The Smiley Smile Message Board

hello, long time reader of this and the smile shop but i stopped posting pretty much after the bored split...

i was reading through the badman book and i was going through the bit about re-creating surfs up and it states the 71 versions ending section is "based on the "CITFOTM" recording of December 2nd 1966." and after looking through my bootleg collection i could only find some child stuff from december 6th labeled "02 Child Is Father Of The Man (mono mix) 12-6-66" 1:55 "03 Child Is Father Of The Man (alternate stereo mix) 12-6-66" 1:37. both of these are from a massive collection i downloaded a while back that supposedly had everything in chronological order. am i missing something from my collection or has the 12/2 session never been booted? i never really payed much attention to exact dates in terms of booted stuff and the exact session they came out of, please tell me if im not seeing something or if i have made an error in thinking somewhere !



"Child Is The Father Of The Man" 10/7, 10/12, 12/2, 12/6 1966 Unknown whether lead vocal was completed. Additional sections recorded but not used in final mix. " - taken from the smile shops sessionography page.


thanks for any help !
zacc m

While interesting, the Badman book contains numerous inaccuracies, especially in terms of dates. Musically, the ending of the '71 "Surf's Up" (and the BWPS "Surf's Up" for that matter) is the same as the solo Brian performance recorded in Dec. '66. only with the "Child..." round layered on top and the new lyrics performed by Al ("A children's song/listen as they play"). The melody line to Al's part pretty much mirrors Brian's wordless wail from the solo recording, so there is really nothing left to "base" the ending on that hasn't already been booted...unless it's a tape containing the "listen as they play" lyrics which seems quite unlikely. The one tape that is known to exist, but has not been booted, is an edited backing track to "Child..." (no vocals) that runs about 3 minutes.

The Alan part? Are you sure?I seem to remember reading somewhere that Brian came up with that part then and there and it is HIS voice, not Al's. I also remember reading about some extra lyrics about father's or something that was never used. Anybody??

On the bottom of the lyric sheet carl used for the lead vocal are the pencilled lines:

"The father's life is done
And the children carry on".

BTW, the mono mix of the "CIFOTM" that Brian made is dated 11/66. And it rocks.

Ok, I know this is in an old post, but where did this whole 'Al sings the children's song part' come from. It's always sounded like Brian, to me. Are people just making things up and then calling fact, or is there something to base this on? My whole reality is slowly being undone with all of these "it was actually Al on that song"  revelations!

No reputable person makes stuff up and calls it fact (unless you're a politician, which kinda knocks 'reputable' on the head). I say it's Alan on the "Child" tag because, to these ears, it sounds very, very much like him. Others agree. others still don't.

Plus, I have other sources.  ::)

That part in Surf's up has always sounded like Alan to me as well. Al does a great job of singing "like" Brian. In fact he was brought back to the BB's in spring '63 to replace Brian on the road and sing his parts. The guys were reportedly "stoked" because... he could sing "just like Brian". Apparently so.

I was fooling around with the audio a few days ago, and after isolating the vocal from all of the harmonies, it's pretty clear to me that it's Al.

Take a listen: http://download.yousendit.com/4243FBEE4F3A6D42

Thanks Ebb, i think it's pretty clear now.

Weird thing is, Steve Desper told me directly that at the end of "Surf's Up," Brian joins in on background vocals during the "Child" tag, singing "That's why the child, hey hey"--and it doesn't sound ANYTHING like him!

At one point, I thought maybe it was Jack Rieley.  But I asked Steve D. and he said no, it was Brian.

I thought it was Carl or maybe Dennis.....  :o

The Child 66 mono mix was booted on Archaeology.

Steve Desper also said (and you can find it with the Desper Search Engine™) that Brian was singing the "Oh Lord I lay me down..." part in A Day In The Life Of A Tree... But it's clearly Al, although some would probably disagree.

Until a few days ago (and a very compelling argument from Andrew G. Doe), I was one of those folks who disagreed!

On Archaeology there are 2 mono mixes and 3 stereo mixes. Do you know which one is by Brian? One mono mix is 1 min 55 sec, and the second mono mix is 1 min 37 sec.

The mono mix I'm talking about in this thread is 3.03 long and goes verse/chorus/verse/chorus/verse/chorus. I don't think it's been 'officially' booted. In its own quiet way it's as much of a jaw-dropper as the "Cabin Essence" track. Think I'm right in recalling it was on an early, tentative lineup for Endless Harmony.

Andrew, is that the one where the third verse is a bass-driven thing with vibes and a little percussion (not at all similar to the first 2 verses), then goes into a few repititions of the chorus without vocals?  I've never been sure if that was a Brian mix or not. 

Man, I'll just have to imagine that one then - curse you posters with insider status!! Is this just a backing track or are there vocals? More importantly what are the odds we will ever hear this? Pretty slim I'm guessing.

Chris - it's been a while since I last heard it, but my recollection is that the instrumentation was constant throughout. I'll dig out my notes.

Buddah - just the track, no vocals whatsoever. Brian's own mix and edit. It's a gem. I can't see it not coming out one day.

OK, found my notes. The instrumentation is consistant, except for the final repetition of the 'chorus', which is the one that sounds tinkly and distant - then back to the usual riff.

Thanks Andrew.  The mix you have doesn't sound like the same one I have.  Mine starts with a full on vocal chorus (the child chant with some ahhh backing vox), piano verse, more sparse vocal chorus, guitar verse, another full on chorus, the weird little bridge part I described before, then a few instrumental variations of the chorus.  No idea where I got it, but if your version is a Brian edit, I'd guess that mine probably isn't.  I wish I could remember where I got it!

andrew is this something that was played for you or is it something that you literally have? not on secret smile? i'd look but my laptop is fried and my music collection is currently backed up on my ipod in data form only. secondly, was the child chant re-recorded for the SU tag or was the "cha cha...father of the man" part just mixed amongst the newly recorded stuff. it'd be pretty cool if that was taken from original smile tapes that have never come out but i doubt that is the case. still hoping to see a better child mix leak out one day because the common booted ones are pretty dull imo.

Best of my knowledge, the 3.03 mono mix hasn't been booted. No vocals whatsoever, just the track.

I'm obviously not AGD, but the "Child" reprise in Surf's Up must have been re-recorded for Surf's Up because the chords are different.
 Here here.  There's got to be a better sounding version somewhere.  I sure wish that someone would dig up a version with lead vocals, although probably unlikely.

You can get a vocals only version of Surfs Up on the "Get The Boot" bootleg, volume 1. The "child / father" vocals have obivously been re-recorded. I think it's in someone's book that Brian taught them all the vocals for the tag when he came down from his bedroom...

The 3:03 Brian edit is on Archaeology.  It appears in upgraded sound on Secret Smile as well.  I agree that it is excellent and I'd love to hear an authorized (i.e. hi-fi) version of the track.  Why they left it off of EH is beyond me.

Of all the unfinished Smile tracks that I wish had been completed this is the one I would like to have heard the most.  The 3:03 mix fits in with the assertion that a 1966/1967 Smile would have been 12 distinct tracks without crossfades.

I also don't think the 2004 "Child" lyrics are what was originally intended.  This has been discussed I'm sure.

Yeah, I can't believe Van Dyke didn't write lyrics for CITFOTM back in '66, but I guess he didn't. I really don't like 2004 CITFOTM, I don't like the track or the new lyrics which are not true to the original intentions of the record, completely inferior to what came before, and lazy.

lead vocals wont happen, if they existed on tape somewhere at this point someone would have heard it/booted it/discussed the fact that it existed. i honestly just want a better quality child chant / track and i assume under lock and key somewhere is something better than what we have.

vocals to Child could be on acetate somewhere (Durrie Parks . . . ).  When Jon Hunt asked Van Dyke if he'd written lyrics to Child, he answered affirmatively - However he may have just been referring to the chorus.  I realize that Brian was working in fragments, but I suspect if he asked Brian to write something, it would have been at least a verse and a chorus . . . but any original lyrics have been lost in time - Van Dyke and Brian (and Frank Holmes) don't have them, since they weren't found during the Smile 2004 sessions.

Just another thought on this.

If there were in fact words written for the verses of this song circa 66/67 why wouldn't the remaining Beach Boys have resurrected CITFOTM for a later LP like they did with Cabinessence and Our Prayer on 20/20 and Surf's Up on Surf's Up?

Cabinessence was unfinished during the original Smile sessions, but the other Beach Boys knew enough of the song's mooted structure and lyrics to put a finished master together.  If there was a finished backing track for CITFOTM in the can and they knew all the words why didn't they go ahead and finish it during the period (68-72?) when they were raiding the vaults for releasable Smile-era material?

Makes me wonder if the lyrics for the verses were never written or, at the very least, never shown to the other Beach Boys.

Isn't there a Dennis quote somewhere where he tells a journalist in 66 that he and Brian are working on a cowboy song (CIFOTM) which suggests to me that there were more lyrics at some point?

Dennis played the song on piano to a journalist, who described it as a cowboy song - he doesn't attribute the cowboy song remark to Dennis.  I don't think it sounds much like a cowboy song, so that makes me suspect Dennis sang or said something to give him that impression, but others disagree with me.

Yeah I remember now, thanks for clarifying. I agree with you - I remember reading this quote and thinking Dennis must have conveyed more info than we have about the song for the journo to come to that conclusion.

Any speculation on how the chorus of CITFOTM became the end of "Little Bird"?

Didn't Dennis also use a CIFOTM riff in his song 'Time' ?