The Smiley Smile Message Board

For years I’ve worked on various attempts to replicate what Smile might have been, without ever coming up with a satisfactory product.  I’ve also tried compiling CDs of the various sessions, but those too have left a lot to be desired.

So I’m trying a new way, which for me is working much better.  I’m extending the time period of my compilation to 1971, and include any Smile-like tunes in that period I want to hear.  I’ve stayed away from alternates, in order to make the disc as listenable as possible, but otherwise feel like I’ve included what I need.

Having said that, I’d really welcome any comments.  Here’s the list:

SMiLING, 1966-71
1   You’re Welcome
2   Good Vibrations
3   Cabinessence
4   He Gives Speeches
5   Do You Like Worms
6   Wonderful (GV box set)
7   Heroes & Villains intro
8   Heroes & Villains (Cantina)
9   How I Love My Girl (SOT 17)
10   My Children Were Raised/Sunny Down Snuff (last 1½ mins. of H&V single)
11   Barnyard
12   The Old Master Painter (no tag)
13   Can’t Wait Too Long
14   With Me Tonight (Smiley Smile)
15   I’m in Great Shape
16   I Wanna Be Around/Friday Night (faded out early)
17   Whistle In (Smiley Smile)
18   Old Folks at Home/Ol’ Man River
19   Wind Chimes (GV box set)
20   Whispering Winds
21   Holidays
22   The Elements, part 1 - Fire
23   Fall Breaks and Back to Winter
24   I Love to Say Da Da
25   Diamond Head
26   Little Pad
27   Cool Cool Water (Sunflower)
28   Vegetables (GV box set)
29   Child Is Father of the Man (April 1967)
30   Look
31   A Day in the Life of a Tree
32   ‘Til I Die
33   Our Prayer (20/20)
34   Surf’s Up (Surf’s Up)

As for what I have not included, here’s a general list:
Air DaDa
All Day
CIFOTM early version
Comedy sketches
Good Vibrations alternate instrumental sections
Good Vibrations hum-de-hums
Good Vibrations Pet Sounds version
H&V bridge to Indians
H&V country western theme & flutter horn
H&V orgasmic sounds
H&V part 2 final verse of dit-dit-dits
H&V single – first 2:10 (before slow “My Children Were Raised”)
Mama Says (Wild Honey)
Old Master Painter “barnshine” tag
She’s Goin’ Bald
Surf’s Up solo piano
Tones
Unknown (Spanish style) Instrumental
Vega-Tables demo
Vegetables Smiley Smile/Hawthorne versions
Vegetables promo bits
Wonderful mamamamamamas
Wonderful with jazzy and Rock Me Henry overdubs
Wonderful Smiley Smile version
Wind Chimes Smiley Smile version

Of course, the majority of Beach Boys songs from late 1967 through 1971 are not really Smile-like, so they also are excluded from this compilation.

Thanks for any thoughts.

You need Country Air from Wild Honey in there... pretty good list!

 :)

Thanks.  I thought about Country Air, since it may have been derived from the mysterious "air" section of the Elements.  But it's always sounded more R&B-like than Smil-ish to me.

I like that comp a lot, Jeff. Well thought out, sequenced, and, as you say, very listenable.

Years ago, in the days of the 90 minute cassette, and before the many bootlegs and downloading, I attempted something like this. I wanted to fill the 90 minute tape, but didn't have enough actual SMiLE material, so I filled it in with other SMiLE-like songs, just like you did. And it worked! It was eye-opening that much of Brian's post-SMiLE work could've actually fit on/with SMiLE. If you didn't tell people it wasn't SMiLE, like "Til I Die", "Can't Wait Too Long", and "A Day In The Life Of A Tree", they wouldn't know.

I really like the songs you chose for your comp; it does flow; it makes sense. I'm assuming it fits on an 80 min. CD?

Thanks Sheriff.  They do indeed fit on an 80-minute CD, but just barely; there's only about a minute of free space.  It's actually coincidental.  I never intended to use the entire CD, but the songs I identified took me right up to the brink.

Doing this has been fun, partly because it gets me thinking about connections between various songs that I wouldn't think about if I were just using my standard Smile formula.  For example, I really like having Prayer between 'Til I Die and Surf's Up rather than at the start, as all three are very spiritual songs. 

Also, placing songs like Tree and Diamond Head in this context, rather than their original albums, helps bring out subtle aspects of those tunes that I'd otherwise miss, maybe in the way that certain color schemes will help bring out the best in each other.  As brilliant as much of the BB and BW material has been, some (though certainly not all) of the albums are, IMO, disjointed and less than the sum of their parts.  Compiling songs by genre can really help with this.

I'd stick Time To get Alone in there too, but the Redwood one, or maybe the backing track to that version - sounds very Smile to me, with the French Horn (or whatever it is) break. Somebody on this board was under the impression TTGA was written during Smile, and the theory is very believable - it is of the same quality as some of the best Smile tracks imo.

Anyway great list. I'd have to agree that Country Air is a major oversight - sounds dead 'Smile' to these ears!

OK, well this is why I posted this ... I was hoping people might point out something I'm missing.  Thanks Winston and Buddha, I'll try Country Air between Little Pad and Cool Cool Water.

I do disagree on Time to Get Alone, though--in spite of its possible inclusion in Smile concerts.  The lyrics (a retreat from the world) sound very Friends-ish to me, and much of the track is very spare.

I'd put Little Bird in there also.

But, what would you take off? ???

As would I, given the CIFOM quote it contains.

I initially though I would include Little Bird, but to my ears, it doesn't use all that much of of CIFOTM, and  is otherwise fairly similar to the other Friends tracks ("guess I'll go and mow the lawn").

With Country Air added, I'm up to 79:57, and that's after changing things to use the shorter, tag-less version of Can't Wait Too Long (from the GV box set) and the slightly shorter version of Ol Man River (from the 1990 issue of Friends/20/20 instead of the 2001 issue).  I also had to delete bits of end-of-track blank space here and there to make things fit.

But I'm still interested in everyone's comments and suggestions--even if I don't wind up using them. :>

It's just my opinion, but I don't hear any SMiLE in "Little Bird". And, I don't know if it matters (depends if you're a purist, I guess), but it's a Dennis track, and SMiLE is Brian.

Ol Man River is one of my favourite BB's tracks of all, even in it's incomplete state. I hope that a more complete version will turn up one day.

If you have iTunes, you could constuct playlists which would allow you to exceed the capacity of a cd (although you would have to listen via computer or mp3 player).

It's there. Listen to the drums, bass, and trombone (think it's a trombone) at the end of Little Bird ("Little Bird up in a tree...") and match it with the chorus of Child. It's almost an exact fit.

And that was Brian's (uncredited) contribution to the song.

Didn't he also write the part that goes "What a day...what a day...ooh what a beautiful day this is?"

Now I'm thinking of adding Let the Wind Blow, which seems like a must if Country Air is in there.  That would mean taking out Little Pad, which I think drags things down a bit with its stoned laughter.

So, you can't fit the pieces of the puzzle? Are you trying to pull "a Brian", with all of this tinkering? :p

Ha, I've been trying to come up with the perfect Smile (now Smile-like) compilation for maybe 9 or 10 years now, far longer than Brian tinkered, so I guess you could say I'm much worse...

Although people like me who try and put this material together don't necessarily have any musical ability (I don't anyway), we probably do have a certain obsessive/perfectionist personality trait in common with Brian.  Good thing or bad thing?  Who knows?

While I loved Brian's Smile, and I'm glad it's out, and I wish it had been finished way back when, I sort of like the "entity" that is Smile. Narrowing things down to one or two different mixes is just impossible for me.

Someone on this board noted that they thought Brian really didn't stop working on Smile (at least in his head) for a while after the official scrapping.  Many times I have wished I could allow myself to use Diamond Head as the Elements water section.  I feel like it is closer to the original spirit of Smile with all its water sound effects and instruments sounding like tropical birds.  It also fits nicely into the journey to Hawaii theme.  These ideas were clearly still floating around in his head in early 1968.  I also have wished I could put Old Man River on my Smile mix.  It would sound great coming out of Cabin Essence or as a section of an extended H & V.

No one can say I don't learn from others on the board.  I've added several suggestions and come to what I hope will be the last mix for a while.  The new one is just over 89 minutes - so I had to buy special CDRs and download new software just to get it all on one CD.

I especially like the end - several spiritual tunes in a row, ending with Meant for You ("as I sit and close my eyes, there's peace in my mind, and I'm hoping that you'll find it too"), which brings things full circle from the start ("you're welcome to come").

SMiLING, 1966-71
1   You’re Welcome
2   Heroes & Villains intro
3   Heroes & Villains (cantina)
4   How I Love My Girl
5   My Children Were Raised/Sunny Down Snuff
6   Barnyard
7   The Old Master Painter
8   Can’t Wait Too Long
9   With Me Tonight (Smiley Smile)
10   I’m in Great Shape
11   I Wanna Be Around/Friday Night
12   Sail Plane Song
13   Whistle In
14   He Gives Speeches
15   Do You Like Worms
16   Little Pad
17   Wonderful (Smile)
18   Wonderful tag
19   Look
20   Good Vibrations
21   Cabinessence
22   Old Folks at Home/Ol’ Man River
23   Country Air
24   Wind Chimes (Smile)
25   Whispering Winds
26   Holidays
27   The Elements, part 1 - Fire
28   Fall Breaks and Back to Winter
29   I Love to Say Da Da
30   Cool Cool Water (Sunflower)
31   Diamond Head
32   Little Bird
33   Vegetables (Smile)
34   Child Is Father of the Man (April 1967)
35   Let the Wind Blow
36   A Day in the Life of a Tree
37   ‘Til I Die
38   Our Prayer
39   Surf’s Up (1971)
-- pause of 5 secs.--
40   Meant for You

Cool, Jeff. 40 songs! What version of "I'm In Great Shape" did you use? For awhile now, I've been using "Holidays" before "Wind Chimes" and "Whispering Winds", but I do like it AFTER those two songs; it works both ways; now you got me thinking....

Mr. Moderator, any chance you can combine this thread with the "Your Personal SMiLE Mix" thread?

For Great Shape, I just edited together one of the bootleg backing tracks (the one that I believe is slightly higher) with a portion of the EH demo, in order to match BWPS.  They really fit together seamlessly.

Great Shape was one of just a few “fan edit” tracks I used – along with DYLW (overdubbed with the H&V Sections bicycle rider vocals), Wonderful (overdubbed with the “yo-de-lay-hee-hoo” vocals), Barnyard (bootleg track mixed with EH vocals) and IWBA/Friday Night (faded out after 30 secs. of the woodshop sounds).  All of these edits roughly match the BWPS tracks.  And I believe everything else was a released track or a boot of a BW mix.

Can't forget "Aren't You Glad"!! The piano in that song sounds just like "All Day" to me.

Not sure how I feel about Tree being in there, but the rest looks great!

Tree occasionally sounds not so good to me, since the vocals of course aren't great.  But if you look at them as part of the effect--an anguished tree dying of pollution--the song works much better.  And in terms of the instrumental track and the words, it's very Smile-ish.

I always took that as being a sly reference to smoking pot, which would make it fit in with SMiLE. Paul McCartney said that any Beatles lyrics in the mid to late-60s that mentioned grass were about marijuana, and so I think it goes for this song. Of course, "Get Back" is the only Beatles song I can think of off the top of my head that mentions grass, but the point still stands. It's no coincidence that Carl starts singing about what a beautiful day it is afterwards.

The "Get Back" lyric is so blatant I never doubted that McCartney was singing about pot. After all, California is not known for it's lawns! I don't think any of the Beatles drug references were sly; they were almost all straightforward, from "had myself a smoke and went into a dream" to "trying to make a dovetail joint".

"Guess I'll go and mow the lawn" on the other hand is so oblique that I find it hard to see this as a drug reference at all. Taking Brian's lead of writing songs about daily experiences, I think Dennis is simply describing a typical suburban day. Now the title "Cabin Essence" (Cannabis) is something else entirely... ;)

Didn't the drug references often need to be oblique to make it past the eyes and ears of the record company?  I could imagine Kalinich, being a poet, and Dennis, being Dennis, coming up with something like that.

The idea of oblique references in SMiLE inspired the first part of an article that was presented in ESQ a few months ago.

It can be found here for those interested.
http://pages.cthome.net/tobelman/

Yes and no. The Beatles' "Dr. Robert" is obviously a song about a drug dealer (and a positive one at that) and was released by Capitol in '66 without much consternation. "I get high with a little help from my friends" is another blatant line. The Velvet Underground's "Heroin" and "I'm Waiting For The Man" were both released by a major label in '67 (although, to be fair, both feature a fairly negative slant on drug addiction). Getting these songs played on the radio was more of a problem.

I'm not saying that there aren't any drug references in the Beach Boys lyrics from the mid-to-late 60s, but if they really wanted to slip in a line about potsmoking, they wouldn't have had to resort to something as arcane as "mow the lawn" in my opinion. After all, later that year Dennis was recording himself having sex with a hooker and putting it on an album!