The Smiley Smile Message Board

What year was this recorded? Sounds late 60s. Would've been so cool if this had been on Friends instead of Be Still.

Recorded November 1st 1968. Not a candidate for Friends, therefore.  :)

Be Still got me through some real stressful days... I like it. ATTLID would've been a much better replacement for a number of tunes on 20/20.

I'm not too good at dates, was this written before the Manson era, during or after? same goes for the recording...

During but it has nothing to do with Manson.

Speaking of A Time To Live In Dreams.. Andrew on your site under the unreleased Dennis Wilson songs you have "Grateful Are We For Little Children" listed as one of the songs. Isn't that an alternate title for "A Time To Live In Dreams"? And if that is true then did Dennis re-record it for a potential solo record (since you have it listed as 1975)?

Nope - that's an interesting one, as "Grateful..." uses a riff almost identical to Brian's "Saturday Morning In the City"... and Brian came up with that riff during a 1967 "H&V" session. Did Dennis 'borrow' it ? Another BB mystery.

How about this for a different 20/20 album:

1. Do It Again
2. I Can Hear Music
3. Bluebirds Over The Mountain
4. Be With Me
5. All I Want To Do
6. The Nearest Far Away Place
7. Cotton Fields [single version]
8. We're Together Again
9. I Went To Sleep
10. Time To Get Alone
11. A Time To Live In Dreams
12. Can't Wait Too Long

Of course, it's all fantasy, since circa '69, 'Can't Wait Too Long' probably wouldn't be pieced together for another couple of decades. But we're what-iffing, so it doesn't matter.
(I still wish I found room for 'Our Prayer' and 'Cabinessence'.)

I love 'A Time To Live In Dreams', really lovely. If you added that on, but still kept 'Be With Me' and 'All I Want To Do', then you'll have a big Dennis presence on the record.

I would've kept Never Learn Not To Love, just because Manson wrote it.

And that's mostly why I left it off! I never thought the world of the song anyway, but it's still decent enough...must be the Dennis parts of it. Still, 'Can't Wait Too Long', 'A Time to Live In Dreams' and 'We're Together Again' are far better. IMO.

Never Learn Not To Love - lame song, nice production, doesn't work for me (no matter who wrote it).

Andrew, this is what I was referring to earlier. On page 173 of Dumb Angel in the interview with Steve Kalinich:

"We wrote a song together, which had a line, "A child's joyous tear". We never finished it but Carl really liked it and Brian, Dennis and myself were going to work on it. It was in a song called "Grateful Are We For Little Children": "A Child's joyous tear was innocent, he has no fear. Now I know what love is.".

Okay, I know that the lyrics aren't identical but they are pretty darn similar.

I made up a 20/20 for the car which went:

Do It Again
I Can Hear Music
Bluebirds Over The Mountain
Be With Me
All I Want To Do
Cotton Fields
The Nearest Faraway Place

Old Man River (Hawthorne)
Time To Get Alone
We're Together Again
I Went To Sleep
A Time To Live In Dreams
Never Learn Not To Love
Old Folks At Home / Old Man River

Not much love for Never Learn Not to Love - I think it's one of the best things on 20/20.  The Beach Boys thought well of it, at least enough to perform it on TV.

Anyone else besides myself prefer the album version of Cottonfields over the single?  The arrangement may not be as uptempo, but Brian did an incredible job arranging and producing that track IMO.  And it fits with the Old Folks at Home/Old Man River thing he was trying to do at the time as well.

Well, I don't *hate* the song, it's just not that interesting to listen to beyond the production. IMO.


I prefer the single version of 'Cotton Fields'. I think Brian's version is a bit boring, and Al's vocal is even more staid. On the single version, it's more exciting track, and Al knocks it out of the park, just about. It's a driving feel. That pedal steel is outta site, too.

While I like both recordings equally, I thought BW's version was much more original than Al's. To me it sounds very much like a track that could've been sung by Spring. It certainly has quite the same vibe to it, just very tasteful, understated, and relaxed.

I vote for Al's. It's just better all round.

Ironic but part of the reason I like Al's is the harmonies which Brian did participate in.

Were Soulful Old Man Sunshine, Celebrate the News, Breakaway and/or Loop de Loop recorded in time to be on 20/20?

No they were recorded during the Sunflower era.

And SOMS was not finished either.

What of it wasn't finished? Didn't Carl just need redo the vocal part where he sang "soulful old man shunshine" by mistake?

It was never really properly put together.  To present it for EH there was a lot of comping done from different tapes.  I don't remember what came from what, but the vocals were, like, on a separate tape from the final track or something.

My memory ain't up to much these days, but I recall that the vocals were comped from two different tapes, and that in at least one part of the released version, the tape was ADTed to make it sound fuller.

FWIW "4th of July" was a similar scenario - there was the track, Carl's work vocal and the tag, all on different reels.