The Smiley Smile Message Board

Backstage at a recent show. Pretty good in spots, including a little moment of Brian playing "Long Promised Road" backstage. http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2008/12/12/brian-wilson-behind-the-scenes-at-his-new-york-concert/#

Cool video...Brian does seem a tad uncomfortable but that's nothing new.  Very touching moment when he plays "Long Promised Road," then hearing Jeff's comment afterwards about how much he misses his brothers. 

Thanks for passing it along!

Wow, what a great video!!

Thanks for the link, Luther. This video is very educational. Now I know the reason Brian doesn't play his piano in concert is because he plays it for hours each day.

what does he play on this? (besides LPR)
I know one's Why Don't they let us Fall in Love?

and He comfirmed the Elvis story!!!

Great video, very interesting.

Really, not a drag?

I loved it. I thought Brian seemed in great spirits throughout. Of course he's never going to do cartwheels, but he didn't seem at all uncomfortable to me.

Is it me or is the Rolling Stone video player barely working?

Worked better for me when using Internet Explorer instead of Firefox.

Why can't Brian perform more rarities like Long Promised Road live? I know he didn't write it, but I liked how he did "Forever" live as a tribute to Denny and I think he maybe even did "Heaven" for Carl

Simply put, a very good and fairly revealing video.

Brian, Elvis, and Long Promised Road ;D a great vid, thanks for sharing!!!!

Yeah, doesn't work for me at all.

Works dandy for me on Firefox. BTW, the live footage is from the Jackson Hole festival back in August. Nice video, although the "GOK" sequence was just a tad disturbing.

Oh, you mean: "God Only Knows is my best song ever." "Why is it your best song ever?" "Why is what my best song?" "God Only Knows." "Because Paul McCartney liked it." (Quotes used for effect, not literal quotations. But that's the gist of it, for anyone who hasn't watched.)

More because he forgot what they were discussing in about 20 seconds.

"That's my very best song"

"Why is it your best song ?"

"Why did I write it ?"

"No, why is it your best song ?"

"What song ?"

Now what if Macca named Chug-A-Lug or Hey Little Tomboy his very favorite song?  :-D

Re Why Don't They Let Us Fall In Love: I'd love to hear some Spector tunes popping up in his set from time to time.

Oh, I know, that was part of what I was saying. It's a two-part tragedy, that clip. First, he forgets immediately. And second, his answer once he's told what they're discussing is just sad.

When Brian makes comments like that, it really makes me wonder.....It has been written/examined that those early Brian Wilson classics (from 1962-66) came from his heart and soul, from these deep emotions, that Brian was exposing his inner most self. And I guess they were; I guess that's where they DID come from.

But I wonder if Brian was able to write those incredibly emotional songs - detached somewhat from emotions - but coming from his pure musical genius, from his competitive attitude (at that time), to impress his contempories, like Spector, McCartney, et al.

Other than Pet Sounds, which Brian uses the rehearsed line - "it has a lot of love in it" -  and "Til I Die", there aren't a lot of instances where Brian has interesting stories or motivations - emotonally - for writing his songs. Again, I suppose they are there, but sometimes Brian's "answers" are so detached from where one would expect them to come from.

My personal, entirely uninformed guess (which also happens to be a reflection of my views on art) is that Brian was always as much or more master craftsman as he was god-touched soul-stirrer.  Writing a perfect pop song about heartbreak or love doesn't mean you feel heartbreak or love. And I think a lot of the stories about magic or special vibes or feelings were creations to help build the myth of Genius Brian. I think Brian was a pop genius, but I don't think some god or angels spoke through his mouth. Heart, soul, deep emotions, sure ... but also understanding how run through the circle of fifths, modulate regularly (or irregularly), invert chords and incorporate extensions into pop harmonies to make the listener feel heart, soul and deep emotions.

I have to agree with you, Luther.

Just another example or two. Brian hears "Be My Baby" and is blown away. So, did he write "Don't Worry Baby" because of his feelings for Judy, Diane, or Marilyn, or, is it an attempt to impress Phil Spector? Brian again was blown away by Rubber Soul, so, is Pet Sounds a reflection of Brian's - or Tony Asher's feelings of love - or is it an attempt to out do The Beatles? Or both?

What does make it hard to determine is Brian's mental state. It's hard to figure out Brian because 1) He has problems not only answering questions, but "getting" questions, 2) If he "gets" the question, does he have the capacity to actually THINK of an answer, and, 3) If he "gets" the question, and has the ability to think of an answer, does he even give a sh-- to answer the question.

So, Brian, why is "God Only Knows" your favorite song that you've written? I guess it depends on what kind of mental state he's in at the time of the question.

I also agree with you Luther.  Especially back in the early days, I think Brian's first motivation was to write hits and become an accomplished songwriter.  Murray instilled this into him from the very beginning, and it stuck, at least through the collapse of SMiLE.  Even with Pet Sounds, Brian's motivation was to beat Rubber Soul.  Yes he poured his heart into that record, and I don't think the competitive aspect of it makes the album any less real or emotional.  But without the motivation of competition, I don't think Pet Sounds would have existed in its current form.

As for the "God Only Knows" question, I think that is a good example of how Murray still influences Brian's thinking.  He finds validation in the praise that others give him.  I don't think it's an accident that he considers "God Only Knows" his best song because an artist he greatly admires has praised the song repeatedly over the years.  If Spector were to ever come out and say how much he loves "Don't Worry Baby," it wouldn't surprise me in the least if Brian started calling that his best song.

I mostly agree with this point, but there's a few more interesting ones. "Cry" he wrote when he told Melinda he wanted a seperation; the story of "Good Vibrations" I get a big kick out of; the story of writing "Heroes and Villains" with Van Dyke.

Luther had a very good post, but I must also add that Brian probably is using the "McCartney" thing as his programmed answer to why we wrote GOK which he must get asked all the time. I'd say that Brian is using programmed answers for all of his set of usual questions (except his favorite album, song type of thing), and I've heard him say that he can't answer certain questions in recent years, probably doesn't want to go back.

But what about the whole 'feels' thing where these songs supposedly began as chord sequences where Brian was exploring his feelings? I think your post suggests that the brilliance in BW's songs relies more in his ability to manipulate listeners emotions through compositional techniques, in a slightly contrived manner. I strongly believe that he was a more intuitive composer - expressing his emotions through music so directly as to create incredibly moving chord runs such as Don't Talk. It's this honesty of expression that sets him apart imo.

I don't think one excludes the other. Sitting at a piano playing "feels" doesn't mean you're waiting for a god to move your fingers, it means you're getting into the feeling you're looking for and making decisions that fit together. (It also means you're stoned, in his case.) But I'd say most songwriting is intended to "manipulate listeners." I don't think that's a bad thing.

On the subject of craftsmanship and competition playing that much of a role in some of BW's most heartfelt songwriting, I've always thought that lyrically the opening lines of God Only Knows felt like an extension of Spector's Every Breath I Take (as sung by Gene Pitney). At the very least it's the same psychological trick, the notion of "eternal love" becoming all the more palpable when preceded by those somewhat perplexing lines "I may not always love you" and "I hardly ever thank the stars above" respectively.

I can't see anything wrong in being "manipulative" as an artist. It probably just means you're being very much in control of the music you're making, creating music and lyrics in order to achieve maximum emotional impact as much on the listener as on yourself.

If you write music that means something to people it has to mean something to you first or it won't come across.  Brian heard music that meant something to him (Four Freshmen, Phil Spector, The Beatles) and it inspired him to write his own songs.  You try to capture the feeling other music gives you, or expand upon that feeling, with your own music.

I think this is all about cultural individuality. Brian felt he was a channel for a superior power when he was making music. Gene Simmons thought about the dollars he'd earn with a new hit. But at the end of the day they're just two guys writing songs like those they listened to when they were teenagers. "Capturing that feeling". Yeah, I like that.

Depending on exactly what you mean by it "mean[ing] something to you," I'd have to disagree. Prove that. If you mean literally, the sort of infatuation that a fan may have with a certain lyric or chord progression or whatever, I say B.S. I believe that's just a tired cliche, the kind of thing repeated on documentaries or in interviews to sell product. The kind of thing that, sure, McCartney might say ... and so might someone in Maroon 6 or Nickelback or Metallica or whomever. If by "mean something to you" you mean that the composer feels pride in having done work, then sure. I agree.

I mean that the music you hear gives you a feeling.  A deep, personal, possibly spiritual feeling.  A songwriter (or some songwriters if you prefer) wants to bring about that feeling in his/her own music.  That's what people mean when they say "this song that I wrote was inspired by this song." That means that some aspect of a song they heard gave them a feeling of elation or what have you.  And they were inspired to write something that somehow captures at least part of that feeling.

I just emailed a link to this video to someone, so I watched it again, & I noticed something odd that I didn't before: just before they go on stage, Scott Bennet says something like, "Let's sing from our hearts."  Why would he evoke Murry 'advice' at a time like that?!  ???

I'm doubting it was a conscious thought, but that's a good catch, I didn't notice that.

Well he played an Elvis song The Wonder Of You. He may have known it from the Ray Peterson version too.

I think the problem with the whole inspiration vs. craft thing is y'all are being too extreme.

Many artists use both...If one doesn't--if one only uses craft, fine, but that doesn't mean that others aren't inspired sometimes, and use a sense of craft to round things off, get things going or--in the case of sixties songwriters or TinPan Alley types-- create because they have to in order to fulfill a contract.

 I would guess that something like "South Bay Surfers" has more craft than inspiration about it--if Brian wants to say something was inspired or was God talking through him, he is merely echoing what other artists have been saying FOR CENTURIES, because, for some people, that's truly how it feels to them. I don't think it's some ad gimmick, necessarily designed to sell records...and you can substitue "the subconscious" or the Great Spirit or the Universe or whatever for "God" if you are uncomfortable with it.

However, I will say that without craft the "inspired" will rarely be successful IMO. But I will not say that inspiration is a sham or an ad gimmick. Creativity is a mysterious human power and NO ONE knows for certain how it happens.

Maybe I think that Dancing Bear is the most right on.

I only saw this video for the first time now (quite late, I know) but that's what I asked myself too. Did he play Elvis' hit-version or Peterson's. I guess he could've been quite attracted to Elvis' because of that wall-of-sound-thing, but I don't know how much he really listened to new music in 1970.

Well, we do know that Brian listened to Joe South's "Games People Play" since he mentions it in his own "Games Two Can Play."  It won a Grammy for song of the year in '70.