The Smiley Smile Message Board

This is one of my favorite of the new songs.... and I found that Brian mentioned it a couple years ago in an interview with Rhino, although just the phrase! 

http://www.rhino.com/RZine/StoryKeeper.lasso?StoryID=30

Q: Your 1988 solo album also focuses strongly on "spiritual health."What's the best example you can give to illustrate the tie between physical and mental well-being?
BW: Oxygen to the brain is the physical, which helps the mental.They go together hand in hand.



I guess this means we know that Brian actually is writing SOME of the new material! 

That interview is not older than 2 or 3 years. But even if he wrote it years ago, the regular fan hasn't heard it before.

A good year ago the press first reported about the Bennett/Wilson-Sessions and those song titles. Carnie mentioned that Brian wrote a Spanish ballad she likes better than "God Only Knows".



BRIAN WILSON SCALING THINGS BACK ON NEW STUDIO ALBUM

Brian Wilson is back in the studio and going full steam ahead for a new solo album, due out next year. In an exclusive to LAUNCH, Wilson revealed that in addition to the track he co-wrote with Burt Bacharach called "What Love Can Do," he's completed about a half dozen tracks, featuring most of the instruments and vocals performed by himself and touring band member Scott Bennett. Wilson added that on several songs horns have been overdubbed.

LAUNCH asked Wilson if he's heading into the studio every day: ["No. Not every day. Every two, three days. About four, four hours per session. I'm writing on a synthesizer. It's like a kick, it makes me inspired to write a melody."]

The stripped down approach has been used by Wilson many times in the past, most notably on the Beach Boys' Wild Honey and The Beach Boys Love You albums, released in 1967 and 1977, respectively.

Wilson's mid-'90s work with the Paley Brothers' Andy Paley was the last time he utilized the "two-man-band" approach.

Among the songs that Wilson said will be included on the still-untitled album are "Oxygen To The Brain," "I'm Goin' Home," "A Message Man," "Wonderin' What You're Up To Now," a new untitled ballad sung partially in Spanish with both music and lyrics by Wilson, the Bacharach co-written "What Love Can Do," and a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary."

Speaking with Scotty Sunday night, he mentioned that the original title of one of the songs was "Wondering What you're Up To now", which was written and demoed in sumemr 1985.

I'm sure thats mentioned in the Timothy White book when there's a chapter on Brian in the mid 80s

Well, regardless of when OTTB was written, it's part of a long and honorable tradition of Brian Wilson fitness songs, dating back to HELP is on the Way (off the top of my head), and including Too Much Sugar and Couldn't Get His Poor Old Body to Move.

As for Wondering What You're Up to Now, fascinating to see that it made its way into TLOS. It's never been booted, as far as I know.

Did this one morph into "Beatle Man"?

I'd have to hear both to know. After the "Goin' Home" vs. "I'm Going Home" fiasco, I'm not willing to make assumptions about these things anymore.

Those songs have the same title, same tag line -- but otherwise are entirely different. One a kind of Western ditty, the other a thudding rocker with a cappella interludes. Who would have guessed?

Which song in TLOS is Wondering What You're Up to Now?

That's a question for AGD, not me. I have only ill-informed speculation to offer, and I'm over my quota.

Ummmmm... I wish i could remember which one Scotty said it was. Gimme a few days, I'll find out. I'm thinking "Good Kind Of Love", but without any real conviction.

He seemd pretty surprised when i told him it was some 20-years old.

Thanks AGD. You mentioned that one of the songs is based on a BB song from 76 - is Good Kind Of Love what you were referring to?

Also is the Southern California melody entirely new? I was wondering if this is the Spanish ballad that Carnie Wilson described? I think it's one of the most beautiful parts of TLOS.

No - the chant during the opening and closing sections - "mow-mama-yama-holy-halleluja" - is from a song called "Clangin'": check out the November 1976 Rolling Stone interview by David Felton. of course, the song itself is yet another "Shortenin' Bread" variant !

The "Southern California" melody sounds awfully familiar... but that proves nothing, of course. Macca was so sure that "Yesterday" was something he'd heard before, he went around asking people that very question for a few weeks.

Whatever - the piece as a whole is just so much better than I'd hoped that it really doesn't matter. The only piece I'm not doing backflips over is "Mexican Girl"... but then I never did like mariachi stuff.

Some of the chants at the beginning and the end remind me of some of the vocal stuff from Mount Vernon and Fairway.
'Good kind of love' has a feel a bit like 'I sleep alone', again I think a lot of TLOS reminds me of Brians 80s work - BW88, Sweet insanity, Usher stuff and all the outtakes around this time - it just has that vibe, but that era is one of my favourites of Brians (songwriting wise)

Thanks for the info. It's great to see that an arch-cynic like yourself is so into TLOS!! I'm still not entirely sold on some of the songs in the middle (Mexican Girl included) but then I've only heard the boots. I also find with a lot of BW stuff that songs that initially turn my stomach (Market Place, Saturday Morning In The City) suddenly develop a unique appeal all of their own.

Are there any plans to update your Complete Guide to include this new BW work any time soon?

That would mean AGD would have to review GIOMH!  :-D

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!! :ahh

You know you want to, Andrew. C'mon .... :-)

And for what it's worth, I'm fairly well versed in the commonly available BW boots, and TLOS is almost entirely unfamiliar to me. Except for Been Way too Long and variations of that RIFF in the opening and closing tracks, that is.