The Smiley Smile Message Board

called Woulnt be Nice to live again. I have been playing this song over and over on my cd player. Adam Marsland and band did a great performance.

My question is:
will the beach boys release this song. If not, maybe why.
I never understand why they didnt released it when it was recorded. Thanks for taking the time for answering.

I'm not Alan, but...

The reason for its non-release on Surf's Up in 1971 is down to Carl & Dennis having a showdown over the sequencing of the album, the upshot of which was Dennis pulling both his tracks (the other being "4th Of July").

As for the track's prospects for a future release... currently politics dictate, I believe. Which is a huge, huge shame, as the BB version is just magnificent.

thanks for your answer AGD. I havent heard the BB version yet but i can imagion how it sounds. I also think 4th of july is a great song as is Carry me Home from Blondie and Dennis.

Yes, I would love for a release of The Beach Boys version of Wouldn't It Be Nice To Live Again also.

Though I have purchased and listened to Adam Marsland and The Chaos Band great Carl and Dennis tribute cd I still haven't heard their version of the song.  I'm sure it is great like the rest of the cd but I want to hear the Beach Boys version first (fingers crossed).  I ripped all of the songs on that cd EXCEPT WIBNTLA to my ipod.

Hope it does happen (and soon - but I am not holding my breath).

Well keep our fingers crossed and hope they relase a Hawtorne California vol 2 expanding the 70's and 80's  :)

Man, Dennis in the early 70s was a fantastic writer and I feel they (BB) underrated his music...Think of Surf's Up had Lady, or Sound of Free, or It's a New Day, I'm going Your Way; a lot more interesting than half the stuff on that album

If Denny's two cuts went onto the album which two cuts would have been dropped?

SDT and Disney Girls! No, actually I'm not sure. Surf's Up is a short enough album they could've just tacked Dennis' songs onto it without cutting anything.

I don't know this for a fact, but if I had to guess, it would have been Student Demonstration Time and Take a Load Off your Feet.  The reason for this suspicion is that it wasn't a matter of adding Denny's songs (unless I'm mistaken) but of dropping Denny's songs, after which they would have had to come up with two replacements, and since Feet and SDT both date back to previous sessions, they might have grabbed two tracks that they already had more or less 'in the can,' despite recognizing that they didn't quite fit?

It would have been 12 tracks. They simply didn't replace his.

I often wished they'd pulled SDT anyway. There isn't a BBs' album it would sit comfortably on, though a live version might have sat not too uncomfortably on the double album In Concert. Whenever I play SU, I always skip SDT.

As for Mike Love's SDT, he certainly wrote a better song in this era than that crap cover....his early take of Big Sur is soooo good, it's one of my favorite Mike recordings. I'm not a huge fan of the version on Holland, but I'll take it.

The story I heard was that Dennis wanted WIBNTLA as the concluding track following "'Til I Die" which he thought would be interesting thematically. When if was determined that  a cobbled together version of "Surf's Up" would conclude the album, Dennis was miffed and pulled both tracks he was working on.

If that story is true, it doesn't really make a ton of sense to me.  We can deduce from contemporary press that Dennis was a big supporter of Brian and SMiLE.  I would think he would be happy that his brother's SMiLE masterpiece was finally going to be released in some form, and not be as concerned about where his songs were sequenced on the album.

Of course, he may have agreed with Brian's thinking that the song should not have been resurrected in the first place, and was ticked when he found that it was going to close the record.

Either way, it really is a shame.  A Surf's Up album with Denny's 2 contributions and without "Student Demonstration Time" would have been a stone-cold classic, in my opinion (I don't mean to imply that its not still a wonderful album). 

In hindsight I would say they never should have put SDT on the record. But at the time, it was a topic song and Jack Rieley wanted it a "modern" album. It was a hit single in Europe back then, so yes, they were right in putting SDT on the album. And it was the closer of side 1. We didn't have CD's in those times, so it didn't matter putting the track there. But when Surf's Up was released on CD it became a disturbing track. I wasn't too keen on Looking At Tomorrow either back then and I still find it a mediocre track. If we had known back then that WIBNTLA and 4thOJ were dropped in favor of those two.........
Still, some years ago I heard a rumour that they were going to release the album Surf's Up as a DVD-A, but with extra tracks like WIBNTLA. But nothing happened. As a matter of fact, I believe they prepared the project, only no release.

Yep that's what I remember reading too and I've heard it was completely finished... don't know how true it is but that's what I remember anyway.

I believe that is the case Chris... at least from what I've read.

Alan Boyd or Mark Linett could answer this, but my undestanding is that the DVD-A format had pretty much been abandoned by consumers and manufacturers by the time this project had been approved by all interested parties, and so Capitol decided it wouldn't be a sound investment. 

While I'm assuming "Wouldn't It Be Nice To Live Again" is a fantastic track (although I never heard it), the biggest surprise isn't that it wasn't on Surf's Up (there was weird stuff going on with final track lists in those early 70's days), but that it didn't appear on the subsequent CATP or Holland, OR, Pacific Ocean Blue. Why leaved it buried?

Dennis liked to move on to new things. 

For CATP and Holland, notice that they weren't using Sunflower-Landlocked-Surf's Up leftovers, with (maybe) the exception of Sail on Sailor, and that was a last moment resolution. Big Sur was an old song but it was rerecorded from scratch.

But it's weird that Dennis chose to revisit "Only with You" in his solo sessions and forgot about all the other shelved songs from his Beach Boys days. Oh Dennis.

when was Sail on Sailor originally concieved? I thought it was a post-Holland song

According to Steve Desper, he recorded a version with Brian in late 1971, which was used for the foundation of the released version. Best guess is that it was written summer that year.

Andrew,

If this is not too sensitive a question, IS there a longer demo version with more verses
in existance, with or without the "hypnotize me Van Dyke, make me believe I'm not crazy" conversational snippet, that you know of? ??? ???

For what it's worth, the November 1972 recording of SAIL ON SAILOR appears to have been an all-new recording.  We have the original basic tracking session reels from that date, and there's nothing on those tapes to indicate that they were using a previously-existing master.

We've looked for an earlier version of that song (the original lyrics exist in the Brother Publishing files) but so far we haven't been able to find any traces of it.

As far as a release of Dennis' pre-Caribou material is concerned - It's been proposed and suggested and requested.

Mahalo for listening Alan, and requesting!!!!!!!!  I promise to buy 8 copies if it comes out!

The fabled demo cassette version of "SOS" is, er, fragmentary.  From what Steve told me way back when, my impression is that he recorded a pretty complete version with Brian in late 1971.

Mr. Desper very graciously played me (over the phone) his copy of SOS a couple of years ago which he thought dated back to '71. To my ears, the backing track sounded the same as the released version and the lead vocal still sounded an awful lot like Blondie (Mr. Desper was of the impression that the tape he had pre-dated Blondie joing the group and that it could not have been him). The most noteworthy difference heard on Desper's tape vs. the HOLLAND version was the addition of more complex backing vocals; kind of a call-and-answer on the chorus that reminded me of rolling waves.

So there's a tape that exist with the hypnotise me Van Dyke? I've only read about it

Were the lyrics the same?

Thanks for your replies, Alan and A.G.D.,

You can count on me for 8 1/2 copies (or more!) if things ever miraculously align for a
release of Dennis's early Caribou recordings.

"Fragmentary", ehh? Intriguing adjective.

The wave-like backing vocals on the 1971 version heard over the phone from the gracious
Mr. Desper sound very nice. Interesting that something that added denseness to the track,
like on the longer, alternate "All This is That" which had more vocals and the instrumental
solo, was discarded for the released version.

If you're referring to the version of "All This Is That" with the alto sax (I think that's what it is) solo on the end...it wasn't discarded for the released version.  It was recorded 21 years later, during a rehearsal for the brief but brilliant "Unplugged" tour the Boys embarked on 15 years ago this fall.

As Ed McMahon always said so disinctively "I did not know that!"

That's pretty impressive for a latter-era recording. I have tapes of some of that material, but didn't
know that song had been re-worked (or an original arrangement restored). Thanks!

The released version has call-and-answer vocals on the third verse, answer-like vocals on the last chorus, and swelling (rolling wave-like?) backgrounds on parts of both bridges.  Is it possible that Mr. Desper has an unreleased mix of the '72 version with more prominent backing vocals?  Maybe, as with TTGA, the previous backing track was used as a guide for the rerecorded version.  But that would contradict Ricky's quote (in Badman's book) that Carl phoned Brian during the tracking session, and Brian told him how he should play the piano part.  Are there logs for '71 SOS sessions?  And are those earlier lyrics available for public consumption?

I believe Alan is referring to  pre-Caribou recordings - "Sound of Free" up to late 1970's BB sessions.  Jon S. mentioned there was enough still in the can of Caribou stuff for an additional release.

My mistake, I meant to say pre-Caribou. Mr. Boyd made a very descriptive and tantalizing post
a while back about that material, the Dennis/Dragon album fragments, etc. I believe there is a
re-make of Lady/Fallin' in Love, speaking of Caribou recordings, similar to the re-recording of
"Only With You" on the Legacy POB set. Oh sh*t, I mean shoot, my mouth is watering again!

May it somehow someday come to pass... :'(

Dennis was supposed to have re-recorded "Lady" as "Flowers Come In The Spring" in '76.

My apologies for not replying sooner. The lyrics to the "early" version of SOS sounded identical to me. That combined with my opinion that the lead sounded just like Blondie made me think that Mr. Desper actually had an early mix of the '72 session. There's an earlier thread somewhere where this is discussed and I believe Mr. Desper concluded that he didn't think there was anyway he could have obtained a '72 session tape (he was under the impression that Carl was doing the lead). The backing vocals I heard over the phone were quite different from anything that's on the HOLLAND version, so I would say it's more than just an early mix with the same elements.

No problem.  Thanks for your reply.  To bring the subject back to Dennis, was his one vocal attempt on SOS wiped before Blondie sang it?  If not, has anyone ever heard it?  I'm sure he would've sounded great doing the lead.

SOS sure is a mystery.   If the BBs had already recorded a version of it with Steven Desper, why does no one seem to have heard of the song until Van Dyke produced the (in)famous tape?  And are there logs of any pre-Holland tracking/vocal sessions for SOS at all?  Also, when does Ray Kennedy claim to have worked on the song with Brian?

This really probably should be moved to a new "Sail On Sailor" thread, but here's what Ray Kennedy had to say about his involvement with the tune:

"Danny Hutton, one of the original singers of Three Dog Night, called
me in 1970 when I was singing with Jeff Beck and said, "Hey, we need a
hit song." So I went over to his house, and Brian was there in a
little room with a piano and they stuck me in that room with Brian. We
were there for three days and ended up writing "Sail on Sailor," which
was originally intended for Three Dog. We went in and cut the basic
tracks with Three Dog Night; we hadn't slept in about a week. Then
Brian got up with a razor blade and cut the tapes and said, "Only Ray
Kennedy or Van Dyke Parks can do this song." And he left. We all stood
there looking at each other going, "What?"

He called me every day after that, and I wouldn't talk to him. Three
or four years later, I heard it on the radio and went, "Who's that?"
It turns out the song came out on the Beach Boys' "Holland" album. "