The Smiley Smile Message Board

One of my biggest problems with the 2004 Smile is that it literally couldn't fit on one disc of vinyl.  Plus the 3 movement structure wouldn't have worked to well in the side A/side B format. 2004 release of Smile is 46.8 minutes—about 2 minutes too long for an LP in 1967.  From this we can conclude that the 2004 version couldn’t have been released in this order and content in 1967.  Thus another of my nagging obsessions: what do I cut from the 2004 version and what do a rearrange to get as close as I can to Smile Junkie Nirvana--the experience of hearing something very close the real deal.  It seems easy enough to trim 2 minutes right?  But what about the great 2004 sequencing?  Would you just split the Childhood section in half and maybe lead off side two with Surf's Up (what "God Only Knows" did for Pet Sounds"?  I guess I could live with that.  But then there is the matter of the 1960's era evidence that Surf's Up was going to be the closing track.  2004 release is no help because the vinyl version was issued as a double LP.  There is no evidence that a 67' Smile was planned as such--though it would have been a great idea if I had a time machine and also ruled the world.

Here is a little back ground data:

Standard LP length was 45 minutes total, 22.5 minutes per side.

Pet Sounds was 35:58 in length.  Both sides were around 18 minutes.

Sgt. Pepper was 39:42 in length.  Roughly 20 minutes per side.

Revolver was 35:01 or 17.5 minutes per side.

Pink Floyd Pipers at the Gates of Dawn was 41:52 in length. About 21 minutes a side.

Hendrix Axis:Bold as Love was 38:49.

Rolling Stones Satanic Majesties Request was 44:06, one of the longer of the era I could find.

PS:  Sorry to be that guy who joins a message board and then starts posting all the time.  I just have no one to talk to about these things and want to tap into the wisdom of the crowd.

47 minutes could have fit on the LP. I'm reminded of a certain trumpeter who put out this little album in 1959 that revolutionized jazz. IIRC that album was around 46 minutes long. Certainly by 1967-68 the standards changed. In '68 the first disc of the White Album was around 48 minutes long.

Maybe any tracks, (which otherwise are present on BWPS), which would not fit onto the '67 album due to space limitations on the vinyl, would have been issued as single B-sides?

H&V b/w H&V Part 2 ?

Vega-tables b/w ? ?

Aftermath by the Stones was about 53 minutes long.

A lot of the Bob Dylan albums from 1963-1965 were 50 minute LPs.

So Brian, when compiling Smile in 2004, should have restricted himself based on how formats were 40 years earlier, key word there being "restricted"?

:\

I think your touching on the reason why SMiLE is so great, it was never finished (sad as that is).
The 2004 version is likely to be far different in content & track sequence to what a 1967 release would of ever been.

With the wonders of the internet we can access many of the bootlegs of this material and marvel at was nearly was. We can discuss on this forum the many theories on what it could of been & how Brian was going to put it together. We can also compile our own edits of the material, SMiLE is interactive & everchanging - Thats why we're all obsessed, usually a record is what it is and thats it, but not SMiLE - It's much more.

This is just a guess, but if "Surf's Up" led off side two of a '67 LP then there would be no need for that little instrumental connector thing following "Child is Father."

That's why Brian couldn't finish it in '67...there was too much to cram on an LP (without worrying about fidelity loss) and then have to split into two sides. 

There you go...no need to ever again debate the reason for its scrapping. 

If you stick to the December back cover slick track list, the album would easily fit on two sides of an LP.  AS to what order, Smiley gives some clues - singles usually start or end a side, as they did on Pet Sounds - and Vosse remembers that Surf's Up was to end the LP.

Instrumental tracks were usually placed near the end of a side, often (but not always) the second-to-last track (of course Smiley throws pattern this out, but it's otherwise present on Surfer Girl, PS, Friends, etc), so I would pencil in the Elements as the second-to-last track on side 2.
 
People usually lump the rest together by "themes" (Americana/childhood/elemental), but this seems fishy to me. The closest Brian did to doing this was the BB Christmas Album with the "teen"/Dick Reynolds' sides, and on Today! with the rocker/ballad sides, but even these aren't exact splits.
Meanwhile on Smiley Brian stuck "elemental" tracks Vegetables and Fall Breaks together on side 1 (with the "Americana" of H&V and, perhaps, Little Pad), but then put Wind Chimes on the side 2 with Wonderful, which itself would thematically "fit" better on side 1 with She's Goin' Bald!

fill in the blanks...

(0. Prayer)
1. H&V
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

7. Good Vibes
8.
9.
10.
11. Elements?
12. Surf's Up

Worms
Wind Chimes
VegaTables
Cabin Essence
Wonderful
Great Shape
Child
OMP

I think Good Vibrations would only be included at the insistance of Capitol. As was know, it doesn't fit as it's a Pet Sound track so I don't think Brian would of included it. Though it is on the Dec 66 track list, isn't it????? But did Brian write the list or Carl.......

Wonderful & Vega-Tables were both also considered as singles, so either one of those tracks could of opened side 2.

I don't buy into the belief that GV was a Pet Sounds track. The main motif from Song for Children (and its 67 counterpart... it escapes me what it was called) was a direct reference to Good Vibrations (the na-na-na-na-na na-na-na's at the end).

that piece is called "Look"

Good Vibrations fits perfectly on Smile, IMO. It's the exact same "modular" style recording as the rest of the album. Secondly, I believe the notion that Capital wanted GV on Smile against Brian's wishes has been debunked. It was Smiley Smile that shouldn't have had GV on it. Which makes a lot more sense considering it sticks out like a sore thumb on that album.

Yeah GV on Smiley really ruins the flow for me...I always skip it when I listen to that album.

It would have certainly fit on Smile, although I highly doubt it would have ended it.  Surf's Up always made a lot more sense to me as the Smile closer, although that leads you into the problem of where to put GV if not at the end.  Industry practice at the time would dictate that it began one of the sides, but that may not have jived with Brian's intended sequencing. 

Elvis Costello's Get Happy vinyl album times in at 48 minutes.

Vegetables or Wonderful should end side one, since those were to be a single Bside and Aside respectively.  Then I go with themes - but violate my own rule by putting Worms first, because it's so cool sounding after Prayer, and really introduces the Americana epic sweep of the album.

As usual, great insight from the folks on this site.  I stand corrected on the limits of LP lengths.  I was going with info from a Wikipedia article--not always the full story.  I consider it wonderful news that the 2004 time of 46.8 would have fit.  I am going for a historical re-creation on my next Smile mix.  I think that taking the two sides of the LP into account might be the key to a more historically realistic version. 

I agree with the consensus that Good Vibrations fits with the Smile project.  It's sessions overlapped with early Smile sessions and as someone here pointed out, the same modular recording style was used.  Look/I Ran/Song For Children really drives the point home.

I have heard the idea put forth that The Elements may have been spread thematically throughout the 2 sides of the LP.  But this really should be it's own post topic.

I too have considered looking to Pet Sounds as a guide for track order on Smile.  I think this is a better source than Smiley Smile, which is a project that was made under far different circumstances.  I have wondered: is Good Vibrations the Sloop John B of Smile?  Both have a certain amount of detachment from their respective projects.  I also find the idea of Vega-Tables of Wonderful closing side one.  That is in keeping with some of my theories.

The track order evidence circa 67' is pretty limited.  2004 Smile is a gold mine of info, but I would argue should be taken with a grain of salt.  We know "Prayer" was meant, at least at the time of its tracking, to kick off the album.  A few people close to the project have stated that Surf's Up would close (Vosse mentions the idea of ending with what I think he called a "Prayer thing," which sounds like a possible echo of the opening of side one.  Carol Kaye and Wilson himself noted that I Wanna Be Around was meant to go after Mrs. O'Leary's Cow.  Other than that, what do we have to go on?  Only by inference can we put Heroes and Villains as the first real song one side one.

Thanks again for all the helpful input.

1 H&V
2 IITGS
3 Vegetables
4 Worms
5 Wind Chimes
6 Cabinessence

1 GV
2 OMP
3Wonderful
4 Elements
5 Child
6 Surf's Up

??????????????????????

You do realize that there is no answer to your eternal questioning..  there is no definitive 1967 version of smile that is going to be unearthed.  brian changed is mind a thousand times in the course of those months in 66-67, so there is no set way everything was supposed to be.. it wasn't finished!

Ok, you've swayed my thoughts about GV. So it'd be first up on side 2 going by the usual format.

?...even though it was recorded during the Pet Sounds sessions?

You know, thinking of this...
I just thought about that ending with the Child Is Father Of The Man bit as a coda on the 1971 version of Surf's Up. If you listen to the backgroundvocals on that one, with a little bit fantasy one can inerpretate that as a reprise of the opening bars of the Our Prayer melody.

Just a thought, probably very wrong.

I really like this playing order...sounds like it would flow very well.

Thank You. I tried to put a little thought in it.

According to many sources (books, web, interviews...), GV never intended to be part of SMiLE; it was a link between Pet Sounds and SMiLE, it was Brian's Rhapsody in blue; and once again according to many informations, Capitol put the pressure to have GV on SMiLE, because of the lack of hits in the project, as they did with 'Sloop John B' on Pet Sounds. And I never included GV in my SMiLE mixes, doens't make sense to me.

The fact that Capital plastered "Good Vibrations" on the cover slicks certainly lends credence to that theory.  Why wouldn't Capital want such a smash hit on the album?  But whether Brian wanted it on there, that's a tougher question. 

Given that GV was started during Pet Sounds and completed before Smile really took off, it obviously wasn't a part of the Smile concept initially.  On the other hand, the modular nature of GV fits perfectly on Smile, and it was clearly the impetus for creating a whole record that way in the first place.  And if you put credence in Brian's sequencing for BWPS (I don't personally), you could certainly make the argument that Brian wanted it there all along.

I myself don't feel that Good Vibrations really belongs on Smile, but it doesn't feel incredibly out of place either.  As was discussed before, its inclusion on Smiley feels far more out of place.

Totally agree with your assessment, Chris.

The part of "Good Vibrations" that makes it hard for me to include on SMiLE is the lyrics. It's a love song, it's a boy meets girl song (Mike would Love me for that :P). But seriously, lyrically, I don't know where it belongs; maybe near "Wind Chimes"?  When Carl sings, "Though it's hard I try not to look at my wind chimes" and "Now and then a tear rolls off my cheek", is he singing about the girl in 'Good Vibrations"? Come to think of it, weren't "Good Vibrators" and "Wind Chimes" recorded pretty close together?

I'm agree with you Sheriff about the lyrics; but I'm not sure the lyrics Mike Love wrote was the original lyrics, (according to what I read through the years), I mean, Brian started to work on GV with Tony Asher, and VD Parks (cello), and the original idea has always been  the story of the dogs (Brian and his Mom); and Mike came with the hook about girls and boys, so if Brian had keep working with Tony Asher and maybe VD Parks, GV could have been more strange and weird than the definitive version, and the music more in connexion with the lyrics.
Some people even talked about an instrumental version (the Rhapsody In Blue connexion).

Good thought, BiG GRiN. It would've been interesting to hear what a Van Dyke Parks lyric would've sounded like.

You know, a good song to follow "Good Vibrations" would've been "You Are My Sunshine" with the cello and even the lyric. Ooh, gotta revisit the SMiLE mix again...

"Good Vibrations" SHOULD be on SMiLE as it was part of the LSD trip that inspired SMiLE.

That trip pointed to a new direction for Brian & the Beach Boys and "Good Vibrations" was part of that.

My guess is that the trip started out as an exploration of the "mystery" (Bri's acid flashback mystery/riddle) and the positive outcome of the search gave him the basic "Dumb Angel" concept after which he tackled the "next single" question which gave him the vision for the fully produced version of "Good Vibrations."

That's why BWPS ends with "GV."

My current mix of Smile has Wind Chimes coming after Good Vibrations.  Every once in awhile I see people say that Good Vibrations was supposed to be the Air section.  I don't buy into it (there is so much mis-information with the Smile myth), but GV and Wind Chimes feel related.  As do Look and Holidays.  These four were all recorded in the early Smile project.  Look sounds like an experiment on themes from the Good Vibrations sessions.  The extended end of Wind Chimes has a GV feel too.

My current solution to the side A/side B challenge is to split the Elements over the end of side A and the beginning of  side B with Good Vibes stuck in the middle.  So it would go Americana section, then Elements: Mrs. O'Leary's Cow/Vega-Tables (flip the record over) Good Vibrations/Wind Chimes/Holidays, then Childhood section.  I have been treating Holidays as the water section.  To me Da Da is too far removed to be part of the original Smile concept (despite the All Day demo).

It does, but didn't Brian take that bit from Look and put it into GV (that half time part of GV just before the tag, where the vocals do that ascending and descending scale thing).  Earlier incarnations of GV don't include that part.  Does anyone know the recording date for that section of Good Vibrations?  If he did cut that part out of Look for GV, was any work done on Look after that?

LostArt, I have considered this same thing.  The recording of Look/I Ran/Untitled Song does overlap with GV.  I guess the real question regarding this is knowing the date in which the ending vocal scale of GV was recorded.

Share some of these sources with us - hopefully first hand sources.  There is no evidence Capitol forced Brian to put Sloop John B on Pet Sounds - it was on an early track list of PS that Brian made before the album was even named Pet Sounds.  This is a classic example of "retropectoscope" history - because many people feel the cut doesn't fit in with the other tracks lyrically, Capitol must have "forced" Brian into putting it on the album, ruining his artistic vision.

David Leaf  has fostered some of these notions when he was full bore into the anti Brian conspiracy theories - Mike was against Brian, the other Beach Boys didn't believe in Brian, Capitol didn't believe in Brian, Landy was evil (well OK, I'll give him that one) if they had all just let him do whatever he wanted then he wanted to, there would be world peace and Smile would have hit number 1 in 1967 and everything else.  That one sided perspective has given birth to all sorts of false impressions.

the only first hand quote I remember about Good Vibrations being forced to be on an album was from the Anderle interview with Paul Williams, and I recall if you look at the quote in context it's actually Smiley Smile he's talking about, not Smile.  And wouldn't we all agree that GV doesn't "fit" on Smiley with the lowkey minimalist production of that album?  It fits just fine on Smile IMO.