The Smiley Smile Message Board

I waited a week to post a new topic so as to not overstay my welcome with  my obsessive Smile questions!

Ok.  We've all seen it.  The hand written Smile track listing used to print the purposed back cover.  I have read a lot of conflicting things about this note.  Is there some sort of consensus among the Smile-ologists about the list?  I read (I think on the Smile Shop) that some people think it isn't Brian's handwriting at all, that it might be Carl's writing.  The same source suggests that Brian says he never remembers seeing the list.  But on the other hand there is all this stuff in print and on the web about Brian handing Karl Engmann the note on December 16th as if it were a well known fact. 

Along with this there are so many other mysteries I have wondered about over the years as I have spent hours pouring over the photo copy of the note in Priore's Look Listen Vibrate Smile.  I consider the list to not be at all close to a would be playing order, being that it would be totally front loaded with the major songs on the first side (and of course there is the famous note on the dust jacket to "see record for playing order").  But beyond this, there are many questions raised:

Who wrote the note? 
If it was Carl, was he just jotting down titles off the top of his head?
If someone else wrote it, how did they put it together?  I could see some guy at Capitol making the list using Union session sheets or something.
If Brian didn't write the list, why would he let Capitol print of such an in accurate list?  Thinking of how detailed he was in putting together other BBs albums, why would he not care what was printed on the back?  No other original BBs album I have has an inaccurate track listing on the dust jacket (I could be wrong).
Did who ever wrote the list know what they were talking about?  Could someone have just wrote down some titles they had heard floating around, not knowing what was a song and what was a modular fragment?  This goes back to the last question about Brian not appearing to care or be in control of the album art planning process.
Why are Wind Chimes and Vega-tables listed as separate tracks?  I have heard it was because they might be singles, but that sounds sketchy to me.  (I once tried to ask Frank Holmes about this when I was briefly in contact with him, wondering if he had been specifically told by VDP that Vega-tables was in the Elements, or if he (Holmes) had just kind of made that up for the title.  Alas, never heard back form him.)
Is some part of the list actually in the correct order?  I've always wondered this.
Why does Old Master Painter have parenthesis around it, that have been scribbled out?  The parenthesis suggest that for a second it was thought of as a lesser title, and then the writer thought otherwise and scribbled out the brackets.
Why did the writer put Do You Like Worms at the top of the list?  Just the first title that came to mind? What does the order of the list tell us about Brian's (or whoever's) concept at the time.  Did Wind Chimes just come to mind second?
I read someplace (maybe also on Smile Shop) that someone claims they saw a proof of the back cover art that had lots of read pen markings for changes to be made, implying that the actual back cover that Capitol printed 300,000 of had yet another track listing/order on it.  Is it true?  What I wouldn't give to see an original Smile dust jacket.  They couldn't have pulped every last one of them.


OK, I'll stop.  I could go on forever.  You see what I mean.  The handwritten list is a big Smile mystery. One of the biggest.

Another rumor is that the handwriting was Diane's.

i can't answer a single question but it's always seemed fucking stupid to me to bother the producer for song titles and a running order for an album that isn't even finished just to print up the record jackets.

i mean, what if he decided last minute that one of the tracks listed on the already printed jackets wasn't going to be on? it's all around retarded.

The note certainly opens up a lot of questions.  I think the consensus we came to when it was discussed a few years back was that Carl wrote it at the direction of Brian.  Moreover, the theory was put out that Brian gave the list to Capital just to get them off his back...to at least give them SOMETHING, as they were probably starting to freak out a bit by mid-December.  Perhaps he didn't intend for them to go and make all of those record sleeves based on it, but I think the list was comprised of the songs he felt were most near completion for a mid-January release.

I don't put any stock in the list as any indication of playing order.  Like I said, I think it was a random jotting down of titles.  God knows that Brian couldn't make up his mind about much at that point, let alone the sequence of the album.

Without the list in front of me, I'm in no position to postulate on your other questions, but I'm sure others around here know more and can hopefully provide some answers.  The list certainly warrants futher discussion.

Brian didn't write the note - it's nothing like his handwriting in 1966. The leading contender is Carl, with Diane Rovell in second, but a few lengths back.

Capitol didn't print up 300,000 of the back sleeve slick. At best, they made maybe a dozen prints from the original artwork to mock up some sleeves for the band to look at. Hence the revision markings.

Yes, it is a big mystery... but maybe not all that significant.

But what about the statement in the 2-fer booklet that "a warehouse full of covers and booklets began collecting dust, waiting for vinyl"?  I always took this to mean complete covers ready to go.  Or is this yet another "2-fer booklet gaffe"?

Sorry if this doesn’t really answer anything but…
I don’t understand what the problem with the track list is. Whether he had Carl or even more likely Diane write it, this seems extremely likely to be sent from the producer to the label. I remember reading, and I’ll have to look it up but, back around the time that Good Vibrations had been released that Brian said Smile would included “Good Vibrations, Heroes and Villains and ten other tracks.” Well, here’s that list. It includes all the titles that he had been working on over the past 3 months or so with a few title revisions, “Home on the Range” became “Cabin Essence” during the sessions while “My Only Sunshine” was renamed “The Old Master Painter” but only listed that way on this track list and back cover, so that’s not a title someone looking at sessions would come up with.

I know in the past there were problems with this list like the lack of anything for “I’m in great shape” except the unheard vocal session and the “Friday Night(I’m in great shape)” session and section, but, in the past 10 to 15 years we’ve gotten a verse vocal and a verse track so we know there was more to this song.

There was the problem with Vegetables being on the list because it was not worked on until April ’67 but now we have the “cornucopia” version not from those sessions but very likely from before the list was written.
Also the idea came up that smile was always going to be in 3 movements/ suites, but even if somehow this had been the idea at one time it never made it onto tape. Brian was recording songs with verses and choruses and FADES from the first sessions for the album onward. Even some of the random sections like Friday Night and Barnyard ARE fades. This makes the idea of the 12 tracks on the list more likely.

There was the problem that the list didn’t include “Holidays” and “Look(I Ran)” but as cool as these tracks are there’s no reason that Brian wouldn’t just leave them off just like Trombone Dixie from Pet Sounds, Sandy from Summer Days, Back Home, etc. Brian picked the tracks he wanted and maybe Holidays and Look would come out on later albums.

It’s been thought that Brian didn’t know what the songs were and was just kept writing and recording complete new ideas but Van Dyke, his collaborator, has said that his involvement was over before the Fire session at end of November so the songs were written by then. This track list came out after that time so the songs were known. Brian never worked outside these titles until the announcement of Smile’s scrapping five months later. These were complete songs, new little sections added or new tracks under the vocals, but songs. Think about Surf’s Up, without Brian’s two piano demos, we would only think of it as that little piece of track for the first movement, but we can tell from the demos that it’s two verses, a second section and a tag/fade. We’re missing this for the other songs and we just have little scraps like Surf’s Up track.

So after all this time, what exactly are the current issues with this list? As far as I can tell this is what the album was intended to be.
Just curious.

Well said.

I always sort of assumed that Brian  tossed the note off in about ten seconds-he couldn't be bothered with that sort of 'outside' nonsense. I could imagine Capitol going to Carl and saying 'Hey, could you maybe get with Brian? We at least would like to know the songs that are gonna be on the album. We want to have the covers ready to go when he gives us the album'. Carl goes to Brian and Brian rambles off the 'main' tracks that he was working on-or Carl could have probably done it on his own, for that matter. If it didn't have to do with the music, it wasn't Brian's  time.

RE: Capitol didn't print up 300,000 of the back sleeve slick. At best, they made maybe a dozen prints from the original artwork to mock up some sleeves for the band to look at. Hence the revision markings.

They may not have made 300,000 but it was certainly more than dozen. I have one that was on display in a record store in Chicago in January of 1967.

RE: I don't put any stock in the list as any indication of playing order.  Like I said, I think it was a random jotting down of titles.  God knows that Brian couldn't make up his mind about much at that point, let alone the sequence of the album.

IMHO, Capital was so desperate for promotional material, they were happy just to have song titles ala the cover of Beach Boys Today: PLMW leads the list on the front cover with DDD and DYWD unfeatured in the string of songs, which concludes with "and three more great new songs written by Brian Wilson" even though only two more "songs" are on that album. On SMiLE they may have been willing, at least in promo material, to give a listing of song titles even though the eventual track order may be different.

Been Too Long, a very well written, cool headed post about this issue.  Great points.  I feel my thinking on the subject is more clear after reading the post.

I agree that Holidays and Look may have been left off.  Holidays was only work on once, and Look only had that one Oct 13th vocal session after its original tracking and was never touched again as far as I can tell.  So both those songs have a little bit shaky claim, though Pet Sounds (aka Run James Run) was recorded very early in the Pet Sounds era and if that record hadn't been released maybe we would be arguing the same issue with that track.  It's a tricky comparison though, since Trombone Dixie was left off, while Run James Run ended up making the cut.  Also, titles could have changed.  That Pet Sounds list I am looking at has Lets Go Away listed as The Old Man and The Baby.  Holidays and Look/I Ran are great, but they could have been left off for sure.

So, what exactly are the current issues with this list?  One of my biggest questions (mentioned in earlier post) is the Elements.  Mrs.  Oleary's Cow is slated as "The Elements part one--fire" at the session.  Ok, Fire is part one.  But if MOC is part one, then why is Wind Chimes and Vega-tables listed as stand alone tracks and not MOC (or the water section for that matter).  It makes me think Vega-tables wasn't the Earth section.  Isn't the only clue for this idea the Frank Holmes illustration?  I have wondered if Holmes himself made this connection, or if VDP actually told him, "Ok Frank, part of the Elements is Vega-tables, add that to your drawing."  I guess it is plausible that by the time of the list the Fire and Water tracks were in question.  Was the list made pre or post Fire sessions and Brian's abandonment of that track because of paranoia about structure fires?

In general I find the Elements to be problematic because it would have made for a big slow down or dead spot on the flow of a two sided LP if all elements were presented together.  The whole thing works on BWPS because of some new lyrics and the benefit of not having to conform to a 2 sided LP.  Once you throw that variable in, a connected back to back Elements dominates which ever side of the LP it is placed on.  One or Two instrumentals back to back (Fire and Water)?  (I don't consider Da Da a viable candidate for the Water section in an original concept Smile play list.  Da Da is practically a Smiley Smile session.)  I agree with those who have suggested that the Elements would have been scattered thematically over the LP.  MOC, for one thing, has lots of similarities with H&V, for instance MOC has the same key and chord structure as Barnshine and the re-record of it as H*V part 2.  It is also called Mrs Oleary's Cow, which puts it firmly in the Americana theme.  I kind of think that many or all of the Elements were part of the Americana section.  Also, you would think that if Wind Chimes was part of the Elements that it would be listed near the Elements on the list (and in the train of thought of the list maker).  Vega-tables does fit this pattern, and I would say that Old Master Painter could fit the same pattern (as being part of the Elements) because of its lyrical content, both sung and not sung (check out the words for the tune Old Master Painter--perfect fit for the Elements theme).

 

You're misunderstanding me - Capitol did print about 400,000 of the front slick, and make up the same number of booklets... but the back slick contained track info, and that wasn't exactly forthcoming, hence the best they had to work with was a handwritten note and an artist's proof sheet. Strictly speaking, no true Smile covers exist, but rather the mockups Capitol prepared for the band to OK. I personally know of three and have handled one (complete with booklet - it scares me to thing how much that's worth to the right buyer...).

Been Too Long nailed it above.  In all likelihood, there's no big mystery about the tracklist.  Despite what Brian says now, common sense would suggest that neither Capitol nor Carl nor Diane was just making stuff up in December 1966.  Even if Brian didn't write the list, he must have dictated it.

There is nothing particularly unusual about the "see label for correct playing order" thing.   Capitol and Brian did exactly the same thing on Shut Down Volume 2.  That album contained the same "see label" admonition as its play order is completely different than what's listed on the back cover (other than leading off with "Fun, Fun, Fun").

In other words, this was Capitol's standard operating procedure when they were eager-beaver to get covers printed and Brian had not yet delivered a completed master.

Yeah, I also agree with Been Too Long's well-written post.

I was just gonna throw in a less concrete reason. At various times in their careers, due to various reasons, ALL of the Beach Boys could be jerks. They could all do and say things that disappoint you. But, in this instance, in dealing with their record company, Capitol Records, for something like this, which I think was important or else they (Capitol) wouldn't have asked for it, I just don't think Brian would've fu--ed with them. Somebody above mentioned that he could've just given them anything to get them off his back. I don't know. Around that time, Brian was flying high, but would've he blown them off that way, by intentionally, or unintentionally, deceiving them. Was Brian natured that way?

I've always put more stock into that list than most fans do.

Wasn't there also a list of the tracks for Wild Honey on some typed out memo that included different tracks? I guess for most of the albums Brian and the boys didn't really know the final tracklisting until the last minute.

I think Juggler says it best Capitol were just giving Brian the hurry up. And for a band that was usually churning out 3 albums a year, he was overdue. And don't forget, there were very few bands or singers who actually had control over how their albums would finally be presented. They would record the songs, hand them over to the record company who'd release the record as they saw fit. Brian was one of the few who had some control in that respect, though obviously he still had to defer judgement to the label with Pet Sounds and Sloop John B for example.

My take on the list, is simply that it was a list most likely put together by Carl (who was of course working pretty close with Brian on the album) of the possible cuts for the next Beach Boys album. Nothing more or nothing less. There probably exists simillar lists for most of the other Beach Boys albums somewhere.

Yes, there was - in the same handwriting as the Smile track list.  And there was an early track list sent to Capitol of Pet Sounds, which differed from the final track list.

As for the Elements, it's not that hard to figure out.  When the booklet was done, Vegetables was part of the Elements -earth to be exact.  The cornucopia version had been recorded by then.  That was October.  By December, Vegetables had been broken out of The Elements to be it's own track/song - not unlike I'm in Great Shape had been part of Heroes and was now it's own track.  Wind Chimes - there's no evidence this was ever part of the Elements, even though the title is of course suggestive of that - but when Brian was asked about the "air" part of the Elements, he said is was a piano instrumental they never finished.  Wind Chimes doesn't fit that description.

so The Elements was Fire/Water - and Water was the Water Chant.  At least in December.  You may like to believe that Dada, recorded in May, was meant to complete the Water section of Elements - it may very well have been.  But it hadn't been written by early December, at least as far as the session record shows - the first attempt at it was in January (3rd) at the end of a Heroes session.  And it was titled "All Day" which wasn't particularly water-y.

By the way the Fire session was Nov. 28, the track list was submitted Dec 10.  Less than two weeks later.

I think your assesment of The Elements is spot on...the only element we know for certain based on session tapes is Fire.  We can be pretty certain that Vegetables was Earth, based on the Holmes drawing.  I doubt we have ever heard the piano piece that Brian described as "Air," although somebody theorized on here awhile back that it may have been that third section of Wind Chimes.  I don't think that's the case, but it may have been a variation or something similar.  Water Chant being Water makes perfect sense as well, even though there is no way to confirm it.

Put it all together, and you have a trippy little suite that I think would have flowed nicely.

Yes, and on BWPS, if "On A Holiday" wasn't inserted where it was, you would've had that line-up:

Earth: "Vegetables"
Wind: "Wind Chimes
Fire: "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow"
Water: "In Blue Hawaii"

"On A Holiday" fits nicely, but I wonder if Darian struggled putting it in there, you know, breaking up the order?

EDIT: Just as an afterthought....without "On A Holiday" in there, the "whispering winds" segment could've been placed at the END of "Wind Chimes", just like the Smiley Smile version, making the transition to "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" smoother.

Sheriff (and anybody else), do you put any stock in Mrs Oleary's Cow being the first track of the Elements because the session has it announced as "The Elements Part 1 Fire"?

And what about I Wanna Be Around/Friday Night, is that just part of the fire segment.  I trust Carol Kaye when she says Brian told her that Friday Night was rebuilding after the fire.  I Wanna Be Around seems to be a playful cover song pun on the lyric "pick up the pieces."  And if you take this as truth, then it opens up other possibilities, such as Old Master Painter being part of The Elements.  By the same logic that I Wanna Be Round fits with fire, Old Master Painter/Sunshine fits with earth and possibly air (sun shines through the air?).  By this same reasoning I can't help but think that the lyric "I'm in the great shape of the agriculture" has something to so with the Elements, and what is more "earthy" than a barnyard?  And what about "the church of the American Indian" ie mother nature?  Vegetables and I Wanna Be Round/Friday Night steer the Elements away from instrumental, pictoral music.  I guess I can't expect the Elements to have been one thing or another.  I think Wind Chimes and Da Da/Blue Hawaii became part of the BWPS Elements because of popular demand.  All of us Smile fans built this myth over the years, guys like Domenic Priore in particular, and when BWPS was made, the folks involved were well aware of the popular assumptions.  In this way, the fans kind of helped finish Smile de facto.  That said, I am the one who suggested awhile back that the multi-piano tag to the box set Wind Chimes version could have been the "piano only" Air section.  It was piano, no vocals, and they never finished it--never mixed or released it.

I think the list most have been written by Carl.  I looked at Diane Rovell's signature on a union session sheet and she makes her "D's" much different than the "D" in Do You Like Worms from the list.  This does not totally rule her out, but in my mind it pushes it towards Carl (or someone else).

Also, the list seems to be roughly ordered in a most important to lesser importance order.  The real heavy hitters of Smile are all up there at the front of the list.  It shows us what we already assume to be the cornerstone songs of Smile.  Those first 7 tracks on the list would have been the corners of the album, first or last on either side.  I think that much we can safely be sure about.

Interesting question! The point about how it was listed on the session sheet makes you wonder, the points you raised (about opening up OTHER possibilities) makes you wonder, but, most of all, the Carol Kaye theory is intriguing. It has been shown that Carol can "stretch the truth" on certain songs (especially the ones she did/didn't play on), but it would be hard to make up something like the connection of re-building the barn after the fire - if she didn't hear it from someone close to the song. When did she make the quote?

I've always believed the song was intended BEFORE the fire, not related to "The Elements" for two reasons, one good and one not so good. First the not so good.

Aren't the elements always or usually referred to as Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water - in that order? Well, then Water (the "Water Chant" and/or "Dada") would follow the Fire, not "The Workshop". I guess you could put it after the water....I know, that's weak, but I do feel that way.

This is the second reason, and, I promise I'm not trying to be a sarcastic SOB. If "I Wanna Be Around/Workshop" was to follow the fire, signifying re-building the barn, why didn't it come out that way on BWPS. Again, not to re-start the debate, but, if Brian was seriously involved in BWPS, it would've been quite simple for him to say to Darian, "Put the workshop after the fire." He could've done that from his couch!

This might shock many here, but I like "IWBA/Workshop" where it is on BWPS, before "Vegetables". Oh, it should've followed "Cabinessence" (I flip-flop the movements myself), but I think "IWBA/Workshop" works best as either building "the home on the range" (after "Cabinessence"), or building the cart to "cart off and sell" the vegetables.

I don't think IWBA/Friday Night was ever meant to be part of Fire.  Way too much has been made of Brian's offhand remark to Carol that this was "rebuilding after the fire."  I interpret that to mean that he was making positive, creative (literally creative - as in woodshop, music that incorporated sounds of making things into the song) music after having created the negative, destructuve fire energy the day before, not that IWBA/FN was the second part of Fire.  Brian was still a bit freaked out by the Fire session and the music and this was music to counterbalance the sinister "bad vibes" of that day.

Let's think about it - if Brian had meant IWBA/FN to be part of Fire/The Elements, why would the session slate be "Friday Night" rather than "The Elements Part 2 Fire" as it had been "The Elements Part 1 Fire" the day before?  why would the session sheet list the song as "Friday Night" rather than the elements?  And why wouldn't anyone other than Carol (like Anderle, Vosse, Van Dyke, Carl, Derek Taylor) have any recall of this piece being part of Fire/The Elements?  In Vosse's P.R. piece on the session (reprinted in LLVS), there's no mention of this being part of The Elements. 

Now if you say this is part of I'm in Great Shape, I think there's a better argument to be made.

And isn't Carol sort of known to be, er, how do I say this....perhaps a little bit unreliable? Just going by some things I've heard, mind you....

I hear the Pope's Catholic, too...

Yep. I'm quite happy to along with that. Always thought personally that IWBA/FN was gonna be part of the Barnyard suit Brian mentioned.

Though just a thought to remember. We have constantly been told by the participants and observers of the Smile recordings that things would get swapped around pretty often. So in some ways i would not hold too much stock in the naming of various sections and session tapes. If these claims of one section being swapped from on song to another, it could be that Smile was a lot more fluid in its construction than perhaps we give Brian credit for.

To my ears IWBA/FN sounds like it was made to follow Fire. They're the only two Smile tracks that I've put back to back that really feel like they were made to go together. It's something about the humour of IWBA, perfectly defusing the tension in Fire that works perfectly and seems exactly the sort of thing Brian would do at the time - a perfect counterpoint. Plus the fact those last base drum beats of Fire move just sound so right moving into IWBA. I'm inclined to believe Carol Kaye personally. Of course then there's the problem that Friday Night is a fade, so it sort of eliminates any other elements being included, unless when Fire, IWBA and FN were recorded this was the elements suite in its entirety, or maybe Vegetables was to precede Fire in the suite.

Didn't Domenic Priore argue in his post BWPS Smile book something about a session sheet listing the time of Fire as X (don't have it to hand right now) and when you place Fire and IWBA/FN together it perfectly matched this playing time?

Fire is such a twisted goshdarn track.

every time i hear it (preferably a mono mix with the crackling fire sounds) i find it disturbing just how well they captured the feeling of a mind just totally losing it.

i mean, i really don't think it would be possible to capture that unless it was experienced by the one who conceived it. this is the only shocking track from Smile in my mind and i can't really blame brian for thinking it would be too much to unleash on the world. coming from a guy who wrote "good vibrations" and sent that out into the collective unconsciousness of the world... "Fire" is a strange twist in the way of things.

(http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/3323/080509091632607007.jpg)

I agree with buddhahat.  I can't think of any other reason that I Wanna Be Around would have been sliced next to Friday Night's woodshop sounds of people building things.  We don't know exactly why Brian edited the two little pieces together, but a rebuilding scene seems like a very strong possibility.  It just seems if you reference a song with the lyrics "I wanna be around to pick up the pieces...." and then follow it right away with carpentry sounds, that it isn't hard to conclude that "the pieces" that need picking up are that of a building or some other wood structure.  And what then would have put the structure into pieces?  It could be yet another strange "plot" twist in the Americana theme, but it being meant to go after the fire is an argument with some traction.  Then add in the consecutive recording dates, and last but not least, Carol Kaye's (somewhat untrustable) testimony and the case gets stronger.

I do agree with those who suggest that IWBA/Friday Night sounds like it belongs in the Barnyard section.  I have mentioned in other posts that, despite the shaky evidence that IWBA/Friday Night was called "I'm In Great Shape" on the tape box (I believe it has been called a red herring), when you begin connecting a few things together it begins to look like I'm In Great Shape came after Fire.  I am not fully convinced, but there is a string of evidence to follow.

There is the whole thing mentioned above about the tape box saying "I'm In Great Shape" which may or may not have contained IWBA/Friday night.

IWBA "picking up pieces" directly followed by carpenter sounds.

The three pieces were presented together on BWPS.

Van Dyke has said that IIGS was once part of Barnyard.

Barnyard and Friday Night have been linked together off handedly, I believe by David Anderle in How Deep Is The Ocean.

IIGS has the lyric "I'm in the great shape of the agriculture" which strongly evokes the Earth element, as does the Barnyard piece in general.  "Eggs and grits and lickity split" evokes farm life, in my opinion.  (And if we are in the Earth element in IIGS with the great shape of the agriculture and a barnyard scene, then it is a very small jump into the farmer's fields for the opening section of Vegetables where "I'm gonna keep well my vegetables, cart off and sell my vegetables".  Also the physical comedy in the lyrics of Barnyard are echoed in the lyrics of Vegetables, which has a guy "kicking a ball and his shoe flying off."

Barnyard and IIGS were presented together on the H&V piano demo.

Barnyard and I'm In Great Shape and Mrs. Oleary's cow are all in the same key (H&V barnshine fade is also in this key by the way).

There is some connection between Barnyard, Great Shape, and You Are My Sunshine.  Sunshine ends in the same key as Barnyard and IIGS begin, which I have pointed out is the same key as the Barnshine fade, which is connected to Barnyard and Sunshine.

And finally (if you really want to get out there on a limb), all of this is linked to H&V.  Barnyard, Great Shape, Barnshine fade, and Sunshine were all connected in someway to the development of H&V.  Mrs. Oleary's Cow is  the same key and chord structure as Barnshine.  The only other song that fits into this key structure family is Wonderful, which I believe is also in Db.  This makes me think that the key and chord structure similarities between all these songs may be more than accidental.

The Song Of The Grange, in putting "IWBA/Workshop" after the fire, what would be your running order from, say, right before "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" right through to after "IWBA/Workshop"?

Just to nitpick... The "agriculture" is a BWPS thing.  The 1966 lyric was "I'm in the great shape of the open country."

Yes.  Lately I have been doing something like this:

Old Master Painter/Sunshine (the ending strings perfectly set up MOC, they end in Db and Fire is (as best as I can tell) Ab-Db
Mrs Oleary's Cow (no fire intro, I think it wasn't meant to go before Fire, even the chimes version is in a weird key to go into Fire)
IWBA
Friday Night
I'm In Great Shape
Barnyard
Barnshine fade
Vegetables (the early version is in the key of F which works a bit better than the later E key, but I admit is a bit of a leap out of Barnshine.  I usually use a session out take from Barnshine with the plucking strings to ease the transition)
Do A Lot
Fade To Vegetables

(I split the Elements into 2 sections, Fire and Earth on side one in the "Lets Go Away For Awhile" slot, and Wind and Water on side 2 in the "Pet Sounds"slot.  Though sometimes I do a whole side of the Elements, beginning and ending with part of H&V and the H&V chants serving as link tracks throughout the side.  In this version I also use Do You Like Worms as a sort of "gate way to the Elements" because of its travel theme and Bicycle Rider's environmentalist mood--"see what you've done to the church of the American Indian".)  For the water section I always use the water chant sliced with a short version of Holidays and a bunch of water sounds dubbed over, many of which are taken from Brian's own recordings of water sounds.  Sometimes coming out of Wind Chimes I use the spooky howling part of George Fell Into His French Horn.  It sounds to me like wolves howling in the distant hills or something.  Put a little wind sound effect on there and you got something almost as spooky as Fire.

The "agriculture" is a BWPS thing yes, but I have listened to the H&V demo recently with heavy EQ and compression and I now think he actually says "agriculture".  He goes into a deep range and it is very hard to hear but with a band-pass EQ and a ton of compression I hear "agriculture".  I thought it was "open country" for ever, but now I am less sure.  I could still be hearing it wrong.  Another thing going against me is  the Inside Pop reel descriptions, which mention an  "Open Country" song.  I am at the point now where I lean towards "agriculture" but consider both options inconclusive.  Brian definitely doesn't CLEARLY say one of the other.  I would love to be proved wrong and no for sure.

I'm with ya on putting "The Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine" right before "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" (I thought I was the only one doing that; most put it before "Cabinessence"); but I'm not sure about the barnyard stuff AFTER the fire. Theoretically, I have most of the animals perishing in the fire, and I don't go back to the barnyard after that. I've been using:

- "Barnyard" (going out to the barn, that's where the fire starts)
- "OMP/YAMS" (the sun going down; the cow's kicking over the lamp)
- "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" (the fire)
- "Water Chant/"Dada" (you gotta put the fire out)

I do like how you eliminated the bells and whistles from the fire intro; been thinking about doing that too. But, on BWPS, the bells and whistles are at the beginning - and that's the finished SMiLE..... :police:

Or, maybe, much like everything else he was recording at the time, Brian didn't know exactly what he was gonna do with Friday Night/IWBA. It makes sense that since  the song features the sound of things being built, it would be a track that would come right after Fire. And perhaps for a few hours on the day it was recorded,  Brian was going to somehow make that a piece of music representing building after a fire. And then maybe after the session he went home, listened to it, listened to it again and again, and then decided not to use it at all.

He definitely says "agriculture" and not "open country" on the H&V piano demo.

I didn't even know those "open country" lyrics existed until reading this thread - and for years I've been listening to that demo, which I love, and I always heard "agriculture". Also worth noting - I haven't read the BWPS lyrics in the booklet before and never paid much attention to what Brian sung on the new version.

To my ear, the first couple syllables are a bit unclear, but the word "country" IS clear.  When I first heard that demo, I thought that he was singing "upper country."  However, upon re-listening (obsessively), I now agree with the "open country" interpretation.   If you're hearing "-culture" in that 1966 demo, you might seek out the services of a good audiologist.

I always thought he was singing "upper country" as well...I could buy "open country" too, but (and I admit I haven't heard it altered with audio tricks) I definitely have never heard "agriculture."  Maybe he and Van Dyke changed it for BWPS.  Remember, on the demo he doesn't sing "fresh clean air" either, but that's how it came out in 2004.

OK, admit it, how many of you just had your ear up against the speaker? Is it "country" or "agriculture"? ;) You know what, I think it actually is AGRICULTURE.

It sounds like  agricuntree, which obviously can't be it. I too used to believe it was 'upper country', but now lean toward agriculture! As usual, no help at all...

It's always sounded like "upper country" to me.  I can distinctly hear the "per" of the word "upper", and definitely the R syllable at the end.

Whatever it is, it's definitely not "agriculture".

I know I made that confident post up there but I actually haven't listened to it in quite a while. I'm going to find it now, listen a zillion times, and report back to base.

Hold tight folks. It will all be OK soon.

Listening to that famous "H&V" demo again and I have to say that Smile might have sounded best overall on Brian's piano. The way he plays "Barnyard" is magnificent. It's a groove, better than it actually is on Smile. His playing really brings out the great rhythms behind the songs. Same for "Surf's Up". How about the piano + vocals take of the "Child is Father..." chorus? Some of Smile always sounded a little awkward in its fully produced state (for example, you could tell he had a lot of problems trying to make the "Bicycle Rider" chorus work with all the vocals, which lead to him stripping it down for the "H&V" single, which also very well could have inspired the direction he later took on Smiley Smile). Of course, other instrumental parts were sublime, so what can you do? Still, just Brian and the Boys around his piano with a few other instruments here and there could've brought us a great Smile, and one that would've been much more manageable for Brian. Instead, someone bought him an organ and we got Smiley Smile instead. Which is great little album, but it's still no Smile.

edit - Listening to more demos, I noticed on the early instrumental takes of "Wonderful" that the ukulele part in the background is where Brian got the "rock with me, henry" melody/rhythm from that is on the later Smile take.

I first heard it as 'upper country'... then when BWPS came up, it was one of those "oh !" moments, as it was obviously 'agriculture' once it was pointed out.

From my copy:

And uh, everyone was sort of, had it in their minds, and it was umm, I think it has a lot to do with, uh, repetition, I don't know, when something's around for a long time it gets really, uh, emblazoned in your mind, and uhm, becomes so visual that it really starts to happen... our next record's called "Heroes and Villains"... uhh hey Van let's do it ... I thought maybe uhh... ...

I think that uhh, that feeling... ... I can hear (the drum?) ... I think this is a beautiful feeling ...

I've been in this town so long that back in the city I've been taken as lost and gone and unknown for a long long time...

Fell in love years ago with an innocent girl from the Spanish & Indian home of the Heroes and Villains...

Once at night cotillion squared the fight/fine and she was right in the rain of the bullets that eventually brought her down...

But she's still dancing in the night unafraid of what a dude'll do in a town full of Heroes and Villains...

... and then it goes in/into a fudder/funner tone ...

da da, da da da da da, da da da da daaaaatththththhtdthdthdthdth...

Freshen[ed] air around my head, mornings tumble out of bed, eggs and grits and lickity split, look at me jump, I'm in the great shape of the [..................]

We're still working...

Anyway...

There's another section now...

Out in the barnyard, the chicken's do their number
Out in the farmyard, the cook is chopping lumber
Jump in the pig pen next time I'll take my shoes off
Hit the dirt, do two and a half, next time I'll leave my hat on
ba ba, ba ba ba, ba ba da da da da da, da da... haven't pitched this

Lot of animals are going back back back back back

LET'S HEAR THE ANIMALS!!!!!!!

[Van and Brian doing animal noises with absolute profession]

Do the, do the lamb thing, can you do the lamb? let's hear it...

[Van's self-conscious lambing] baaa baaa

Out in the barnyard...

There's more of Barnyard on my copy but it's irrelevant to this post.

I'm actually hearing a fairly distinct double P (pp) sound, as in the word "upper". So I think it is "Upper country" in that line. The word "agriculture" doesn't sound the same, and has no letters in it which would produce the distinctive "pp" sound which makes its surface in the recording even though the full word is difficult to hear/recognize.

btw, to appreciate this demo it has to be listened to at 50% its original speed, to appreciate its stoned beauty.  :smokin

I must admit I go back and forth between "open country", "upper country", and "agriculture".  His voice gets so low in his range and quiet at the same time that it is really rough to hear and mixes with the lower tones of the piano.  But when I mess with it in a band-pass EQ there is a fairly distinct "RRR" syllable at the very end of the phrase.  It could be either the "rrr" of "countrrrrry" or of "agriculturrrrrre".  When you band pass the demo to allow through only very high end frequencies you hear the percussive sounds of his hard consonants that confirm there are 4 syllables (both options have 4 syllables which doesn't help us at all).  The thing that points me toward "agriculture" is that Brian probably wouldn't have vocalized the "rrr" sound so much if the word were "country", I would tend to think he would hang on the "y" sound of "countryyyy".  When you sing the word "agriculture" you have no choice to vocalize the "rrr" sound at the end.

I would encourage anyone with the software or EQ gear needed to give it a try and see what they think.

And yes, I know, I have completely lost my mind!

I would be pleased to die in times like these - obsessively listening dozens of times to a few seconds of music to determine a word.

 :-[

Come on, Andrew, crank up the volume and listen to it again.  As much as we might like to believe that "agriculture" isn't a revision, it just isn't in the '66 demo.  My hearing is pretty damned good, and, while the first couple syllables are indeed garbled (open? upper?), the last two ("cunnn-trryyyy") are plain as day,.   If you guys are really and truly hearing that as "cul-ture," can I have some of what you're smoking?  :smokin

Out in the barnyard, the chicken's do their number
Out in the farmyard, the cook is chopping lumber
Jump in the pig pen next time I'll take my shoes off
Hit the dirt, do two and a half, next time I'll leave my hat on
ba ba, ba ba ba, ba ba da da da da da, da da... haven't pitched this

Lot of animals are going back back back back back

LET'S HEAR THE ANIMALS!!!!!!!

[Van and Brian doing animal noises with absolute profession]

Do the, do the lamb thing, can you do the lamb? let's hear it...

[Van's self-conscious lambing] baaa baaa

Out in the barnyard... [/i]






May I add something?

If I remember correctly, are there not lyrical differences between original Smile lyrics and those on BWPS... ?

For example, take the original lyrics quoted above:- But on BWPS, (the words spoken/sung as opposed to those being written in the Cd booklet), isn't 'barnyard' said twice, the second time inplace of 'farmyard'?

Isn't 'farmyard' completely omitted?

May be it was originally 'upper/open country' but later for BWPS was presented as 'agriculture'...?

But whatever the words are on BWPS, my view is that that does not mean that they were the original lyrics...

Quick thing sofonanm, at the end of Heroes on the demo, Brian is saying flutter tone.  And at the end of Barnyard, I think he's saying "haven't finished this."

There were definitely small lyrical changes on BWPS...remember the "Cantina" section, how Brian now sings "Margarita keeps the spirit high" as opposed to "margaritas keep the spirit high."  The omission of "farmyard" is another obvious one.  So even though Brian sang "agriculture" on BWPS, he could indeed have been singing "upper country" or "open country" on the Heroes demo and just simply changed it later on.

Just listened again with a few widgets plugged in and...

... could be either.

That said (and this is OT), listening to "Soulful Old Man Sunshine" with a surround doohickey dialled in makes it VERY obvious how much of a patchwork quilt Carl's lead is. Damn fine choon, mind. And such vocal gymnastics...

Haha, I just could not bring to mind what word he was saying in the first case. That, of course, makes perfect sense. Thanks.

So does the Barnyard bit - and it also brings something else to this discussion - if they hadn't finished working on a short and relatively simple song like Barnyard, then can we accurately say that any lyrics used at the time were the final, unchangeable ones? It's been mentioned in this thread that the 'original' lyrics to I'm In Great Shape were changed on BWPS - maybe so, but this snippet on the demo is all we have to go on for original lyrics, right? There's only the backing track from the sessions where Van's in the studio.

I've always taken that Barnyard quote from Brian to mean that perhaps there was another verse that was intended to follow the first, and it just hadn't been written yet.  Otherwise, it sounds pretty well finished to me, save for a lead vocal on the track we've all heard.

Actually I think he says 'Flutter tone'. Isn't that what the horn does, it has that little flutter that's stretched out?
 Which leads me to believe that the flutter toned horn would stretch out into the first bars of IIGS. Kind of like the weird feedback thing that is at the end of Cantina version and the IIGS sessions.

Yes, Chris cleared that up for us.

That would be interesting - merging into IIGS at that point. When I first heard that demo I assumed that Brian was just playing bits and pieces of the songs they had been working on - not evidence of any determined structure. But now I wonder - perhaps Brian was much more ambitious with H&V (as all the sessions would suggest) and planned to use its themes throughout the entire album - not limiting it to one stand alone track (like BWPS or the 1967 single). I can't imagine H&V-IIGS-Barnyard to make a very strong single, though. And in that demo he did say "our next record's called Heroes and Villains..." Question is, which version?

Well the version he's talking about IS Heroes verses/IIGS, and then "another section" Barnyard.  That was what he played to Humble Harv and the version Harv raved about being a hit.  I agree I don't see it as a Good vibrations followup.  Note he says "we're still working" and that Barnayrd is another section.  Based on the demo, Heroes went directly from the verses into IIGS, and then something else either went between IIGS and Barnyard - and with all the fragments like Bridge to Indians, soul Made Beautiful, etc. there's lots of candidates, or he hadn't yet written or decided on the piece inbetween.  Barnyard was recorded with a fade, so it would seem to be the end of the song, but he never says on the demo that is the ending, but he plays it like a fade, so I suspect it was at that time.

The flutter horn couldn't actually go INTO the first verse of IIGS because Brian wasn't doing cross fades, just butt end edits at this time.  But it could certainly lead into it.

My bad, I completely missed that part in Chris' post!  :o

I agree with Bicyclerider...in October '66 at least, Brian conceived of Heroes as running in the order he played on the demo.  The juxtaposed sections do seem like they would sound odd together, but I can imagine Brian making it work somehow.  I can actually envision the "tape explosion" in IIGS leading (via a butt-end edit, of course) right into Barnyard, which would then fade and end the song.

Come to think of it, perhaps "false Barnyard" was meant to take the place of the real Barnyard at the conclusion of Heroes?  After deciding to spawn IIGS and Barnyard into their own songs, Brian would have needed an new ending.  Thus, he records a fade very similar to Barnyard (perhaps "in the cantina" was supposed to replace IIGS as well) and places it at the end of his February mix. 

I highly doubt I'm the first person to think of this, but it makes sense to me, assuming we are to take Brian's sequence in the demo as the real sequence at one point in time.

I have thought the same thing.  My mixes always have IIGS going into Barnyard.  It isn't too much of a stretch to see the last two parts of the cantina version of H&V to be some sort of mirror of this earlier version--massive tape feedback going smack into a Ab-Db chord switch.  Barnyard and Barnshine have the same 2 chord switch and a similar vocal line.  What makes it all more confusing is that Barnshine fade had those You Are My Sunshine lyrics on it.  And we know from that Al Kooper book that a very very early version of H&V sounded like "a bunch of weird versions of You Are My Sunshine."  Seems like Sunshine could have played a role in the October H&V also.

Is it true that thousands of Smile slicks sat in a Capitol warehouse until the late '80s, then discarded? Anyone have an estimate as to how many slicks were saved from the landfill?

Why weren't the slicks sold as collector's items? Idiocy at Capitol isn't exactly late breaking news. It's not too hard to believe that some accountant or executive at Capitol said in the late '80s, "why are we wasting money storing those slicks? Pitch 'em"! (I have a slick for a Jerry Cole LP on Capitol, but that LP was commercially released.)

A friend of mine, Steve Kolanjian*, used to work for Capitol/EMI compiling "oldies" CD's, for the "Legendary Masters" and "Capitol Collectors" series, etc. (I helped him compile a Ventures CD). Steve tells me horror stories about the lack of respect for older artists/recordings at Capitol. He says that Capitol's tape vaults used to be well organized but recently numerous Capitol master tapes were shipped unlabeled to unorganized warehouses. Steve says other labels, like CBS, are doing the same thing. Recently someone was looking for the master of a girl group single Dolly Parton recorded for Monument (a CBS label) in the early '60s (before she was signed to RCA) but they had to "needle drop" the song from vinyl because the master couldn't be located.

At least if something has already come out on a CD, it can be copied from that CD for re-release with no loss in sound quality (Glenn Baker's Australian label Raven Records practically specializes in legit CD's mastered from other CD's!). But now if they want to release on CD something that's never been on CD it might have to come from vinyl (like the aforementioned Dolly Parton single). On a related note, a recent fire at MCA destroyed numerous master tapes in their vaults. Fortunately, the complete works of some artists, like Rick Nelson, were previously released on CD (Bear Family in Germany put out a boxed set of his entire Decca output).

*Steve told me one day he was in the elevator at the Capitol building in LA and was talking to a colleague about Eugene Landy. When the elevator stopped a woman got out screaming in disbelief "no, not my Dr. Landy"!

I've heard both late 60s and late 70... late 60s seems most likely, as after that, the band were off Capitol, so why keep storing 400,000 sheets of paper for no good reason (same applies to about the same number of booklets). No slicks were saved from the landfill.


No-one in 1969 was thinking 'collectors items'.

I'm getting into the game a bit late here.  I've listened to the vocals repeatedly, trying to imagine it as agriculture.  It simply is not there.  I politely agree with Juggler on this point.  I've even ruled out upper but I can certainly see someone hearing upper.

For me, Barnyard, I Wanna be Around and Woodshop are all inconsequential on their own.  Throw in Barnshine and compile them into a suite and then they all make sense.   A Barnyard suite was much closer than I'd ever realised.

I separate the elements from any of these pieces.  I still feel the elements should be primarily instrumental.  Yes, Wind Chimes has extensive vocals but with a portion of Holidays tacked onto it, much like in BWPS, it does fit together nicely.   Da Da only works as a backing track.  I enjoy it as In Blue Hawai'i, but on its own it's a bit weak.  Mrs. O'Leary's Cow flows quite well into Diamond Head.  Purists don't like the use of Diamond Head but it is vastly superior to any other water tune, and is written in the same vein as the Smile material.  However, it's not completely a BW song.

The question for me is "What sounds best from the material we have?"  I try to make the most musical and amazing sounding Smile comp that I can.  If that involves extending the time frame a bit, so be it.  Where to draw the line can be a bit tricky.

I'd be interested in seeing your mix/sequencing. There is a thread on Page 3 called "Your personal SMiLE mix" if you have the time....

Sheriff,
I posted it on "Making a Smile Mix" on page 6 of the archives, page 2 of the post.  I've made a few changes since then and I'll PM you with the cnew lineup.

Hi all, first post so apologies if this has been suggested numerous times before.

It has always seemed right to me that Fire should come after Cabinessence, the first line of Cabinessence is 'Light the lamp and fire mellow' and the end melody of Cabinessence (the chromatic backing vocal line) is the same as the chromatic piano line in Fire. Plus obviously Miss O'Leary's cow allegedly knocked over a lamp to start the great fire. Has this been considered before or am I on completely the wrong track?

I've always put Cabin Essence at the end of a movement, even prior to BWPS I had it at the end of side one.  There certainly is a link in the lyrics but it seems a little too abrupt to me to place Mrs. O'Leary's Cow after Cabinessence.  I like to keep the elements together but your mix is up to you to figure out.  There's an infinite number of possibilities!

Are you interested in sharing the running order of your mix?  You may have a much different perspective from most SMiLaholics.

Hi tatter, welcome to the board.

While I agree with you that "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" should come after "Cabinessence", I'm not sure that I like it immediately after "Cabinessence". The following is just my opinion....

Yes, "Cabinessence" begins with the line, "Light the lamp and fire mellow....", which would indicate a night time song. And, the cow kicked over the lamp at night. But, how does "Cabinessence" end? With "over and over the crow cries uncover the cornfield". Doesn't that happen in the MORNING? And, we're talking about cornfields or corn - Vegetables? That's what I like to put in some proximity following "Cabinessence". First, he builds the home on the range, then, to pay for it, he carts off and sells his vegetables. That's just one man's theory, mine, so it doesn't mean much....

In keeping with the cow kicking over the lamp, and I do take that seriously in sequencing, I like to go "Barnyard" with the animal noises (including mooing cows) signifying the animals going into the barn, THEN follow it with "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow". In between I put "The Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine" because I like the sound of the fading cello, signifying to me the lamp falling or TIMBER!

Like B-Rex said, we'd welcome your ideas or sequence. There are no right or wrong answers, and it's a lot of fun kicking around the ideas.

B-Rex - I haven't actually got a tracklisting of my own personal mix (yet :smokin) but when i do i'll certainly share it, i wasn't even aware just how much SMiLE material existed until a few weeks ago, I must have been living under a rock.

Sheriff John Stone - That's a great answer and just illustrates the different interpretations of the songs on SMiLE and the possibilities of running order etc. I see Cabinessence as a song about a place changing from Barns and Farming to a more industrial place (who ran the iron horse etc etc near the end and a feeling of dissatisfaction with the new lifestyle) and this kind of ties in with Chicago becoming a leading industrial city before the great fire.

Like you say there's no right or wrong but it's great fun thinking about all the possibilities.

The main thing for me was the chromatic backing vocals at the end of Cabinessence and the same piano intro at the start of Fire, (maybe BW was thinking of overlapping them?) sometimes chromatic melodies can be good transitions between songs in different keys because they don't depend on a particular key to be played behind them, they work in any key.

Also just doing a bit of reading up on the fire and Chicago, there had been the construction of the Illinois-Michigan Canal (Water) leading to the introduction of railways (working on the railroad) and there were gail-force winds blowing on the day of the fire. So a logical order could also be earth, water, wind, fire?

Anyway just throwing it in the already massive pot!  ;D

According to someone who would know about these things, none of the tracks on Smile as originally envisaged by its creators would have been segued or cross-faded, except internally in one song. This in response to a direct question.

Welcome tatter.

It sounds like you have caught the Smile bug, better cancel your plans for the next few months!

I am glad you suggested the idea of Fire coming after Cabinessence, I too have thought that there is some relationship between the two songs.  The unanswerable question is whether this shared musical thread would have lead to the songs coming one after another, or if it would have been a reprise of the theme, and one would have come at a later part of the LP.  You can go mad thinking about these sorts of things, I think I have.  I think a good argument could be made for having the songs together.  Fire could also lead into Cabinessence, because the section called "I Wanna Be Around/Friday Night (Work Shop)" is probably meant to go at the end of Mrs O'Leary's Cow, and thus the hammering and sawing could make sense as the "(re)building of the cabin".

One thing to think about: evidence for the Mrs. O'Leary Cow intro music (as heard on the 2004 release) being the actual intro to Fire is shaky.  It could be the case that the "chimes version" or that other version floating around were recorded at an earlier date, but the version that appears on the box set as "Heroes and Villains intro" was actually recorded months after Brian canned the Fire music (I'm sure you've heard the legend).  So there is no way that music could have been the intro to Fire because it didn't exist.  I think it is David Leaf's idea that Brian picked up on when putting together the 2004 release.

Tatter, Grange is correct about freeing up your calendar for the next few months.  SMiLE may well consume you.   Check out some running orders on this post and other posts and just listen.  You may be lacking a fair amount of unofficially released material but there is plenty of released material to get you started.  As AGD stated, the original SMiLE wouldn't have had all of the segues that the 2004 version does.  Most every song has a fade.  That doesn't have to stop you from crossfading but it isn't historically accurate.  I don't mind playing with history a bit, myself.  Some connections will arise that perhaps others have not noticed.  Expect to play around with your order frequently.  One day it will seem perfect and the next you may wonder how you came up with that drivel.   Many of us have had a dozen to several dozen running orders.  As Sheriff said, there is no right or wrong, just endless possibilities.  Share it when you're ready.

"It sounds like you have caught the Smile bug, better cancel your plans for the next few months!"

Or years.

And every mention of movements by Brian back in that day, that I have seen or heard, is about movements within a song.

Mr Doe... I know that you've quite deliberately not said in your post above which song it was that was going to have the internal crossfade, so by asking 'which one?', I'm probably going somewhere you don't wish to go. But...

...which one? ;)

(what the heck... no harm in asking... you can always ignore the question...!)

I'm guessing Good Vibrations. Because as released, it HAS a crossfade of sorts. (From 'my-my-my what elation' to 'gotta keep those lovin' good...'). Everyone always calls that a very obvious edit, whereas in fact it has to be some kind of crossfade, as you can still hear the reverb trails from the previous section after the switch to the slow organ section. And the reverb would have been cut off if it was a butt edit, right?

MattB

No no no - the tape edit was done first during the mixdown, then the mix was put through the reverb to (1) cover those edits a bit, and (2) be generally psychedelic and out there and with it, man.  (A real "WHOAAH!!" acid moment).  Note that other tape edits are deliberately obvious (when the coda begins, for example), also part of the overall same effect.

Otherwise I don't know the answer to your cross fade question, though the other obvious candidate would be Heroes & Villains.  Even if the alternative "single" mix (see the GV box set) is more tape edits than cross fades.

"The Elements".

Brian could have easily fudged the lyric or not been 100% sure on it at the time. It's just Brian around a piano showing a couple people some new ideas they were working with, I don't think it's worth getting too far into.

For all those pointing out lyrical differences, he also sings, "I've been taken as lost and gone" on the Humble Harv recording. Not quite as important as the others pointed out, but it is worth mentioning as the lyric later changed, just as "agriculture" could have been later on.

This was a theoretical crossfade, or someone knows that one element would be crossfaded into another?  Which to which?

What is the Humble Harv recording?  Is this an acetate or tape that Brian and friends took to radio station KHJ to give them a world exclusive premiere of Heroes and Villains?  I've always wondered if it was Humble Harv (aka Harvey Miller), Tom Maule, or another KHJ jock who told Brian, "Sorry, it's not on the playlist, so I can't play it!" before contacting his boss who told him, "Put it on the air, you idiot!"

Wasn't it  I'm In Great Shape that originally had that fuzzy feedback build-up, which on BWPS bled into I Wanna Be Around?  (Going from memory as I don't have my CDs to hand...).. Would that count as a kind of cross-fade?

The humble Harv recording is the Heroes piano demo that was released in edited form on Endless Harmony - it was the first time that "I'm in Great Shape" came to light as part of Heroes, at least at that time (November 66).

Thanks for the info, Bicyclerider.  Do you have any idea why it's called "The Humble Harv Demo"?

'Cause Brian was playing it for LA DJ Harvey' Humble Harv' Miller, who'd dropped in at the session.

OK, so it's probably safe to assume that it was not Humble Harv who was on the air when Brian and entourage drove to KHJ radio and delivered Heroes and Villains for an exclusive world premiere, only to have the dj say he couldn't play it because it wasn't on the KHJ playlist. 

AGD, do you or anyone else know who the dj was who was finally told by his boss, when the dj was prodded to call for permission, "Put it on the air, you idiot!"  (For those of you into radio history, I'm assuming the boss would have been KHJ program director Ron Jacobs.)

Y'know, I do believe someone worked out who it had to be - probably Cam Mott, he's good at stuff like that - and it wasn't Harv.