The Smiley Smile Message Board

In this thread, I would like us all to list weird things in BB's songs that we have noticed.  They could be mistakes that nobody caught, or they could be odd little curiosities that make you scratch your head and wonder "why?". I'll start by listing a few easy ones:

1. Somebody coughs during the organ solo on "Wendy".

2. There are some very...ehem...unique sounds effects during the fade in "All I wanna do".

3. During the VERY END of the fade in "Be With Me", somebody screams.

4. In "Anna Lee, The Healer", you can hear what sounds like music sheets falling.

No, there aren't.  :)

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like in the beginning of "A Thing Or Two" Mike pronounces little girl really odd, as if to make sound like "n*****". Someone else actually mentioned this to me when they first heard the song without me having told them. Wild Honey, the album, has always seemed perverse to me in a coying way. Kind of like "Love You".

"All I Want To Do", then? I always mix those two up.  ;D

Those aren't sound effects, kid.  ;)

"Wanna" as a word is more gentle than "Want To". That's how I tell them apart.

Talking during 'Do It Again' intro.

Bruce mentions a Pet Sounds song on the pod cast where Brian is talking but can't think of it off the top of my head.

I'm guessing he means "Here Today" where (from memory) you can hear Brian say "top please" and Bruce is talking with someone about cameras.

You can hear a lot of studio chatter thoughout Pet Sounds in the mono version, which they edited out for the stereo versions.

The middle of the Smiley Smile version of Wonderful sounds like it has a staged orgy going on.

On the intro to "California Girls", at the 10 second mark, does Hal Blaine accidently hit his cymbal?

At :24 of "Wake the World" is a sound of something sliding over metal, but it doesn't sound like a cymbal or intentional percussion. To me, it always sounded like something across a metal music stand--maybe a capo or something sliding off it. But Mr. Desper responded to a post on this board that it was fred noise. Very odd that it's so loud if that's what it is, as you'd almost have to be intentionally mic'ing the neck. (Although Frank Zappa wrote that he did that sometimes, because he liked the percussive effect of his left hand fingers hitting the fretboard.)

I always thought it was supposed to be somebody opening (or closing) the blinds or curtains after they either go to bed or wake up in the morning.

I just thought of another one. On The Honey's "The Love Of A Boy And A Girl", the person hitting the wood block misses a beat badly. Don't have the exact time of it....

During Country Air there is a buzzing sound that comes and goes. I was told that there was a an electrical problem of some sort, but I always thought that they had that in there to sound like bees. Still do!
And that song has the best "hum" in any rock song. Not a bad whistle either.

I remember reading somewhere that this "click" noise came from the activation of a switch on the mixing console. (I could be wrong though)

On He's a Doll (i know i've asked this before) but what's the crunching noise? and what's the percussion instrument used on Breakaway?

Yeah, that's always annoyed the sh*t outta me. How that slipped past Mr. Golden Ears, I dunno.

I've always wondered about that buzzing too.

Damn! I just noticed it. I hate reading about these things!

Brians solo of 'Warmth Of The Sun' from the IJWMFTTs disc. The clicking (not sure from what) seems out of time to me.

But hey...I'm no Brian Wilson.  :-\

Have a listen and tell me its not just me somebody!

Of course there is a saved writing or two on the Shut Down board. Some of the oddities that come to mind are:

the snoring in I Went To Sleep
Carl's "Soulful Old Man Shunshine"
something uttered in Here Today
"hold all the talking" (or something like that) before Do it Again

I don't know if I'd call that an oddity since it's kind of relevant to the song

I wouldn't exactly call this an oddity in that it wasn't some strange thing that slipped by and got into a final mix, it was an error in a take of a never-finished song that was put together and released long after the fact as an archival thing.

It's Steve Desper tapping the bowl of Murry's pipe with a chopstick.

On "Be Here in the Morning":
The sound effect on Carl's vocal is switched off a bit too soon on one line (on "Be here and make my life", the "life" is without the sound effect).

Yes, you are right. I apologize for posting something completely off topc.

isn't there supposed to be an odd growling sound on Hang on to your ego at some point?  i've never heard it/

Yeah, that one always bugs me!!

I forgot to mention a few. There is a weird audio "glitch" at the start of "Never Learn Not To Love". It happens on the word "cease". It's on the old out of print cd version, and on the "twofer". The same thing happens during the first verse of "Good Vibrations".

Oh yeah, the two dropouts in the first few seconds of GV.  I understand it had something to do with some rough edit splices, which is hard to understand with all the time and care that went into producing that masterpiece!

Here's one that gets me every time:  a split second before the occapella section of "I Can Hear Music" there is a very noticeable blip.  Perhaps an editing issue?  There is a similar blip when the vocals come in after the instrumental break of the song "Friends", right around the time the clarinet (or whatever it is) hits that awkward note.

These are all things that endear us to their work. It's that important.