The Smiley Smile Message Board

...everytime the boys decided to release some piece of SMiLE material on albums other than Smiley Smile, they put it (or them) at the very end of an album?
I give you:
'Mama Says' on Wild Honey;
'Cool Cool Water' on Sunflower;
'Our Prayer' and 'Cabinessence' on 20/20;
'Surf's Up' on Surf's Up.

To me this does not look like coincidence. Was it Mike's doing?

It's to ensure a strong ending, I'm sure.

I grant you this idea, but I also thought perhaps the others wanted to 'hide the pearls a bit' so to speak? I find '20/20' a lovely odds 'n' ends album, which, to this listener, totally unexpectedly ends with great art. It could easily slip the occasional listener in a booth completely by, in other words.

I dunno, no-one wants their album to just dribble to a lame end. I'd say it was the opposite of hiding them, that there was a pride there - saving the best for last.

OK - you win!  :)

Always thought that.

Heroes and Vibes both occupy track 1 position either side on Smiley, but that I've always put down to them being the singles and therefore the strongest way to start an LP side, like Pet Sounds' sides started with WIBN and GOK.

By the way, do you realize that we could win a potential war with the intelligent 'second language' we have developed? A bit like the British 'Enigma' machine, only better.
Like this:

Wee Helper to Bicycle Rider: 'Move over. Take the WIBN and GOK positions, quick! But does TLOS have a swirl? Tell me!'
BR to WH: 'No, Orange or Rainbow. Now choose SOT 16 # 9 and take the hint at 25" from the start. Don't skip, don't err! And then full blast at 110^o East of Java!'

I think it could be done...

Never noticed that! I'm sure with Surf's Up and Cool Water it is to give the album a strong ending a John points out.

Not so sure about 20/20 and Wild Honey. Our prayer and Cabinessence at the end seems a bit odd to me on 20/20. I think these two Smile cuts have too strong an identity to place them at the beginning of the album i.e. they would suggest the album's heading in a direction that it just can't sustain, and so the end probably makes more sense.

Mama says just seems like a throwaway, jokey ending on WH. I must admit, I always find it a bit of an anti climax as I love Wild Honey but it fits the general humorous mood of the album. I certainly wouldn't call it a strong ending though.

I can think of two reasons:

1. The "SMiLE" tracks were years older than all the other tracks so they really didn't belong on those albums. So I can imagine that the group wanted to put them at the end because they didn't want to interrupt the 'flow' of the newer songs.
2. Maybe they saw them more or less as 'bonus tracks'.

Hmmm... I am quite partial to that bonus tracks suggestion. Because the group wasn't very productive in terms of LP lengths then, I think 'Friends' clocks in under half an hour, 'Wild Honey' isn't long either, and '20/20' IMHO is sort of a collection of songs intended as singles, and adds a few good Dennis tunes (including the alleged Manson collaboration 'Never Learn...'). Perhaps padding out at the end looked like the best practical idea at hand.

Never Learn isn't an alleged collaboration - it's a Manson song (he recorded it for LIE, didn't he - as cease to exist?).

another reason to put the SMile songs at the end - What could come after them?  They are intense and epic kind of songs, any song after them would be anticlimactic.  Mama Says wouldn't fit that however - it could have been used as the last presong, a humorous interlude leading up to a big epic song - but there weren't really any songs like that on Wild Honey.  Mama Says should have been on Smiley - it would have fit right into the SMiley vibe.

Couldn't help but notice there's no "TWOTS" in this language...

I've always thought that Can't Wait Too Long would've been a perfect ending to Wild Honey, thus going right along with a Smile themed song ending an album. I would include Sail Plane, A Time to Live in Dreams, Lonely Days and Old Man River on Friends.

A Time to Live in Dreams wasn't recorded until after Friends was released. Also, no one knew about it until they were compiling Hawthorne CA.

Yeah, aren't all of those except Lonely Days more 20/20 outtakes?

Cool Cool Water, a Wild Honey outtake, would have fit nicely on Friends - like next to Diamond Head?

Completely agree. You are a man of exquisite taste.

BTW: it took me some time to figure out what TWOTS stands for, comrade...

I think at least after the first few years, the Beach Boys realized what an incredible album it would have been, and with Brian's involvement declining, I think they saw putting these tracks on the end of the album as kind of a statement of leaving people wanting more.  Kind of trying to give the impression "Look what could have been!" and then sadly there's only the one song, leaving you wondering as the album winds out in the groove.  If they put the songs in the middle of the album, they wouldn't have that lasting impression that the last song gives you... so not only are the songs quality, I think they were trying to help the legend a little bit by putting the songs in a prominent, last on the album position.   

As my evidence for this, if you listen to the way they talked about the album, it changed as time went by and turned into a respect for it.  Not always, but even Mike on the concert album is saying "many years ago, we recorded an album called SMiLE.... which is coming out.... any time now" or whatever he says.  I think even Mike began to appreciate those songs. 

Good thinking. Which fits with the various attempts to release the complete album (1971, 1989, 1997 are certain 'projected' SMiLE issue years - I still have a MOJO from 1997 which announced in its 'soon to be released' section a 3-CD 'SMiLE' box, following up on the Pet Sounds Sessions).

A lot of the songs work really well as closers even without the mythology. Cabinessence and Surf's Up particularly.

I think it was Carl's doing since he used to sequence the albums (if I remember correctly).
Also - after they went 'democratic' there was a tendency to have different members opening the albums (1969-73) -
almost in rotation!(?)