The Smiley Smile Message Board

The beauty (and the frustrating thing) about SMiLE is that we don't know. We put importance into things that maybe don't have importance at all, just because there seems to be so little HARD evidence about just exactly what was going to be what, what was going where, etc.  We obsess over the handwriting on the SMiLE handwritten list because that's the only 'definitive' track list of that time, written right when the music was actually being put on tape. We endlessly rattle our brains trying to figure out why Brian made a track featuring 'woodshop' sounds, why he called the track 'Friday Night' and why only one person has ever claimed that Brian said the track was about 'rebuilding after the fire'. We debate about Vege-tables; was it elements? Was it Elements at one time, then split off into it's own song? Wind Chimes? Was Brian wearing a blue shirt or a paisley shirt the day that 'Bicycle Rider' was recorded?

I feel the same as Carl said about SMiLE in 'I Just Wasn't Made For These Times'- Personally, I love it!

I think about this every time I sit down on the can. :)

One thing's for sure - his mind was wearing a paisley shirt during the writing and recording of "Bicycle Rider".  8)

I had a dream last night that I heard the COMPLETE SMiLE, as it would sound if it were vintage 1967. Carl sang "Look". It was gorgeous beyond words.  :) Man, what I would give to have the technology to put a recording device in my head.

The dreams! The dreams!

They are one of the most amazing, tantalizing aspects of being into the SMiLE music and
mystery. Indescribable dreams of hearing uncirculated, rarefied, visionary recordings that
expand on what has been heard by everyone, in many different scenarios.

A tape recorder or camera inside one's head would be quite nice. ;D

SMiLE is sh*t.

Yes. However, it's the most pleasant, arousing smelling sh!t ever. The kind you would roll around in for hours, and put in your pockets so that you could carry it with you.

I'm minded of something that happened back in the thirties - a leading astronomer of the day received an unexpected telegram that read "require thousand words subject life on mars by return. hearst". Back then, you didn't mess with Hearst, so the astronomer duly dispatched the 1000 word article. It consisted of the phrase "nobody knows" repeated five hundred times.

You can't CLOSE sh*t?!  You ARE sh*t!!  Hit the bricks, pal!!! ;D

Don't you all get it?  The SMiLE sessions were just a 37 year teaser for BWPS.  That was the plan all along!  >:D

There's not a SMiLE post/question that goes by, that I don't think to myself, "Damn, if we could just ask Brian...."

You talk about dreaming....I'm still dreaming of that magical 2+ hour interview with Brian, where he sits down, listens to tracks, accepts questions, and actually gives answers "to the best of ability". Still can't believe we haven't gotten something like that in the last 42 years.... :(

Yes, but we need a roundtable with Anderle, Vosse, Van Dyke and Brian, all listening to Smile snippets and answering questions.  Showing them the back cover mock up with the titles.  Listening to Heroes sections - "when you recorded that after the cantina version was done, where were you thinking of putting it?" etc.  What the vegetables arguments were all about.  what the backing vocals in the cornucopia Vegetables are saying.  woodshop, Great Shape, original child lyrics or no, track order, Elements, Dada, the Mike Love Cab lyrics incident, He gives speeches, what the hell rock with me henry was all about, the "party reels," Mac visiting the studio, what happened during the Surf's Up vocal session/piano demo, all of it.  Then those interviews could go into the 6 CD Smile sessions box booklet.

Do you really think that putting Brian through all of that would get us any more info that we don't have? It could just backfire, causing Brian to have a major breakdown, and jeapordise his "recovery".

Administer some medication and it's 1991 all over again like the Regis and Kathie Lee incident. That's freaking out for ya. :)

Regis and Kathy Lee incident? What's this about?

It was during the promotional tour for the "autobiography" - there's a video of Brian at a signing (I might have the Regis/Kathie Lee thing wrong but it was around this time) and upon being given some meds to "calm down", he goes into what was apparently a mild seizure. This effectively began the process of ending the Landy thing. At least that's what Andrew Doe says. :)

The truly scary thing about that incident was the reaction of the minders: they acted as if nothing had happened... that it was nothing out of the ordinary.

And maybe it wasn't.  :o

Is all of this on the video that Love-chan mentioned? Is it circulating? Sorry if that sounded to morbid.

If the drug was lithium, I wouldn't be surprised that it would inspire a seizure, especially when mixed with the prescription diet Landy had Brian on. Nowadays it's been phased out but in 1991 it was quite common.

I never saw the video if it is around but I remember reading in my local Chicago paper that Brian passed out four times during his signing here. Landy saved Brian's life but he killed half of him too.

It's so obvious too. Listen to an interview from 1988 during the '88 album promotion. Then listen to one from any time after Landy. The differences are STAGGERING. Only rarely does Brian really sound punchy and upbeat in an interview now. Those '88 interviews are something ELSE - the man's literally talking a mile a minute and he sounds like he's enjoying being in some kind of spotlight again. Now, 20 years later, he's still in some kind of spotlight, but it's like the light goes right through him. The shell is there but the heart is gone. Landy saved him and then destroyed him. Sure, Brian may have been off street drugs but prescription drugs aren't exactly the best alternative. The fact that the man's even alive today is still miraculous, even to me, and I'm the ultimate cynic about Brian.

By 1988 he wasn't the same as he had been through say 81-82, but there was more going on. More emotion more engaged. Of course we know Landy was giving him speed, but still there was more life there. I guess Brian was first really near death in 1982, but I am almost as suprised he survived 1991.

Best comment I've heard from Brian in a long time was during the in-studio bit of the DVD for That Lucky Old Sun.

The group is in the control room and someone has some cookies or something like that, and Jeff Foskett says "I don't care..." about not getting any cookies, and Brian overhears it and says "You care, Jeff!"

It was like a joke appearing out of the void and returning back to it.  :-D

That's kinda what I meant/was hoping for, and I'm STILL surprised there hasn't been something like that. The SMiLE music is too important; I'm holding out hope. Maybe when the SMiLE boxed set comes out....

Beautiful Dreamer would have been a good opportunity for that to have happened, maybe it did happen, I don't know. I think if it did though it would be really disappointing what can be remembered now, or was ever known, with anything like the detail we wish.

I think we have a pretty good idea of what most of SMiLE was going to be, you know, theoretically.

Smile was about... smiling. It's that simple folks. Case closed.

As a new member I figure I just pick the most recent Smile thread and jump in.  I don't know if we'll ever figure out what Brian wanted Smile to be, or how he wanted it to sound exactly, but I think we have Smile.  I mean, sure, Brian might have chopped things up, maybe a different running order, or added a string, horn, and brass section, who knows.  I think however, we have (most of) the songs, and if you have the songs you have Smile, right?  It's like when you get a demo of a great song, it may not be as good as the finished song but you still get the vibe and the general idea. 

I echo pretty much everyone other Beach Boy fan when I say we need a Beach Boys Smile Boxset.  I was suprised when Brian did Smile a few years ago that nothing really happened with Smile on the Beach Boys front.  I thought for sure he'd get the Beach Boys tapes out if he was doing Smile stuff. 

Brian's story is sad one, but it's ironic to me that the album were it went south for him was Smile.  It sounds like it was supposed to be something so happy, but nothing happy really came out it for him.  I think it was really great that Brian came to terms with Smile though, or at least, it seems like he did.  Who knows.

Ah... if I had the chance to tour with Taylor Mills, I would be able to come to terms with singing the Greater L.A. Phone Directory.