I bought his CD partially because I also thought he had a good taste in music.  :)

In a way I can see that could be true but only if one assumes that SL would have got to the position of being able to release an album if he came from an ordinary background, all other things being equal.

Awww, c'mon, that first album was fun! 

Fun, maybe. Good, no. Not nearly as good as what came after.

What Paul's Boutique?  I bought that and thought it dreadful.  I lost interest thereafter.

Smile came out "a few years later" after the vinyl Capitol Smiley Smile?  Yeah, like . . . 25 years later?

My favorite Beastie Boys album is Ill Communication, followed by Check Your Head. Paul's Boutique is OK too... How can you not like Egg Man and Shake Your Rump?

I thought that quote was strange too.

During his 1998 interview with Brian, Sean Lennon displayed quite a bit of interest in the "SMiLE" sessions. Brian warmed up a bit to the subject and, when Lennon mentioned the "Fire" tapes, he volunteered that the official track title was "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow".

It's a long long time ago now (vinyl era).  I dunno - I just didn't like the album and I switched off from the group and never came back to them.  You say the first album was dumb and sexist but it seems pretty innocent now in comparison to what's gone down since in rap music - just cartoonish juvenile hi-jinks.  As a twenty something in the moribund 1980s this, and the 'shock horror' media storm they managed to kick up in UK at the time, impressed me.

it would be interesting to know if john lennon ever heard any of the smile stuff. i bet sean would know.

I've always been under the impression that John Lennon didn't care about the Beach Boys.

Brian said in an interview that after Pet Sounds was released Paul McCartney AND John Lennon called him up to congratulate him, so maybe he did dig the Beach Boys.

I thought the same thing Melville, since I don't think I've ever seen any quote from John about the Beach Boys or Brian, while Paul has obviously been pretty emphatic about his love for Brian's music.  So I guess that would lead some to think that John didn't really care about the BB, but who knows.  Maybe John just wasn't the type to throw out praise for other artists.  I do think that John would have liked the Smile music, if he got a chance to hear it. 

I don't know why I feel this, I just do. But in the song God Lyrics, I think he wanted to add "I don't believe in Beach Boys." Just had to edit the list somewhere!

Well, there's still the story about a party for, I think, Ricci Martin, where Lennon was very happy to meet the Beach Boys and especially thrilled to meet BW.
BTW isn't there a phone-conversation between BW and Lennon on Brian's official site?

Paul's Boutique wasn't their first album -- Licensed to Ill was -- but it (P.B.) is their best. Easily. It's fucking brilliant, one of the best hip hop albums ever. (Sorry, that little rant has nothing to do with Sean Lennon, whose music sucks. There. Now it does.)

Yeah, but the interview wasn't by phone -- they were in the same room together...

In one of the thousands of Beatles books, it mentions that John Lennon loved 'The Little Girl I Once Knew' and said it was the best thing he had heard on the radio in six weeks. I'm not sure if it's true, but I figured I'd throw it out there.

Not only that, but didn't he lift 'Don't Worry Baby' for his 1980 hit, '(Just Like) Starting Over', or was that subconscious, sort of like Harrison lifting material for his 'Sweet Lord'?

It always seemed to me as Paul thought of the BB as friendly competition, whereas Lennon treated them more like rivals or "the competition".  In that August 1966 Beatles press conference someone posted a while back, Paul mentions The Beach Boys as his favorite group, while Lennon seems to go out of his way not to acknowledge them, even though he and Paul had listened to Pet Sounds months earlier and loved it.

i read somewhere that john loved 'lonely sea'. anyone know where this was printed? (or caught on film?)

thanks for all your thoughts people. i would have to agree that it seems like john wouldn't have really enjoyed the smile material, had he heard it.

Here's a JL quote for you:
"Wilson is a bloody genius who uses voices like instruments" (John Lennon, 1967)


Yeah, that's one of May Pang's stories.

Oh no, I knew PB was the second album - that's what I meant referring to Shelter's 'what came after' (after License to Ill).

Wow cool thanks Jasper, I'd never heard that one!

Right on Luther.  I really think Paul's Boutique is the best hip-hop album there is.  IMO, this album truly shows how sampling can be tastefuly used to make great records.  This is the album that made me a Beastie Boys fan.

As for the first album and it's "sexist" attitude, I wonder just how serious it really was.  Seems kinda toungue in cheek to me.  but I could be wrong.

It was. But unfortionately most people didn't seem to understand that. After the Beastie Boys saw the monster they created they distanced themselves from it.

The BIG question is: what did JOHN Lennon think of the Beastie Boys!?  :lol

Probably not much, since he died about 8 months before their first show.  :)

I think they saw the monster they'd created on the UK tour of 1987 and the Liverpool gig in particular.

What happened there?

I did touch on this earlier.  It's funny to re-call the storm of controversy the Beastie Boys caused in UK during their tour of 1987 particularly as since then they've really retreated from mass public consciousness, despite the fact that their career has continued and they are still a popular group in hip music circles.  It wasn't quite up there with The Sex Pistols as a moral panic but it was that sort of thing.  There was a lot of sensationalistic tabloid and media coverage including, most notoriously, an accusation that the group had verbally abused a group of disabled people, an accusation which stuck despite the group's denials.  Anyway, by the time the Beasties reached Liverpool Royal Court (I have a feeling it was one of the last dates on the tour, maybe even the last but I'm not sure) they had become more a subject of public curiosity than a musical entertainment.  I'm pretty sure there was a lot of people there who had just turned up to see who these notorious Beastie Boys were and cause trouble (because that's what the group were all about, right?!)  I remember there was another 'white rap' support act on first who were roundly booed and abused by the hostile audience as bottles and other objects flew at the stage.  And this only increased when the headliners themselves made their appearance.  Things were being thrown at the group and I do remember them throwing things back.  Then after about ten minutes they just walked off stage.  I remember standing around waiting for them to come back on but it didn't happen.  Acts of vandalism were happening such as light fittings being ripped out and a chant of "You'll never take the Pool!" (referring to Liverpool).  Next thing there was a panicked stampede to the back of the auditorium which I was caught up in and I'm not entirely sure but my impression is that some kind of pepper spray or tear gas had been used by some security body, but whether it was the group's or the theatre's I'm not certain.  It seems a strange thing to happen, something that one would have thought would have been prosecuted, but I don't remember anything happening in that way.  Anyway, in the aftermath of all this Adam Horowitz (AdRock) was charged with criminal assault because he allegedly threw an object back into the audience which struck a young woman on the head and caused some kind of injury.  He was allowed out of the country but returned at a later date to stand trial, one in which he was found 'not guilty'.  The then owner of the theatre said he would never again book a rap act to appear at his venue, whether that is something that has been kept to down the years I'm not entirely sure.

That sounds like a completely different band than the Beastie Boys I saw. I saw them in '98 and they stopped the show two or three times to ask the crowd to take a few steps back because it was too crowded up front and they were affraid of people getting hurt. Afterwards I read in a concert review that the Beastie Boys had been overreacting because there was nothing really going on (which I didn't agree with).

Well, there you go!  The change from License To Ill to the sort of 'art rap' begun on Paul's Boutique was quite sudden wasn't it?  They left Liverpool changed men!  :)

This thread's kind of all over the place (great reportage on that Beasties gig, Sir Rob), but I thought I'd throw this in here: if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then I would assume John Lennon admired the Beach Boys since I'm convinced "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" was inspired by "She's Goin' Bald"!

Hmmm...I know I am a bit sorry about that. 

Glad you enjoyed my reminiscence though! 

I distinctly remember reading in a John Lennon Interview ................"I like rock and roll , I don't like much else"


.....whereas, McCartney like the more lush arrangements.

At the same time, Lennon reportedly adored the Kinks' "Wonderboy" and requested it be played repeatedly at a club he attended one night in '67 or '68. For those unfamiliar with the song, it belongs to the chamber pop era of the band with a high, layered vocal sound not dissimilar to the Beach Boys vocals found on "Smiley Smile".

Yeah, he always said he was mostly into rock & roll... Which is odd if you realize he also wrote songs like Julia, Good Night, Across The Universe, Because and If I Fell...

I don't see it at all. Please elaborate.

Me neither, to be honest.

Wasn't that the Jann Wenner 'Lennon Remembers' interview from 1970?  I think he said a lot of wild and sweeping stuff there that should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Didn't Lennon tell Playboy in 1980 that he'd been listening to Barbra Streisand's "The Way We Were"? Maybe I'm misremembering.  Anyway, he liked (and wrote) a lot of stuff that wasn't harsh. People love to stereotype Lennon...

Lennon loved to wear an uniform, so you can't blame people for stereotyping him.

Interesting point. But regardless of whether he encouraged it...he gets oversimplified, and though he was genuinely larger than life, over-mythologized. When people try to reduce the Beatles to just him, it really makes me think they've bought into the hype rather than the actual greatness.

While Lennon's inspiration to create a multi-part song that is made up of distinct genre types could have come from The Who's "A Quick One While He's Away" or novelty records like the kind Spike Jones used to do, "Happiness..." seems like a close approximation of "She's Goin' Bald" to me. The opening section to both songs refer to a female protagonist and have a rolling kind of melody accompanied by stream-of-consciousness wordplay. Both feature a hard blues section ("Mother Superior jumped the gun..."/"It's too late mama, there's nothing upside your head"), and both feature a parody of a doo wop style ("Happiness is a warm gun - bang, bang, shoot, shoot"/ "Na na na na, nana nana na - what a blow"). Each song contains yet another genre parody that differs from the other: "Happiness..." throws in a country-western blues nod ("I'm goin' down...") whereas "..."Bald" goes for a melodramatic radio serial jab ("She tried to salvage what she could and threw it in a sack!").

"She's Goin' Bald"'s release on "Smiley Smile" would have happened only a month or two before Lennon's trip to India when he began writing most of his material for the "White Album", so if Lennon was influenced at all by the Beach Boys' summer '67 release as he and McCartney reportedy were with "Pet Sounds", he might have been intrigued enough by "...Bald" to do his own multi-part oddity.