The Smiley Smile Message Board

So, time to 'fess up:

what do you, as an intelligent, thinking and feeling, and sometimes drunk person, really think of the BWPS record album???

For me it's rather simple: A+. I love it to death. My line of thinking about BWPS mainly reflects the words of Bob Christgau, who loves the record. Yes, it's not young Brian, you can hear that. Yes, the older Brian adds another dimension vocally, with his worn voice. Yes, it's not the Beach Boys nor the Wrecking Crew backing him. Yes, it's a totally brilliant thing on its own merits and in its own right.

No reservations. Tops.

And you?

Love it. To me, it's the natural musical conclusion of the 60s.

But the real question should be : IS IT THE SMILE ALBUM OR IS IT BRIAN WILSON PRESENTS A VERSION OF SMILE

Gah! - no don't ask that question, this thread will roll for days!!

I adored BWPS when it came out, as I was at the 2nd RFH concert which was my introduction to Smile. It blew my mind then, and a 3 or 4 year intense smile obsession ensued. As the live show was my introduction to Smile, I had no problem accepting BWPS as Smile. Songs such as Song For Children feel complete in their BWPS form.

However, 6 years down the line, I do find that some of the backing vocals grate a bit, and I don't find the 3rd section as believable as the others. It doesn't have the magic and the madness of the original sessions but if I want to listen to Smile without all the nagging queries and 'what ifs', I will dig out BWPS. I think they did a terrific job, especially on the cycle of life bit - that sequence is incredible. I also love Brian's old voice with the Smile material. It lends the whole thing an extra poignancy and for these reasons I'd still give it an A+

It is the second. The first never came to fruition; and given Brian's endless experimentation, there's good reason to say that there existed many, many versions of it in his mind. So there is only one Smile, and that is your second option. 'The Smile Album' did and does not exist and never will, due to merciless Time itself.

I am glad it came out. I enjoyed the concert a lot more than the cd. But it is unfair to compare them to the BBs in 66-67. The current group is very tallented and spot on. But its been on the shelf for awhile. But I have done this before. I got really into Friends, stuck in on a shelf for awhile, then listened again and I loved even more than the first time. Haven't gotten that 2nd love for BWPS yet. Time will tell.

It's the authors' last word on the subject, and so for my money I think they finished Smile, and that BWPS can be called Smile. That takes nothing away from the parallel-universe completed 67 Smile that plays in my mind every time I reshuffle the original fragments in Itunes! I think the these two versions can co-exist quite happily, but I don't believe there is no finished Smile.

I think BWPS is a great album, and I enjoy the new parts they added too.

For me, I don't think of it like they've gone back in time to 'finish' Smile; it's the guy in charge of the project playing the album that never was. It's Brian Wilson, not an album by the Beach Boys. It's fun though, and gives a nice idea of what could have been.

BWPS forced me to hear the music anew in a different context than what I was used to. The fact that the new context improved on things I had only imagined makes the project a success. When I first heard the "Cantina" mix of "Heroes & Villains" on the SMILEY two-fer back in '90, I felt like a small window opened into the world that SMiLE was meant to occupy. I didn't get that feeling again until hearing BWPS, but now it was a doorway opening to that world.

We may quibble about whether it is an accurate enough interpretation of the '66/'67 SMiLE, but for most of the world there wasn't any such thing as SMiLE until BWPS was released. It is important for that alone.

I loved it when it came out, but if I listen to it now, I think some of the production could be better lead vocal-wise. Some parts sound quite dry to me like on H&V (if you know what I mean). I dig the sound of TLOS more to tell you the truth. Not to say that Smile isn't a great album of course

When I bought the CD back in '04 my only contact so far with the BB's world was a bare bones "Greatest Hits", "Pet Sounds" and "Imagination" and so I came to the album with a quite a different perspective from possably the vast majority of people on this board in that I'd never heard the Smile bootlegs and so had no reference to the original source material to compare it to.  It was a hard album to love at times and took awhile to really "sink in".  I'm talking two - three years.  I'd dust it off once in awhile  and eventually I started to dig it more and more. Once I started getting all the BB's stuff I could lay my hands on I couldn't help but think that the originals are way better.  The title track on "Surf's Up" is superior to the BWPS version.  The last two songs on 20/20 are better than their BWPS remakes.  I also appear to be the only person on the planet who thinks the "Smiley Smile" "Heroes and Villians" is the best  one....  I could go on.  Good album yes but let's face it; no one on the planet can compete with Brian when he was at the peak of his abilities not even the great man himself.

I love it - it is my favorite piece of Brian Wilson.  I would love to hear a symphony with afirst rate chorus perform it.

I still think that in 50 or 100 years, orchestras and choirs will be performing it. It's a good piece of music on its own, and Brian and his band did an excellent job interpreting it.

It brought the SMiLE legend to fruition.  It certainly isn't all it could have been but a fine effort nonetheless.  It's a bit cheesy in spots (esp. On a Holiday) but even the cheesy parts are endearing.  I was disappointed that Brian didn't put in the effort for a true elements suite but what he and Darian and the gang gaves us was a very reasonable facsimile.  A-

I remember when I got BWPS, I was in college.  I skipped class to go to Best Buy to get the CD.  I came right home and sat on my bed with headphone and listened.  I was big into the SMiLE sessions and knew what I wanted to hear.  But when I heard all of the created "links" that I assume Brian and Darian and maybe VDP put together....some of the magic went out.  Those little snippets just seemed to far fetched to me to see part of what I wanted Smile to be. 

When Brian said he created a whole "new third movement" I knew there had to be some creating....but like the start of the 3rd movement seems so out of place with the feeling of the songs.  Now I doubt anybody who listened to it without hearing the original sessions could tell what music is newly created.  But as a die hard fan, it seemed odd to me. 

But to me it's Smile in the best form we can get it.  We probably are never going to get a box set or anything close.  So BWPS works for me.

You may dislike how some of the music was arranged, but virtually all of it has its roots in the '66/'67 sessions. The opening to the third segment is, in fact, the "Cantina" bridge from H & V rearranged. Certain musical links come almost straight out of the original sessions, arrangement and all. Darian was obviously being slavishly loyal to the material; the parts that deviated the most from the original sessions were that way because Brian and/or Van Dyke wanted it that way...and that's fine with me.

Prior to BWPS I had heard a tape of SMiLE fragments. I knew about the legend, I'd heard a fair amount of the material...it was swapped in the school playground in the late 80's (I attended a weird school...walkmen might play AC/DC or Mozart).

When I got hold of an 'unofficial DVD' of one of the early SMiLE gigs I was totally blown away. I ripped the audio and listened to it for weeks on my daily commute to work - it just about lasted the same time as my train and bus ride. Sometimes I had tears in my eyes at the beauty of SMiLE - especially the 2nd movement. I attended a SMiLE concert about a month before the album was released....the nearest thing to a spiritual experience I have ever had.

The album itself....I make no apology for being a vinyl freak and although I own the CD I almost never play it. The US pressing of the LP is a masterpiece of vinyl mastering and manufacture. Trust me, you can hear things that just are NOT there on the CD - good though the CD is. Sonically it is a thing of majesty.

Musically? OK its Not The Beach Boys SMiLE...its already been stated, that record does not exist and never will. BWPS shows that Brian and co were agonisingly close to completing SMiLE back in 1967 though...and I'd wager 70% of BWPS is what might have been.

Listening to it, recalling the tapes swapped in the playground of my youth....is like putting some huge, impossible jigsaw together. "Oh, so *that* bit goes with *this* melody"....Little instrumental breaks here and there put into context. And you know what? It works so well I don't much care if they are as Brian intended in the 60's or not....they work beautifully.

The Beach Boys SMiLE never happened....Brian, Van Dyke and Darian finished SMiLE in late 2003. BWPS is SMiLE in its completed form. That doesn't stop me enjoying the earlier recordings...but I love the finished article.

BWPS stands up. It is part majestic, part wacky, part serious, part funny...in turns poignant and amusing...musically it is interesting and there are very few modern records I'd say that about.

Final verdict? Brian hit it out of the ballpark. As someone who lived through the time when we wondered if Brian would ever produce valuable music again....I hereby state that BWPS is far better than we had any right to expect. It confirms Brian Wilson as one of the finest American composers of all time.

And of course, Brian's new project involves one of the other great American composers. Maybe he'll take on Duke Ellington next...

Can't stand listening to it. Not in any way revelatory or even well done. I remember feeling nearly crushing disappointment when it came out and I've never learned to like it since. The live shows were way better as an experience, but, for Brian or the BB, re-recording old songs always, ALWAYS sounds way inferior and loses the magic of the original. SMiLE is a haunting, ghostly aural experience, whereas BWPS is a workmanlike sterile blah. It's like a turd falling into my drink. It doesn't even really feel like anyone playing on it cared about anything but playing the same notes we've all come to know and love from '66-'67. No soul. Anyway, you get my drift.

I love it. It personally confirmed the genius of Brian to me. Pet Sounds was good, but this was something else for my 15 year old self.

And the links are perfect, btw.

I was happy he finished it, and I was really pumped to see what exactly was going to be on it-'Look', maybe? Or 'Holidays'? 'Tones', maybe? Once it came out and I heard it, I couldn't believe it because of the way Brian had talked about it over the years. I really liked it, but even from the very first listen, I always thought it sounded too 'clean'. Or maybe it was just the fact that it sounded....new? I don't know, there's a certain something that the original music  had that I can't put my finger on. A certain sound. Maybe it's a sub-conscious thing on my part. It's still really good, and when I saw Brian do it in concert, at one point I had tears in my eyes because it moved me so much. Still, nothing-and I mean, NOTHING-can stand up to the originals, IMHO.

Can't stand it.

Maybe had I never heard the Beach Boys versions of most of the work I would have a different perspective but to me, it seems like a cover band ruining a song that you really like.

For all the people that dump on how untalented and directionless the Beach Boys are (were) without Brian, I wholeheartedly argue that accusation the other way:  I've have never been impressed with anything Brian has done outside of the Beach Boys.

As an artist, Brian needed the Beach Boys just as much as they needed him.  Brian solo in anyway is hardly impressive.  Never has been, never will be.

Paging Dr. Landy!

I think as time and generations go by, BWPS will become the definitive version of Brian Wilson's greatest work and the 1967 recordings will be more of a curiosity. The 37 years between the two right now seems like a much longer time than it will in a few decades. That and BWPS is too new to feel like it's been around long enough to compete with the fragments.

This isn't a perfect analogy for obvious reasons, but let's pretend Beethoven completed half of his greatest symphony in 1790, but then finished it in 1820. I doubt we would be having an argument now about whether or not the completed version from 1820 was better than fragments that were preserved from 1790.

Since you're asking me quite directly here, I ought to answer: it's as good an album as anyone could have reasonably expected in that it was a project intended to re-record the Smile material in a cohesive way. I think the musical complaints are pretty ticky-tack, and the big-picture complaints (it's not the "real" Smile, not what 1967-Brian intended, etc.) are irrelevant. Great album.

I think you pretty much nail it there Luther, for me anyway!

Actually, I think that *is*  a perfect analogy.

Forgetting about all the context debates etc.

Most (?) of BWPS had already been released: Heroes and Villains, Surf's Up, Prayer, Cabinessence, Wonderful, Vegetables, Good Vibrations, Wind Chimes, ranging from a 90% to 100% similarity. I just can't get past the feeling that IMO what's rerecorded in 2004 pales in every way compared to the recordings I knew. I just can't. But kudos for those who dig BWPS and we'll all have world peace.

I loved it when it came out but now rarely listen to it.  I prefer listening to the Carnegie Hall live concert (broadcast on NPR).  It just works better live than in the studio.  (Can you imagine how Brian and Mike would have reacted to that statement in 1967?  Yet when they started incorporating Smile stuff into their 71-72 sets, the songs worked brilliantly).

 I think BWPS is a fine re-creation. When it came out, it turned a lot of people on to Brian. I'd go to the hip CD stores by the local Colleges and it would often be playing as I walked in. I felt happy for Brian, and couldn't wait to hear it. I played it a lot for about a month.

 Back in 1967, Brian was smoking pot and had dabbled in LSD, and for me, some of the boots I heard of "Fire" and that chanting section , used to give me chills, because I could relate to the "vibe" I felt it was giving off.  Obviously, BWPS doesn't have that vibe, for me anyway. When I heard the lyrics that were added - "Is it hot in hell or is it me? It really is a mystery," I thought them to be kind of cheesy and contrived, and not up to par with the rest of the lyrics of the album. I thought that section should have remained as the boots, with no lyrics added.

 I've watched Beautiful Dreamer dozens of times, but when I want to hear Smile, I go to my boots - because that's when Brian was in the "zone," and in touch with something great.

Nor do I. I'd never heard the original Smile fragments prior to BWPS, and when I first heard BWPS in 2004, I was in total awe. Just sat in the car and stered at the CD player while this amazing series of musical left turns unfolded. I'd never heard anything like it. At that point I probably would have said A++.

After hearing the original recordings and five years on, I'd now give BWPS an A-, simply because I prefer the feel of the originals in so many cases--the music just moves me more. I never heard the spook that others speak of, but the overall sound reminded me of Pet Sounds in terms of how the instruments were recorded--so I give the original Smile another vote for that sense of continuity with the Beach boys music that came before it.

That said, the sequencing on BWPS is just brilliant. All I had to hear was the sequence from Prayer into Heroes and Villains and I knew the album was going to be a thrill ride, and of course it was.

It's very interesting that many people were perhaps able to enjoy the album more in blissful ignorance of the sound of the original 1960s sessions.

I am another who heard BWPS first and it blew my mind.

My verdict: great album through and through. Beautiful.

I'm another who never listens to the album at all really.

I think that by far the best songs are the ones that had already been released like Good Vibes, H&V, Wonderful, Our Prayer, Cabinessence, Surf's Up...Unfortunately I consider Brian's 1960s productions infinitely superior to the new recordings on BWPS so I have no real desire to hear them again.

Well, if I had heard McCartney's rerecordings of Beatles songs in the Give My Regards for Main Street soundtrack first, they would have blown my mind too.  :-D

Recalling when I first read that he was going to release this, and how stunned I was when it actually happened, and how I sat there gazing at the unopened CD for the longest time before opening it, and then carefully, almost sacredly placing the disc in the player, and then hesitating a moment before hitting "play",  and then being knocked over by the experience of hearing what I was hearing,  a something I never, ever thought I would hear in any form (other than the original incomplete, unreleased sessions), and the pure joy and amazement of the experience...
...with repeated listenings and scrutiny, my critical ear began assessing damage points here and there, and I began to question things and find the longing for completion still squirming inside me.  BWPS hasn't so much ended the mystery as added to it.  And actually, that's cool.  And despite any dissatisfactions on my part, nothing will ever wipe away that intial experience.  It was really great.   :angel:

Personally it moved me more seeing BWPS performed live than hearing it on CD. Even the DVD concert seems too "staged" for my liking. I've just never been a fan of remakes and I'll always seek the original recording in whatever stage or form. Sometimes things should remain a mystery.

I don't ever play it, but I play my purplechick Smile almost daily.

I LOVE older Brian's voice on BWPS but I don't like the backing vocals. They don't have the character the Beach Boys had and they tend to sound "boy-bandish" to me too often. They don't sound like they belong anywhere in the same universe as Brian whereas The Beach Boys sounded like fingers on Brian's hand and their voices complimented each other gorgeously.

But this is, I guess, Brian's fault in a way. I think he should have handed out lead parts to his band, like he did with The Beach Boys. Imagine Taylor singing lead on Cabinessence or Wonderful. We don't get to know the individual singers like we did with The Beach Boys, therefore, listening to them as a mass behind 60something year old Brian, is just a tad too indistinguishable for me.

For the record, I did not pay him to say that.

your check still hasn't cleared, Luther, so I guess you technically didn't pay me to say it  :lol

That's an interesting point...however, i'm going to take your analogy and run with it in the other direction. technology will complicate the picture.  because eventually (as horrible as it is to think about, and it really is miserable for me) Brian will pass away, and the original sessions will be let into the world to generate money for whomever owns them, probably in some compelling form (box set, etc.). 

Beethoven in his life was extremely famous for his improvisation.  we will never hear that side of Beethoven, ever.  likewise, we don't really know if beethovens symphonies as we are used to hearing them are accurate as to his intentions, because we don't know what they sounded like when he directed them.  We have a score that leaves a tremendous room for interpretation, because of the nature of the available technology (pen, paper, music theory, in this case).  once beethoven arrived on CD, the way people listen to it changed even more drastically.  Now people listen to beethoven alone, in their bedrooms (once unheard of, nay, impossible).  People listen to snippets of beethoven in commercials.  They listen to the fifth symphonies first movement, removed from the whole, on their ipods, while they jog!

I truly believe people will still be listening to smile in 200 years, but they will be doing it in a way as unfamiliar to us as a stereo playing his music would have been to beethoven.  Will Brian Wilson presents Smile still resonate?  maybe, but i think its far more likely that the original fragments are reassembled in ways we can't imagine, because their flexibility, and inherent beauty, will allow them to stand the test of time, into an age when, perhaps, people don't listen to albums at all.   

It was worth it. It bought new people into liking Brian and the concerts from that are those I will never forget. Brian became a full genius to me September 28th, 2004.

I truly envy those of you who were able to listen to BWPS as Smile "virgins."  For me anyways, having heard the original sessions and tracks tainted my view of BWPS from the get-go, and continues to do so even today.  That's not to say that I dislike BWPS - quite the contrary.  In parts, it's pure brilliance, and for what it is, I think it succeeds tremendously.  

That being said, every time I listen to BWPS (which I admit, isn't that often), I can't help but feel a sense of loss, or of something not being quite right.  I still remember how I felt the first time I heard the original "Wonderful," Brian's piano demo of "Surf's Up," "Cabinessence," etc.  These experiences completely changed how I looked at songwriting, arrangement and recording.  There was such magic inherent in the music...somehow, it just feels like the work of a young visionary at the top of his game, a man who wasn't afraid to venture into the unknown.  The original music inspired me in a way that I had never experienced before, and I can still put that music on today and be taken to that same place.

The gripes that people have with BWPS have been hashed out to death here, so I don't see any use in repeating mine.  As I said, for what it is, BWPS is a fantastic album, and is an amazing achievement for Brian on many levels.  For me, it can never touch the original sessions, but I don't think it necessarily has to.  I don't think it's so hard to happily live in a world where Smile and BWPS peacefully co-exist.  They each serve their purpose and have their charms.  

And no, in case you couldn't guess, I don't buy the argument that BWPS is Smile, but to each their own.  Good points being made all around.  

I just had this vision of someone coming forward in time from the early 19 th century and hearing a beautiful Beethoven piano piece on CD and saying, "You know, I've heard that piece directly from Beethoven, and this is a piece of sh*t compared to what I know." Ridiculous, I know, but I think BWPS is dealt a raw deal because people have heard the earlier recordings.

The songs on BWPS were selected, sequenced, and arranged - with new segments and lyrics - for a live performance. Because of the success of subsequent live performances, the songs were (re-)recorded in a studio, note for note, word for word. Brian Wilson then proclaimed, "We finished SMiLE..."

With that proclamation, to me, that rendered BWPS, the album, a fraud. The parade of interviews that followed, with statements about the CURRENT Brian Wilson being a musical genius, undergoing a catharsis, exorcising demons, and contributing greatly to the project, disturbed me greatly. To me, about the only truth coming out of the Brian camp was that BWPS was completed because "my wife and manager thought it was a good idea".

I liked the live presentation; it was daring, ambitious, and well done - for a live performance. Brian and especially the band did a tremendous job. But, I think BWPS should've been released as just that - a live performance piece. I don't care for the album. I don't like the songs running into each other, sacrificing Brian's amazing fades. The songs keep firing out at you; I can't catch my breath. I don't like the new lyrics and musical interludes. The sequence is good, but I would've flip-flopped the second and third movements. I never would've ended with "Good Vibrations". The "vibe" is gone; the humor, the mystique, gone. Obviously, the vocals can't compare to the vintage Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys from 1966-67. So why do it?

To save a rapidly sinking solo recording career, that's why. The SMiLE songs from 1966-67 were used to save a solo recording career, not for art, it's as simple as that. And that hurts, keeping in mind the way Brian and Van Dyke created those masterpieces, which was for artistic reasons. I have serious questions as to how much Brian actually contributed to BWPS. Other than having the final say on which songs stayed and which songs got cut, and the lead vocals (two very important components I will grant you), I don't think Brian had much to do with the final product. I don't think the Brian Wilson of 2003 was capable of creating something on the level of SMiLE; he hadn't done anything close to it in the previous 25+ years - or since. Darian did a very, very good job. Actually, he couldn't have done much better.

So now, for the overwhelming listening public, BWPS is SMiLE. Well, Brian said so. That's the way it was/is marketed. Brian Wilson finished it. He told us he did. My hope now is that sooner or later (hopefully sooner), a SMiLE boxed set will come out. And, out of that boxed set will be a single CD comprised of the most finished tracks, sequenced in some logical order, and it will replace BWPS as the true representation of the SMiLE songs. I think the songs deserve that.

Just one man's opinion.... :police:

BWPS is magic, it makes me feel really happy inside. I can analyze it to death, it just gives me great joy.

Does anybody else agree with Mike Love's sentiments in "Catch a Wave" in that if Brian really wanted to get Smile out he should have taken the original session recordings and reworked them with Mike, Al and Bruce and put it out under the Beach Boys name? You know, finished what he started in '66? I wonder if this could have been the moment that could have reunited the 'Boys again.  Instead it seemed to drive the wedge between Mike and Brian further in.

That's the same with any remake or cover version though isn't it. They always face comparisons with earlier versions and that's true of IJMFTT, Imagination, Mike's Nascar CD, GIOMH and BWPS.

No. I think he should just have released the recordings as they are now. But I doubt Brian really did want to release it anyway...

No. I think he should just have released the recordings as they are now. But I doubt Brian really did want to release it anyway...

We all want to see an untampered with 'official' release of the '66-'67 sessions, no doubt. My post was asking more along the lines of "If Brian really did want to complete/finish/tidy up Smile with every note, lyric, harmony, arrangement , vocal and link in place and in sequence, and then say to the world 'Smile is complete, this is exactly how I envisioned the project to sound' - would people rather it be re-recordings from scratch as a solo or add to the original recording with the surviving members a'la 'Anthology' style?"

No. I think he should just have released the recordings as they are now. But I doubt Brian really did want to release it anyway...
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We all want to see an untampered with 'official' release of the '66-'67 sessions, no doubt. My post was asking more along the lines of "If Brian really did want to complete/finish/tidy up Smile with every note, lyric, harmony, arrangement , vocal and link in place and in sequence, and then say to the world 'Smile is complete, this is exactly how I envisioned the project to sound' - would people rather it be re-recordings from scratch as a solo or add to the original recording with the surviving members a'la 'Anthology' style?"
[/quote]

I'd vote for the starting from scratch option. I don't like 'artificial' recordings (as in: Natalie Cole with her dad, for instance). Dennis and Carl have passed away, so they'd have no say whatsoever in a modern-day reconstructed version using '67 tapes.

To be honest, I just can't imagine Brian ever really thinking that or remembering how he wanted Smile to be.

Just you wait, next up will be "Brian Wilson Presents Sweet Insanity".  ::)

Whether it's right or wrong, I'd buy it!

Anyone here wouldn't?

Glad you agree. Now I feel a git for disagreeing with your post on the other thread so strongly!! ;D

I agree with the sentiment that we had it ruined for us by hearing the original stuff.

Yup. I wish I'd been 13 when BWPS came out.

Meh.

I am happy for Brian and those involved and the fans who enjoy it but I haven't listened to it again since the day I bought it.

Hi Cam, since I always read your posts with interest: can you give a few hints about your 'meh' factor? What is it that gives you reserves about BWPS?

No offense, but that would be terrible.... there would be cheesy, artificial synths all over it, Brian's voice is changed beyond repair, no Dennis or Carl, the backing vocals would be completely different and inferior to the Beach Boys blend, and they would write new sections that we know us fans wouldn't like as they weren't 'vintage' Wilson ideas.....

Oh, wait..... ;D

It's still gorgeous.  There are various bits of the original I like better, but it works as a whole in a way the original beautiful fragments never did.

And I think it's really sad that some fans love so intensely, so fixedly, that they can't actually appreciate something lovely because it's not quite right...

Cheers,
Jon Blum

That's the whole problem anyway: there's nothing to remember (or at least no one thing to remember). I'm convinced that if he had known what he wanted to do, he would have done it back then. He didn't. All that "oh, we needed one more year" or "Mike hated it" or "it was too advanced" stuff is after-the-fact excuses, in my book. (Well, Mike DID hate it, but he had been singing his ass off up to the point it was dropped, so I'm sure he could have continued doing so.) This is also why BWPS couldn't ever be "the original" no matter how hard Brian tried to remember, or how in tact his memory was, or who helped. There wasn't a master plan. The reason BWPS is Smile is that it's the only Smile ever completed by its creator. (Or at least mostly by him ... or at least partly by him.)

Very good call. Way back then, Brian was obviously very indecisive; the opposite of how he was during the making of Pet Sounds, I think. He may have had some rough sketch, perhaps only the track list he jotted down. But given his endless experimentation and changing things around, one day this, the other that, it's very unlikely that there was 'something that only needed finishing' at all. I found the famous Japanese bleg (1989) which I never bought or listened to, very revelatory. Still do. I read in Goldmine that it was definitive, with 12 minutes of GV and 8 of H&V. I went hunting for it, and after not having found it, put it in the player. I was not so much disappointed as bemused. I heard idea after idea, none of them completed. The long 'versions' really went nowhere. Which confirms your statements.

So: I am happy that I stayed a moral man and did not buy, nor listen. Peace of mind, bro'... :police:

Regardless of individual opinion on the outcome of that, I think at least the majority would be happy to have them work together at all. Of course, anyone is entitled to feel otherwise.

Yeah, you put it well. Brian had said himself many times that he'd experimented too much and so didn't know where it was going by the end. Another reason why I can't imagine him ever coming up with the decision to release it.

I read that he didn't attend the recording sessions for the tracks. Absolutely necessary? No. Odd for somebody who is interested, involved...hell, even curious? Yes.

Hmmm... new to me. Strange.

If that is true it goes a long way to proving what the cynical part of my mind thinks about all this.. That BWPS is really not much more than The Wondermints doing faithfull covers of existing Smile out takes  and then putting Brian upfront to give it authenticity.  And I'd really hate for that to be the case. The thing with digging into the whole Smile myth in conjuncture with Smiley Smile and BWPS is, in a way the more you dig, the more you find out, somehow the less you know.

Lucky me. I was born without a cynical part in my mind. I have a bit of a hole in my brain, in fact. A hole in which beer and wine happily can exist.

Believe me, he was there. Linnett ever added that he played piano on several of the tracks throughout. And he was interested.

In 2004, I read a lot of different interviews on a few different boards. It's been six years now, and I can't reference the specific article/interview, but I thought I read that Darian took the band into the studio, and, without Brian being present, recorded the tracks in about four(?) days. Brian was then brought in to offer his feedback/opinions on what was recorded, and offered a few "that's too loud" and "this voice should sound like this" tweaking kind of comments. If I am wrong, I am prepared to stand corrected. The only reason I brought up the issue was because it was one of the key issues that contributed to my skepticism about Brian's interest and participation.

I have a recording of Liszt's Totentanz that I used to love til I found out that not only was he not the performer, but he wasn't even at the recording session!

Your musical sophistication continues to amaze me! :o :police:

I'm happy the record was made for the sake of the masses who don't go to the trouble to obtain boots or expensive box sets to understand what Smile was all about, though I agree it should have been a recording of one of the performances and not Darian, Jeff & Co. Present Smile With Brian Wilson on Reluctant Vocals.

To me, my own 66-67 mix is complete enough, and so much better, that the whole conceit of it being "finished" doesn't wash.  I play my favorite mix or Purple Chick once a week.  Every time I put on BWPS, I ask myself why am I listening to this when I could be listening to that.

I knew we couldn't go 4 straight pages without the haters weighing in.   Maybe by page Six (!) they'll take over and the Blackboard consensus will be it blows chunks, Brian wasn't there and he didn't even participate, he phoned it in from home.  Cue: people closing their accounts in fury, etc.  330,000 CD buyers can (and must) be wrong.

Reminder: George Martin didn't attend every Beatles session;  Miles Davis would often leave the room while his band rehearsed his new compositions.  Simon and Garfunkel were on separate continents when Tom Wilson got the idea to put a rock band behind their original acoustic "Sounds of Silence."  They first heard it on the radio like everyone else did.

For those who think the live version is the only version worth hearing, of course you have the DVD of it.  Which is impressive, and comparable, being professionally made/sweetened.  Now if we're talking only about the BWPS LP/CD, then OK that doesn't count for this survey, but the option is there.

I have a few quibbles with it, but for the most part I think it's absolutely brilliant, one of my all-time favorite albums. I can truly say, that other than a few pieces on Youtube, BWPS was the first time I really heard 'SMiLE.'. And it blew me away. The only albums I had when I heard it were 'Sounds of Summer' and '15 Big Ones/Love You'.

Now, having bought the Good Vibrations box set and having come across numerous bootlegs, I do understand some of the other quibbles....be that as it may, it was still unbelievably exciting and beautiful to me when I heard it and it remains and will remain the closest thing to an authoritatively 'definitive' SMiLE we will ever have. And to be honest, the song order makes sense to me. I do like the idea of swapping the second and third movement. But within those movements themselves, especially Americana and Cycle of Life the music just works regardless of the history...for me, anyway.

No, the feel is not as good as the earlier sessions, especially vocally. Yes, the BB released versions of Our Prayer, Surf's Up and Cabinessense as well as the GV box set stuff are superior. But unfinished. Yes, it would have been different.

But I wholeheartedly unashamedly love it. I don't care about the controversy. And I can still listen to it and the old stuff independently of each other.

Don,

It is a great accomplishment but...I don't know...it just didn't do it for me; I still listen to the original material.

So if somebody feels that there's a chance Brian's participation was minimal, why does that make them a hater? The topic was about people's personal opinions on 'BWPS'. I didn't know that there was a right or wrong answer.
And I think there's a big difference between George Martin being at every Beatles session, and Brian being at 'BWPS' sessions. I see what you're getting at, and I'm not trying to blow this up into an argument. I guess I just thought that this was about people's opinions on the album, and now we have people trying to tell them that their opinion is wrong.

To twist a phrase from that post, even if Brian's participation actually were minimal, I still don't know why one would be a hater. For me, if Brian did nothing other than what is clearly audibly him, it's not relevant. What would it mean, that they fudged the production credit and the storyline in the documentary? No surprise on either count. The end result sounds great to me.

Quibbles and bits.  I've got a few too, and they've all been expressed already so I won't go into it, but doesn't any one feel that no matter what - it's amazing the album exists at all?  Maybe it is or isn't SMILE, and maybe Brian's involvement was simply singing and saying yes or no to certain things, but so what?  He did all that work years ago, and in whatever configuration it is in today - it's still his work.  With some assistance at this point, fine, but it's still his.  I agree the sound of it isn't as good as the original tracks, and i wish he had not done all the lead vocals himself,and on and on and on...
But I still am amazed it's there, and though I don't listen to it as often as the original stuff, I occasionally do and can enjoy it for what it is, not for what it isn't.  And I don't believe, as some do, that it was solely done to cash-in, or revive a flagging career.  There may have been elements of that in there, but it seems to me care and pains were taken to honor the music itself.   
A big thing too is that seeing it live, you could see that Brian was thrilled, he was having a good time.  Not like when I saw him during his first solo tour, where he seemed completely uncomfortable.
Do I wish his wife and managers in '67 had said, "It's time to release Smile"?  You betcha!  But oh well...
In the end, it's not The Beach Boys Smile, it's BWPS, and as that I'm happy to have it.

I think there was an  undercurrent of mystery to the original SMiLE material.  The unfinished masterpiece that sparked the imagination, led to endless discussion, speculation, pouring over snippets of tape, looking for "lost" segments or whole pieces liberated f rom a dusty corner of a vault, trying to imagine the sequencing, and scholarly discussions of the elements suite.   The legend overshadowed the music.  If Brian and Van Dyke had finished writing the material and it had been recorded by the Beachboys, and then shelved, it would not, could not have lived up to the hype that ensued over the years when it was not released.  So it comes as no surprise that BWPS was a disappointment to some.

Having said that, I have had the pleasure of being there for all of it.  I own the snippets, have the boots, and even a couple of my own SMiLE comps. 
It has been a fountain of pleasure...all of it.  The speculation, the essays, the bits released on 20/20, the Leonard Bernstein film, the story, the tragedy, the many Brian's back episodes, and finally the recording with Darian and company.   As someone said, "It's all good."l

Here we go with the quotes:

From a 2008 interview promoting TLOS:

It was the best that could be done at such a late date. Using the work lyrics for "Good Vibrations" was kind of silly (and petty) because it was a finished track in 1966.  I dislike the some of the new lyrics "hot as hell, "father of the sun" etc. Still it is a nicely done homage to the original tracks. It doesn't come close to the vintage material  but it was nice to hear a polished interpretation of the Smile work.

This doesn't really make a difference to me as far as quality goes but I feel that this was Darian's baby in some ways.  Brian was involved as much as he could be, he probably had the final say on things, but I don't think he would have done this on his own. In other words I don't think he woke up one day and said "I want to finish Smile". I look at him as a trouper really and he did the best he could. He easily could have blown it off but he didn't. He of course couldn't sing half as well as he did in his twenties, but he seemed to really try and I give him credit.

Maybe it's coincidence your post directly followed mine.  Personally, I'm not a hater and remember where I was the first time I heard BWPS (in the car five seconds after it came in the mail).  Had I been privileged enough to see one of the Smile shows, I probably would have wept like a baby.  It just doesn't wear as well as the original sessions.  How could it?

Ditto.

WHY was this done? Was it to give the fans a suprise twist on an over familiar favourite, or was it done with the intention of being as a slap in the face to Mike?  IMO Tony Asher's originals are not a patch on what the Lovester came up with.

To make it an entirely Beach Boy- free album.

Well, of course they're not. They were only ever 'dummy' lyrics, kind of an aural placeholder until Tony came up with something a bit more polished.

Which brings me back to my original question of any idea why they were substituted for Asher's lyrics on BWPS?

I would guess it was because they knew that if they did a straight remake that it would compare unfavourably with the single version. I doubt it was to keep Mike out of things because they had to give him a writing credit anyway obviously.

Right. Mike got a credit for it anyway. I guess that's how Brian Wilson wanted the finished SMiLE to be, with those lyrics. An artistic decision.

So Brian's 'artistic decision' was to use conspicuously inferior lyrics, huh ?

I don't know what you're doing, but I want some.  ;D

I thought you would be able to see through my sarcasm. You know, Brian "finishing" SMiLE, contributing something artistic, making the decison to throw out Mike's lyrics.  :police:

I do not presume to correct Mr. Doe or anyone else but Brian did specifically say he used the Asher lyric (and added the hum-be-dum section) to make the Smile version of GV "different."  Which it does.  In the case of the Asher lyric, obviously a dodgy decision, though the lyric had already been published on the "sessions" excerpts.  And he only does that lyric when he does Smile.  Otherwise he sings the familiar lyric when it's done as a stand-alone song.  (Kept the hum-be-dum section, though - a good move)

It wasn't done to deny Mike a credit on the song - that couldn't happen, for a zillion reasons.

I love the hum de hum section on the GV sessions. To me "Good Vibrations" is as close to THE perfect pop song as you can get but I do wish this section had been added to the final mix in '66. I also like how the new version has a much longer ending as opposed to the orig fade out.

Brian may have indeed said that. Doesn't mean it was his original idea.  ::)

Remember when Eugene Landy was talking about finishing SMiLe? Or when the Beach Boys were discussing finishing SMiLe around the time of Keepin' the Summer Alive? Thank Jeebus the album didn't end up with BW88 or KTSA - style production.

To me, BWPS is the authentic SMiLe and it blows my mind how accurately the group recreated the 1960s tracks.

Brian Wilson Presents Smile. BWPS. Brian's Master Plan. The final chapter, indeed, the final word in the Smile saga, written by the creator himself. 38 years in the making. A finished album? An attempt to present the music in a workable order given the available material? A needless cash grab? Brian's final "f*** you" to the Beach Boys after 38 years of bad feelings, guilt, and overall bad decision-making? The ultimate reclamation of Brian's art, soul, and spirit at a time when we all thought it was gone, possibly forever? The work whose creation apparently drove Brian very damn close to the hell he endured and lived in after he left the album unfinished and inherently stillborn? An insult to the band's legacy, Brian's legacy, and the fans who always wanted a completed Beach Boys Smile?

As all of the rhetorical questions above illustrate, this album and the events preceding and following it have had a storied relationship with yours truly.

I view Smile as the albatross. It began with good intentions - with Brian Wilson's ultimate desire to go beyond his boundaries and the boundaries of what "popular music" is defined as by its creators and by its fans. Brian wanted to blow minds. Brian wanted to scare people. Brian wanted to do something in the pop music field without interruption, apology, or regard for anyone's standards of what constituted art, be it high art, low art, pop art, you name it. Brian Wilson sought to make the ultimate statement in rock music. He aimed high, and he was prepared to work the time necessary to achieve his goals. He spent months writing his new songs with Van Dyke, meticulously producing, arranging, and recording them in the studio, and effectively devoted his energy wholesale to this new project. Brian was a thinker in 1966 - someone who wanted to find the answer, either in religion, in visuals, in Rhapsody In Blue, in the prevalent attitude of "expanding one's mind", or in the dark underside of occultism. Smile was to be his statement of what he deemed to be the unbiased, unequivical truth; the spirituality he felt in his mind.

Like all great thinkers who ravenously dig to get to the bottom of human nature, of thought and expression, Brian dug. And he dug some more. By the time it was all said and done, he had gone to places that ended up scaring him as opposed to the people he wanted to scare with his art. And Smile was what effectively scared him the most - his statement of the unbiased, unequivical truth was too much for his fragile conscience to handle. It was the musical record of his thinking process, and he feared that it would send out the wrong message to his family, his fans, and everyone else who expected great things from him.

In short, he dug too deep. He was never the same after it was over. And neither were the Beach Boys. Innumerable attempts on the part of the Beach Boys to try to get Brian to finish Smile or finish it themselves were fruitless although some material snuck onto later Beach Boys records.

Brian himself couldn't be bothered with it -

"I just threw it away, I junked it. I thought it was inappropriate music for us to make." - Such was the gospel truth from the creator himself.

Then, a good thirty years later, we all heard rumblings on the internet -

"I have a Master Plan for Smile."

After a good thirty years of disappointment and the occasional revelation, we were hesitant. This was Brian Wilson making these statements. We all thought he wanted nothing to do with the music.

There was the famous incident where Brian began playing Heroes and Villains on the piano at a small party. Then he played the song at his tribute show a few months later. By summer it was a staple in his setlists along with Our Prayer and Surf's Up. In 2002, he added a medley of Wonderful and Cabinessence, and also performed You're Welcome. He was becoming more and more relaxed with these small pieces of the puzzle in a live context.

Then we were told an audience would be seated at Royal Festival Hall on February 20, 2004 for an unveiling of the Smile music. The skeptics were out. I personally expected it to be a no-show, and the whole tour would be cancelled. It happened, though. And given our expectations at the time, it was a resounding success. Brian played the Smile music night after night for the better part of two years. It was decided that there would be a recording of the program we had heard in concert.

The recording was brilliant - or at least I thought so at the time. Eventually as I came down from the initial experience, I was left with the same thoughts I have to this day - Brian's band cannot and will never replace the Beach Boys vocally, and the instrumental performances, while competent, lack all of the mystique, mystery, and uncertainty of those unfinished sessions. "K-Tel repackaging of the Smile music" is very, very accurate when it comes to describing BWPS as an album. Competent, professional, spit-shined, and SAFE. Uncomfortably safe. Smile as a collection of music is NONE of those. It's rambling, incoherent, frightening, and, yes, dangerous. BWPS is NONE of those. BWPS is not Brian's statement of what he deemed to be the unbiased, unequivical truth; the spirituality he felt in his mind. It's a forgery. A mock-up. And I highly, highly doubt there was much, if any, input from the man himself.

BWPS, the album was, then and now, a disgrace and insult - to the Smile music, its legacy, Brian himself, the Beach Boys, and all of us. It's on the same level as Michael Love and Adrian Baker re-recording Beach Boys songs. And that is a damn shame. This music didn't just deserve a proper exhibition, it required and demanded it. And the fact that BWPS, the album, has become the final word, is incredibly distressing and unbelievably sad. Dare I say, it's pathetic.

It should be called The Wifeandmanagers Present Smile. At least there would be some fucking truth in advertising.

I don't think you hang out on the Blooboard much, do you.

I'll put it this way - the blueboarders can't handle the truth and I'm allergic to bullshit. But there's a ton of them and only one of me. Pick and choose your battles and all that. :lol

Wow, you mean you were wrong!  Holy f***!

You're definitely not alone. Or as Mike Harding puts: it "No man is an island, except Fred Madagascar."

Hey man, I'm just a dude making small talk on the internet about the Beach Boys. The Beach Boys are the ones who are successful and have all the cash. I'm definitely of the "who am I in the bigger picture" school of thought. But I've been jumped on for less challenging comments about the Beach Boys than my essay in this thread. That's a perverse mentality on the part of those who get their knickers in a knot over some dude on a webforum writing a lot of stuff that they disagree with about a rock band.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. BWPS unfortunately will always be compared to the original recordings which are the essentially most legendary recordings in the history of rock music.

While I am far from a blueboarder, I must part company with Dennis Moore, however:


Dennis, I love your post, and I agree with your summation of the 60's SMiLe.  I happen to adore BWPS; I consider it a definitive version of the work. To you and others who dislike BWPS as "K-Tel repackaging of Smile music," I'd like to posit the following questions:

Is there any way that Brian Wilson, circa 2004, could have put out a new version of SMiLe that would have satisfied you?
What if he used the original masters and built on top of those?
What if he used the living Beach Boys?

Something tells me that no matter what, some people would be talking about how it was a travesty or just not very good at all.

My point is that, in this case, as Amy said, our expectations and the mythology surrounding the album, as well as Brian's mental health and history, colour our reception of BWPS for good and for bad. I remember when the idea of Brian even playing a concert, let alone playing a SMiLe track at a concert, seemed like an impossible dream.

To this day, I can't quite believe just how good BWPS sounds and how well they pulled it off. In my experience, most non-hardcore Beach Boys fans who know the original sessions assume that they used the original master tapes for BWPS. There are some artistic decisions that I don't agree with 100 percent, but there is also artistic continuity and consistency when it comes to the packaging, recording, artwork, and the continued collaborations with VDP to finish the lyrics.

I am interested to hear more about Brian's attitude towards / degree of participation in BWPS. Obviously the buck stops with him since he put his name on it (and wrote and blueprinted the entire thing as well) but I would of course love to know whether or not he was involved with the day to day production.

Mr. b00ts, excellent post. Nice perspective you have there.

As a program of music, BWPS is certainly enjoyable. As a live experience it's one of a kind, the true "Great Thing" that we all hope for in the Beach Boys world but only comes along once in a blue moon. I accept BWPS as a live performance of the Smile music designed to flow and entertain. On that count, it succeeds, and quite admirably.

But the studio recording of BWPS just leaves me cold, cold, cold. None of the magic is there. The Smile recordings from 1966-67, under Brian's supervision, have an ambiance and feel to them that is completely absent from BWPS. The Smile recordings are cult, perverse, and confounding. The bass thunders at such a frequency as to literally beat your heart for you. The sounds achieved on the unfinished recordings are one of a kind and completely the work of a mastermind, if not a genius.

Put simply, the 1966-67 recordings are an accurate description of the music and where Brian was when he produced them - they're disturbed, fractured, fragmented, frightening, occult, and quite possibly insane. BWPS has none of this. There is none of the danger, none of the insanity. Instead it's replaced by an overall cartoon atmosphere. When I hear the original recordings and I think of the name of the album they were supposed to form, irony is the first word that comes to mind. The album's called Smile, but the recordings are so disturbing and frightening that it effectively makes the title a paradox.

Brian said in 1966 that his new sound would "scare a lot of people". The unfinished recordings are proof positive of this. BWPS does not unsettle me. It comforts me. And that is an unforgivable flaw. Brian's state of mind in 1966 was indeed scared and it was on the way to disturbed and out of touch with reality. BWPS, coming from a Brian Wilson who is in a much better place now than he was then, just feels false. It feels unnatural. It's a damning blow to the album and the whole stigma it has attached to the Smile saga. And that is why I hate the fact that it's become the final word on Smile as an album, a story, a mystique, a cult, indeed, the turning point in the Beach Boys' story.

Ideally, a live recording wouldn't have been a problem. Leave it at that. But a studio recording that is riddled with flaws being pegged as the final word? As a fan of Brian Wilson, I cannot and will not accept BWPS as that. And that's something I just have to live with. I certainly can't tell others how to listen to the music. More power to them if they enjoy it. I certainly wouldn't try to deny them their enjoyment of the music. My views are my own. I do not expect them to be shared nor do I secretly wish for it.

And I'm left thinking what I posted earlier. I'm just a dude on a forum, posting a few thoughts and musings. People are inevitably upset by them. I've certainly come to accept that as the truth. And, of course, at the end of the day I am of no importance to the Beach Boys. They're the ones who made the music, who have all of the money and all of the success and respect they've earned and deserved. Wealth, success, respect...the Beach Boys have all of these. Certainly they did something right. And BWPS was a resounding success as far as reception and sales. I certainly can't argue with that.

I, too, live in a little fantasy world when it comes to the Beach Boys and how I like to think of them. :)

Think about that. I mean, really think about it.

Anyone who is upset by your opinion is a weak-minded fool. Nobody's opinion about a piece of art should preclude anyone else from enjoying it. I find it provocative and you make a great case here against BWPS. I can see how it appears that they took the edges off for the 2004 version, and Brian's state of mind, in contrast to his mid-60's mindset, is certainly readily apparent in the 2004 version. Still, I was shocked at how well they replicated the twisted sound of the original sessions using modern technology. I don't think anybody could have done a better job.

As the owner of a vinyl copy of BWPS and a vinyl copy of SMiLe (the 3-disc coloured version) I am going to do some hardcore listening to both with these points in mind. I truly love both versions of SMiLe. I also love Smiley Smile in a different way.

Perhaps there should be some small consolation for you in the fact that they titled the album differently (Brian Wilson Presents...) and gave it a different album cover. Also you can be thankful that the album wasn't finished by Landy in 1989 with lyrics about how tricyclic antidepressants helped Brian overcome the crazy beatings from his father... Smiley Frown.

I heard elsewhere that some of the key band members didn't want to make it into a studio recording - is this true?

I love the music but the recording leaves me cold, maybe for some of the reasons other feel, not sure why really. Again, a great accomplishment for Brian and those involved and I agree it works better live as it was intended, the album is beautifully performed and recorded but is what leaves me cold. On the political side, the substitutions in GV rub me the wrong way; if whoever had the idea explained their thinking to me I probably would get it but in my igorance: wrong way rubbing. Brian performing it live does not rub me the wrong way but Brian releasing it as an album does. Paging Dr. Freud.

...Well, I think there's a bit of a perverse mentality in listening to an album that's that beautiful and hearing "a disgrace and an insult".  If that's your idea of small talk, I'd hate to see you at a cocktail party!  It's not that these comments are "important" in some way, it's just that they seem... well... really embittered.  Like you're not listening to the music, but to a soundtrack recording of years of internet arguments and decades of band politics among people you don't actually know.  That can't possibly be fun.

And as for the idea that the completed Smile is wrong because it's not dangerous and insane...  I tend to think that's more of a reason why the original one failed, and was never completed.  Because Brian didn't want to make a nightmare, he didn't want the title to be ironic -- he wanted to leave people smiling.  A less disturbing disc is closer to his original intentions -- it's not a failure because it's not deranged in the same way.

But this doesn't stop me loving the original recordings as something quite different...  they're a fascinating exploration of all sorts of different emotional states, highs and lows, an almost unfiltered work in progress -- pure creativity.

Put it another way?  The original, puzzlebox Smile recordings are a thing of beauty; the completed Smile is a joy forever.  Neither one renders the other wrong.

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Boring negativity is as boring as the Blueboard's positivity. And calling BWPS an insult is an insult to the very talented people who did it. Feel free to post your best work for similar judgment.

Give me a break. That's a bunch of politically correct, sucking up to the majority, irrelevant crap. He already stated twice that he was just a dude on the internet making small talk, posting a few thoughts and musings about the Beach Boys. Since when does a poster on a rock & roll message board have to compare his musical talent or "best work" with professional musicians before he's worthy to express an opinion - either negative or positive. You've stated several times in your posts, in a self-deprecating manner, how your opinion is just that, an opinion, and it doesn't really mean much in the big picture. That's how I interpreted it, anyway. Why do you make this poster more accountable? Because you don't agree with it, or because more "honored guests" don't agree with it? And, as far as "insulting the people who did it"? Yeah, we don't wanna hurt their feelings, I mean, we're such good buddies....

Interesting thread. I've never believed that BWPS was an attempt to finish what would have been the original album, and I'm really glad Brian did not touch the original tapes for BWPS. Very wise leave those originals in the past. "Brian Wilson Presents" has elements that would never have been on the original album, such as the lyrics over the water chant, which VanDyke intended were written as a moment of cleansing for Brian's mental hell. The only way Brian would have gotten near any of the Smile material was to do it live, and while they were rehearsing for the 04 shows, Jeff F. pointed out that they were not trying to recreate the mystique of the original Smile, just trying to perform the songs. Using that approach, it would have been pretty silly to try to recreate the mystique in the studio after the live shows were performed. I think they were wise enough to realize that that would have been an impossible task. Had the album just been called "Smile", used the original artwork, and use the original backing tracks I would have taken issue with BWPS as an attempt to masquerade as completion of the original work. I don't think that's the case here so much as BWPS is a 2004 interpretation of the original material. If it allows the guy to exorcise some of the demons in his head and actually feel good about the music, and get on with his life, so much the better. I strongly doubt TLOS would be what it is if BWPS hadn't happened.

Even though I prefer the original Smile, I'm thankful to have both, and I'm really thankful BWPS came out because it piqued my curiosity enough to go and get the Good Vibrations boxset and seek out the original recordings--all that probably would never have happened without BWPS.

Yeah, i'm all about political correctness. My track record shows that.

I love BWPS. It's not a lot of us associate with the Smile sessions, and maybe that is why it can be off-putting. But judged on its own merits, it is amazing.

I'm not sure where people are getting this "Brian wanted to scare people" idea from.

Marilyn Manson he was not - he realized how different and strange this music might be interpreted as being to some people. But did he set out to freak people out? Nah. That's why I don't understand the "travesty" claims - is BWPS a bit "safer" than what a 67 Smile might have been? Shore. Is it still pretty "out there" - dangerous, weird, etc. in a lot of ways? Yes.

I also agree with this:


Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.

Smile, Pet Sounds, everything around that time - Brian's whole thing about songwriting at the time was wanting to take the listener to some place different, somewhere where they'd neve been before. With Smile, he wasn't setting out to be pretentious and arty for the sake of pretentious and arty, it was never about scaring, offending, freaking people out for the sake of those things. Again, Brian realized it was different, he was simply stating that he recognized people would think it was different.

I'm happy for what BWPS is than what its not. It's not the 66 - 67 version, it doesn't have the beach boys or the wrecking crew.  It's a modern adaptation of what could have been. I can't tell you how many people became fans through this album or hearing about it (me for example). Will it stand the test of time? I'm not sure and no one is here can judge that. It met a purpose and a need. A purpose to finally kick the past in the teeth and bring new folks into the fold. Nothing wrong with that. The live shows were amazing and special to me. I wish every fan could have seen one of the shows. It sealed my fate as a fan.   

BWPS might be ultimately fulfilling for those involved, and for fans who want "closure".  Personally: I hate the production, a great deal of the sequencing and nearly all of the lyrical additions.  I think the original sessions are great, timeless works of art and BWPS just...isn't that at all.

In 50 years, when all participants will be dead, and in all likelihood an official Smile Sessions box is released...I think BWPS will largely be considered a musical footnote in the legacy of Smile.  They'll all still listen to the demo of Surf's Up and wonder what could have been.

Brian, quoted in the Jules Siegel article.

Still - he wasn't writing solely to freak everyone out like people here are saying. I'm sure they know that, but they're talking like it's the most important thing about Smile when it really isn't. Smile was written from Brian's heart, not his ego.

Seems to me he recognized that it would scare people, not that it was meant to.  The way "Pet Sounds" scared some people and made them think they shouldn't be messing with the formula -- doesn't mean he wanted that to be a bad trip either!

Also, of course, we know that Brian backed away from various bits as being too scary.  So as a statement of his intentions, I don't think it works...

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Darian has feelings:

And before ANYONE says he is in it for the money you better remember that he was close to quitting the BW band because "Caroline, No" was being played the Joe Thomas way. And he objects strongly (I was told this first hand) when people aren't being faithful to the original arrangements. AND BW tours almost never make money.

And I keep finding more and more reasons to like Darian.

I've been revisiting SMiLE music lately...both new and old.  I firmly believe that BWPS is two things;

1.  The studio equivalent of Brian's live performance of Pet Sounds.  You can't compare the original Pet Sounds to Brian's Live version.  I enjoy both...the live version of Pet Sounds is a pleasant modern performance...and the original Pet Sounds is brooding, soulful and tortured.  It's not fair to compare...they're almost different works.  Likewise, the original SMiLE sessions were dark, mysterious and full of pain and emotion - and captured the wonder of experimentation, exploration and youthful exuberance AS IT HAPPENED.  BWPS is only a revisiting of this great music...and can't be compared to the original.  It's just not right to do so.

2.  A completion of the sessions.  Obviously Brian needed to complete the sessions to realize the work -- the SMiLE "quilt" needed to use some newly purchased materials and some new fingers to do the stitching.  I don't know where exactly the all the new elements are...but that's not the point.  The point is Brian needed to "finish" the work done 37 years prior.  So...BWPS is now integral to the total SMiLE experience.


I've been listening mostly to my SMiLE quilt lately -- made ONLY from the original SMiLE pieces -- but assembled according to the finished "picture" provided by the BWPS puzzle box.  So there's missing pieces and no vocals in spots.  But the results are so incredible.  It's simply stunning.  It is an amazing album to believe to have existed in 1967, that's for damn sure!  It's a record that seems silly at times -- downright crazy, and yes SCARY at others -- but it's powerful and sophisticated beyond category.

BWPS, using only 1967 SMiLE music, provides all the power, mystery and the full range of emotions of those 1967 recordings -- the fear, humor, fun, love, excitement, dreaming and longing -- but with the MUST NEEDED total picture for it all to be consumed.  Otherwise, without the completed picture provided by Brian 37 years later -- it's as chaotic and rambling as ANYBODY's journal would be if someone ripped the pages out and threw them into the wind.

That is a pretty powerful and well-thought through post, sir. I salute you.

I will only add again that Brian has often used the term "scary" to mean "amazing" or "surprising" (as well as actually scary too!). I believe his initial intention with SMiLE was to amaze and surprise people. He was also on record stating that he wanted to make an album that was lighter in tone than PET SOUNDS which he correctly perceived as melancholic. To me, the most effective moments found in the original SMiLE sessions are the ones that lift the spirits with their artistry. BWPS fulfills that original intention. Everything about the arrangements to the art direction supports a particular vision that is remarkably joyous without being simplistic or sentimental. Certainly it is impossible to capture lightning in the bottle twice and therefore the 2004 sessions and vocals are probably less than their 60s counterparts (although personally I find the vocal arrangement of "Surf's Up" to be definitive), but how amazingly close they came in creating these most delightful "cover versions".

...And, in the end, "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" still scared some folks who could not believe that "noise created by a mad man" could win a Grammy!

I've always found the music of Smile to be joyfull or reflective, depending on which song I'm listening to at the time. The only one that could be called scary to me is "Mrs. Leary's Cow". That song reminds me of some of Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention early freaky weirdness.

I find the bicycle rider theme to be the most scary -- actually, it's the longer instrumental bicycle/heroes "section" from the Good Vibes box that I'm referring to.  You know what I'm talking about?  It starts off with the lone piano (or two) then the bass and organ kick in (boom-boom-boom-boom).  Spooky stuff...with the tambourine sounding like chains dragging in a dungeon.

Dude, that's heavy stuff.  Hauntingly terrifying, actually.

This whole discussion was rendered moot when Weird Al Yankovic released THE definitive SMiLE track, "My Pancreas".  When I listen to either BWPS or the original tracks, I just think about how I could be listening to My Pancreas instead.

Same goes for all pre-1966 Beach Boys material. Why listen to that inferior garbage when I can hear "Trigger Happy" from Al's "Off the Deep End" album?

Great, great thread. This has been a lot of fun to read.


Regarding your first point, Jon, the reaction in France to the premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring ballet must have been the product of a perverse mentality, because people were indeed quite insulted by what they heard, as it too confounded them.

However, I wouldn't say that my comments are embittered. Cynical, definitely. Challenging, perhaps. Embittered? Not really. As I've stated before, I know I'm in a select minority with my feelings on BWPS. I would say that my comments come from the perspective of someone who, as merely a fan and listener, is too close to the Smile thing to see it in a proper context. And that's where the cynicism comes in.

Listening to BWPS isn't analogous to me revisiting any number of arguments on this board and others about the whole Smile thing. It's merely the presentation and its after effects that bugs me, for the reasons I've mentioned before. That's my problem. A few agree with me, many, many more disagree. That's fine. That's life. More power to and God help us all for being honest with ourselves and making our own judgments. You like it, you like it. If not, then you don't. I certainly have not gone around consciously looking for reasons to dislike BWPS.


This argument is where we get into the pure "wishful thinking" scenario. I am quite aware that Brian wasn't out to create some kind of Black Mass in musical form with Smile. Brian still wanted commercial appeal in 1967. A proverbial "Black Mass in musical form" would have been commercially stillborn from its inception. But the inherent darkness and musical confrontation is evident in the sounds, the melodies, the vocal lines. I do believe that Brian was aware that there was a radical departure involved in the Smile project, if not so much the musical mechanics, then definitely in the exection and style.

From a mere compositional perspective, Smile is simultaneously more and less complicated than Pet Sounds. Much of the material on Smile is not riddled with chords. In a lot of cases, we're talking mainly two or three chords. Heroes and Villains at its most basic is two chords. Vega-Tables is three chords. And keep in mind how there are so many repeated musical lines in different songs, not to mention the variations on the musical themes that popped up in so many of the fragments. Essentially, the compositional mechanics are not wholly Greek, even to the unseasoned and untrained listener. The vocal melodies are where Brian really hit his zenith; essentially he surpassed himself to such a degree that it was inevitable he would never come up with something even close to that level ever again. Smile was by far his greatest achievement when it came to writing vocal melodies, harmonies, and counterpoints. We're not really in the realm of "difficult music" as far as the actual composition unless we're talking harmonies, and then we're into really, really uncharted areas.

But the way these songs were arranged and constructed in the recording studio tells a different story. The musical invention from an instrumental perspective on Pet Sounds was taken to a completely different level on Smile. Combinations of instruments combined with uncommon instruments in popular music really do color this material. Sonically, it's unlike anything Brian had ever attempted before or since.

But, as put a while back, Smile was essentially an expression of the spirituality in Brian's mind, and his personal statement as to what he saw as the truth. And the way he expressed his feelings in music just happened to spill out in such a way that was unsettling. I don't think Brian intended Smile to be an ironic title, but when you take that title with what was recorded, we're left with the paradox, in my opinion. Certainly not intended, but that's what it certainly feels like to me. My disagreement with BWPS lacking this feeling of fear and malevolence is mainly a personal thing, although some in this thread have expressed feelings that some of the sounds in the music are indeed a bit eerie.

Just my two cents but only a penny for my thoughts, perhaps.

Nice post.

Wow, that's the first time I've ever heard someone call the extended "Bicycle Rider" scary.

The most effective usage of that section was an edit (which may have originated from the GV box "Sections", though it was properly connected to the song in the Odeon 'Smile' boot) that ended 'part 1' (after "...often wise" and the reverb whistle) with the clip-clop harmonica, the solo flutter horn, and then the extended Bicycle Rider.  All of the strength of the previous energetic few minutes just slowly drifts away into an echoey void of lonely reverberating instruments, suddenly exploding into that bassy "boom boom boom boom" of the BR theme.

Even though the so-called "official edit" of Part 1 ends with 'False Barnyard' instead of the clip-clop harmonica, I wonder if Brian did intend for "Bicycle Rider" to be used as an interlude between the two H&V halves somehow.

You don't think it's spooky?  Man...that track is crazy scary!!  I do love it...actually I think it's one of the more intensely brilliant pieces, along with the H&V fade out tag from the Alt Mix.  Two of my favorite SMiLE nuggets -- that ironically didn't make it to BWPS.  And the fade out to Vegatables too!!   :'(

I definitely find it kind of spooky. There are spooky parts all over the smile music, but that's the most.

Spooky, that is.

I always found the majority of the SMiLE music to be darker than anything Brian had done before. One of the 'scariest' parts for me is the end of 'Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine'. That long, descending, warped cello note.  Yikes!

Reading Dennis Moore's post, it strikes me that there are two SMiLEs (bleedin' obvious I know!) -  the darker, experimental 66/67, and the children's song that is BWPS 03/04. The whole thing was brightened for 03/04 into a sunny outing for youngsters.

However we can only accept it as such because the darker 66/67 version paved the way and prepared us, warned us ahead of time -  at least for those of us fortunate enough to have heard so much of it. Bells & Whistles/H&V intro/All Day/Worms/Wonderful/Cabinessence/Fire ... they all have a dark edge, which had changed completely for 03/04's BWPS.

One thing I did forget to mention...

What the hell are these "Roll Plymouth Rock", "Song For Children", "In Blue Hawaii" sunshine pop bullshit titles on BWPS? Yes, I know the famous story - Melinda found the original titles "weird". But still...

Mere nitpicking...:)

So the titles were changed because Melinda didn't like them? 
What's weird about "Look"  or "I Ran" as a title?   ???

I would argue, too, that there's no consistency! If Do You Like Worms, Look, and I Love To Say Da Da are too weird, then I guess it's only by trolling the internet or having more than a third-grade history education (increasingly rare in our times) that anyone would know that Mrs. O'Leary's Cow is about fire. Otherwise, most likely, to the unlearned listener, it's like "what the f*** is this cow song?"

I have no way whatsoever of knowing this for sure, but my gut tells me that "do you dig worms" would not have been the title of "roll plymouth rock" in 1966 had Brian finished it...i know its on Carl's list, but Carl's list doesn't seem like the be all and end all to me, and "do you dig worms" reminds me a lot of "run james run" and "and then we'll have world peace," those other famously dropped titles.  Roll Plymouth rock actually has a very straightforward lyric, and while the working title clearly reflects brian's humor, it doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would have made the finished record.  again, just gut instinct.  likewise, look and love to say da da especially are clearly working titles, awaiting real titles to come once the lyrics were written...at least one of which we got (cool cool water) although i know thats a debatable point too.

also, "song for children" just sounds like such a Brian title to me, especially later-day brian. 

And I'd like to know where the hell the 'Dig' part of worms comes from. 'Do You Like Worms' is all I've ever heard it called, except in LLVS-which means that there's less than a 50% chance that it's true.

Do You Like Worms is a great title.  The song is all about digging into the past and uncovering the "worms" of manifest destiny.   I think in 66/67 it would have remained the title.  As well, I think Da Da would have retained that title, especially as it, like Mr's O'Leary's Cow, wasn't an actual listed title, but part of The Elements. 
I would agree though that Look/I Ran could have been simply place holding titles.

Carl's list...That could open up another can of worms (pun intended). Anyway, I also wondered if "Do You Like/Dig Worms" would've made the song title cut. But, I seem to recall that Frank Holmes did some art work for it. I have this mental picture of a worm sticking his head up....

I actually thought "Look" was a legitimate title. The song always reminded me of someone watching the sun, rising over the horizon, and then seeing something, maybe an island, or land - and saying/yelling "Look!" I was VERY surprised when it resurfaced as a song for children. Still am, actually...

Do You Like Worms.  Let alone the title, I never thought the "song" would have made it!  It just sounded so...odd.  Sparse...or something.  There's the nice verse part with the drums pounding "boom, boom, boom-boom-boom"....but then it just switches back to the H&V piano thingy.

 :shrug

When I first heard that...I said....."nooooo, noooo that's not right."  Seriously...could that have actually been a track?  Noooo.

Of course now it's like the ultimate SMiLE song to me.  But still...I can easily "dig" up those "WTF" feelings I had when I first heard it.  Is that really what he intended??

Nice to see a discussion on the previous page about the changed titles... though I was introduced to BWPS first (I wasn't a Beach Boys fan at the time), when I became hooked on 1966-67 Smile, the changed titles started to bug me.  I especially hate it when fans (like Purple Chick) refer to the original versions by their BWPS titles.

I will never, ever, EVER refer to the third song on Smile as "Roll Plymouth Rock".  That song is "Do You Like Worms".  Period.  Besides, MELINDA, "Do You Like Worms" and "I Love To Say Da Da" were already released WITH THOSE TITLES on the boxed set!  That's what the public knew them as!

I'm totally with you...I can't stand the new titles.  There was something so inherently cool about listening to a song called "Do You Like Worms."  I first read about Smile in Brian's "autobiography," and the titles made me even more curious to hear the music.  You can't help but be intrigued by a song called "I Love To Say Da Da."  Maybe they wouldn't have turned out to be the actual titles, but I don't think Brian would have come up with lame ones like the titles used on BWPS.  Sorry, but "Song For Children" is a  weak title, even if it does relate to the subject matter of the song. 

Just another example of the destruction of Smile's inherent "weirdness" on BWPS.

which of course brings us to perhaps the most bone chilling quote in the history of al jardine; on hearing the boxset version... "that's not 'do you like worms!'

I can't remember where i heard that...

Bruce was referring to "Worms" as "Plymouth Rock" as early as the late 70s. "Roll Plymouth Rock" could very well be a valid title just as "Do You Like Worms?" was.

Just the same, titles like "Worms" and "Da Da" could have easily been working titles or temporary titles. I seem to think it was said somewhere that "Worms" WAS a working title, although I'm not sure on that.

We also don't know what changes Smile underwent in Brian's head over time. I don't care who you are, art is never finished, only temporarily abandoned. Especially something truly abandoned like Smile - anyone who does that, even if they never intend to revisit it, still remembers those things and still gets more ideas, new ideas for related material, even if they never talk about it or ever put it to tape.

Dig was the better title. That said, I don't really care about the titles.

Yeah, I've referenced that quote before - it seems to imply that possibly Holidays is the real Worms, considering how BWPS had the "rock, rock, roll Plymouth rock" refrain, but who knows?

At this rate, considering how much Brian most likely forgot, I'm quite inclined to take Al's comment as having some ground to it.

Wow. Never heard that one. Penny for his thoughts, and then some. That version on the boxset does sound creepy during the chorus--the notes used and the sterile way in which it's recorded. Its incomplete state just adds to that feel.

i love BWPS.  i love the original sessions.  To fully enjoy both, i need both.  they play off each other.  i didn't listen to BWPS until i started listening to all the versions, mainly the PC one. 

and do you like worms has always struck me as a dumb title. 

Somebody has to write a book, compiling all of the interviews/articles concerning the recording of BWPS - so I can reference IT - instead of relying on my memory of the various interviews I read six years ago. Anyway, here goes - again...

I thought I read that the "rock, rock, roll Plymouth Rock roll over" on the BWPS "On A Holiday" was an idea that was added in 2004.

If the song "Do You Like Worms" on the boxed set isn't "Do You Like Worms", and is another song, then what song IS "Do You Like Worms" from the boxed set? Why has nobody else - and there were/are many who heard the track - come forward with this claim? Al Jardine, the "normal" Beach Boy, strikes again! >:D

the way i understood the quote wasn't that Do You Like Worms was supposed to be a different song altogether, but that Al was implying that something was missing from his understanding of the song...a lead vocal, a missing section; maybe brian had played the song for him on the piano with a totally different feel, or an acetate had been given to him with a whole nother set of vocal harmonies, something like that, where the song on the box set was missing something really important, and al's response was like "this isn't the worms I remember."

I ran a google search for smiley smile message board references to al jardine and worms, and found this quote:


Al Jardine: “This [“a very Hawaiian-influenced track, sung in Hawaiian, no less” – Tracy Thomas] is by far the best thing we’ve ever done! Everything - the music, lyrics, singing, background - everything is perfect. “  Dec 17 1966

So this quote: 1) the interjection of presumably the interviewer that the song is in hawaiian that al jardine was saying this while playing an acetate for a reporter am i miss enterpreting that?
2) Do you dig worms is a lot of things, stunning, beautiful, mysterious, but perfect?  al jardine perfect?  it's comments like me that make me think something is still missing from our conception of smile, no matter how "complete" our understanding now seems. 

(Guys and girls - this is a truly remarkable discussion. When I started the thread I half expected a couple of references to our 'reviews and ratings' section - that did not happen. Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful and informative contributions so far; and may the debate continue!)

If I remember right, then I remember reading that Al's comment came when David Leaf played him the track in preparation for the GVs30Ys box set. Al said it wasn't Worms, David said something to the extent that that was what it said on the tape box. Al insisted, David insisted otherwise.

It's a shame David doesn't seem to post here (unless he does so under a pseudonym) as he'd be able to contribute very directly and usefully to this.

I agree, Don -- discussion excellente! This discussion is getting to the "nut" of the whole SMiLE puzzle to me.  And for me...Do You Likie Worms is that nut -- nut numero uno to be cracked.  Solve it...you solve SMiLE (yeah right!)

 :pirate

okay...Al's comment is blowing my mind right now.  I'm inclined to believe what BJL surmised Al's comment really meant:  "DYLW is not an entirely different track than what showed up on the GV Box -- but just a severely stripped down 'concept/demo' perhaps."  But who knows. Either way...that's a pretty substantial comment -- given what eventually showed up on BWPS isn't all that much different.

To my List of Demands of a future SMiLE box...I think we'll now need:  A DVD (Blu-ray??) of Interviews galore....and not the fawning shiiet, but...real interviews of all hangers on, band members, et al -- I want to know what they heard, what they thought was what.  When the truth needs to be heard...everyone, no matter how 'incorrect', should be interviewed and heard.  Let the people decide!!

It's funny how much the idea of SMiLE in general (for me, at least) has changed through the years. At first, it was a simple story; Brian, during his creative peak, was trying to put together the Greatest Album ever made. He recorded (according to David Anderle) enough material to fill three (!) albums worth. The music was so amazing that people couldn't believe what they were hearing. Brian was a dominant force, in control, ready to take on the World. Then Mike Love came home from tour, and complained so much that Brian, with head down and tears in his eyes, trudged to the vaults with all of his tapes and locked them away. Then he went up to his room and began his descent into the depths of schizophrenia, drugs and an endless intake of food.
And now? Well, there are shreds of truth in the above paragraph, (and I've soured quite a bit on Mike Love being the biggest problem)  but there is so much more that we probably haven't even thought about. I always felt like, the more we actually learn about SMiLE, the less we know, if that makes any sense. Just when you thought you had most of the original tapes figured out, BWPS came along, with sections of new music (which actually could have been original music that was lost or recorded over-who knows?) and new lyrics, and we start wondering again just how well we knew the original in the first place. And that, to me, is the greatest thing about SMiLE, old or new. You just never know.

Well said that man. It's a general problem in writing history: it's always sort of a simplification of reality. Reality is so complex that it can never be grasped in full, let alone that there can be found a person who, from a 100% objective perspective, was witness to everything that happened. Presumably the real SMiLE story contains just as many, many boring, mundane, accidental, inconsistent, unexpected, long-winded, and plain silly events and non-events as every other real story does. Some say the fall of the Berlin wall was a merit of Ronald Reagan, and built the whole a posteriori reconstruction around that particular conviction; whilst others will tell you that Michael Gorbachev was the most insightful and peaceful politician that ever graced the USSR, and he is the real man behind what happened in 1989. Yet, a third party makes a great case for Guenther Schabowski, that man from the Eastern-Germany Party SED, who mistakenly interpreted a tiny note from the Party as stating that every DDR citizen was now (Nov 9, 1989, around 7 PM) free to cross the border and drive or walk into West-Germany - which meant: history was being made by him, by accident. Prosaic, but perhaps very true.

In the SMiLE case, we have all the ingredients for a hugely Romantic epic: the supertalented, young, and seemingly very self-assured Brian Wilson taking pop into new dimensions, as if by the drop of a hat. Having just finished Pet Sounds, that milestone, he began to tackle an entirely different project, together with the equally talented Van Dyke Parks, master lyricist. Good Vibrations seemed to augur extremely well for the guys.

And then there was a free fall. The master plan collapsed. Fragments promised everything, but the whole never came to fruition. There were conflicting reports; and there were few consistent constants, like Mike Love voicing his opposition to some of the work, and the drug taking that hampered the sustained effort required to finish any ambitious project.

Thus, the simple story that Million Units presents was made up. Made up, because with time one realizes that it was a story that we somehow wanted and liked. It's a story that's fit for telling to our friends and acquaintances; to pump up the myth surrounding our heroes a bit. It's also a story that is a perfect antidote to the objections made by every nitwit who thinks the Beach Boys were the Waltons of pop, singing the same song about surfing endlessly, never varying on the theme. In short, we had a perfect weapon: an LP that, everone was convinced, was a Masterpiece of Pop Art, never to be equalled... and we didn't even have to engage in lengthy discussions, because that weapon had a unique advantage: it did not exist, or, better still, it was a Work In Progress with an unspecified release date.

I for one am happy that with passing years new information keeps trickling in... I don't mind conflicting stories, and loose ends. Somehow it's good that the simple story is being deconstructed as we speak.

This thread has brought up some great discussion.  For those of us here that had heard all of the available original material before hearing BWPS, do you remember the buzz on that night of the premier in London?  I was sitting at my computer waiting for the word from folks who were at the show...and the reports starting coming in about sequence and new bits and it was all so exciting.  Then the audience recordings started to show up here and there.  By the time the CD was released, I had heard several different performances, and I bought the CD on the day it was released.  I was lucky enough to go to one of the performances just days after that.  That concert remains one of the best that I have seen in my 53 years. 

Now, here we are, more than 5 years later, still talking about this thing.  We have read the Vosse article, heard Al Jardine say that Worms wasn't Worms, learned of unheard-for-years acetates owned by Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston, Durrie Parks. 

For me, who loved BWPS when it came out, I find myself with as many questions about the '66-'67 sessions as ever.  Was there a link between Worms and Holidays?  What was recorded vocally for Look?  And what about the Great Shape/Barnyard Heroes.  And what the hell was Child Is Father Of The Man about, and who has Van Dyke's original lyric sheet?  What about the "disconnected phone cords" lyrics to Cabinessence?  Man, that Vosse article alone raises some serious questions...Who Ran The Iron Horse or Home On The Range not in Cabinessence?  That Wind Chimes thing he talks about sounds incredible.  Someone, somewhere has got to have recordings of some of this stuff.  And we need to hear it.  In as good sound quality as is possible. 

I don't listen to BWPS as much these days.  I still like it, and appreciate it for what it is.  But what it isn't, is Smile.           

I must say this thread is far more elevated and balanced than my earlier snark would have had folks believe would occur.  I was recalling the last BWPS thread which was Hater City.   And that conclusion is OK but then I feared the old urban legends would take over - it's a fraud, it's a fanmix, it was assembled by the House Un-American Activities Committee, Phil Spector re-produced it a la "Let It Be" whilst cleaning his gun collection, the Tri-Lateral Commission added the hum-be-dums to GV, Brian was really Jeff Dunham's Peanut puppet, with Darian or Melinda or Jeff or Snooki mouthing his "commands" - and that made-up stuff makes me crazy.  Fortunately not this time, and the real information was readily at hand.

So - some folks don't dig it.  OK.  Those who don't like it gave their reasons.  Some like the live version best, a view which I respect and on certain days agree with.

It took the finished BWPS to make me go back and study the old Smile sessions in detail.  I'd heard the boots before but, lacking any context, they sounded like neat sound bites but no more.  So I listened once and filed them away - until 2004.  That's when I joined this group to learn more.  And I will be the first to say the old Smile sessions are a "must" for anyone who is a fan of BWPS, to see how close it got to completion, yet see how much more work remained.

That said, as Million Units, Don and LostArt put it, the Smile story is a riddle wrapped in an enigma, unknowable at its core, like a zen koan.  The more we learn the more mysterious it gets.

Group hug!

 :lol yes! We're all rediscovering the real me we used to be...

Vosse article?

This I have not read...

Now we're taking it a little far.  :lol

try this   http://beachboys.freecp.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=587

Is there any known comment by Mike Love on BWPS?

Thanks Steve!  :happydance I didn't know this one... and I read German! It's located in Switzerland.

Another day, another lovely site...

Interesting idea Paul. If you roll over a rock, you're likely to dig a few worms.

Exactly.  That's what I always took the title to mean.   

 :-[ I never realized this. It makes perfect sense... is my sense for the poetic unravelling? Help...

I'll always be hung up on the 12 track list...since covers were printed.  It's the only track information available that has any officialness associated with.  Everything else is just...whatever, right?

Was it common to have Brian change tracks lists up on Capitol back then -- after covers were made?!?  Did Brian have them print Hang On To Your Ego?  Unless Capitol simply jumped the gun, there has to be some validity to these titles...

Do You Like Worms
Wind Chimes
Heroes and Villains
Surf's Up
Good Vibrations
Cabin Essence
Wonderful
I'm in Great Shape
Child is Father of the Man
The Elements
Vega-tables
(The Old Master Painter)

I know this is soooo dead horse....but isn't everything?   :3d

...but not in that order, right? I can see no aesthetic logic in that particular sequence...

Brian had surgery to get hearing back in his deaf ear????

To me this thread boils down to basically one thing.  Can the listener look past what BWPS isn't and enjoy it for what is is?  Because to me it's not Smile and any conception to be accepted as so was DOOMED from the start.  This may be overstating the obvious but cancelling Smile was THE BIGGEST MISTAKE in the history of modern music. It's impossible to know just who ultimately to lay the blame with as none of us were there and even the people that were can't seem to get their story straight. The myth of Smile is just as exciting as the music in my view.  You are listening to an amazing piece of music and for all you know, sitting on a shelf gathering dust in Capital's vaults somewhere is something even better. That's just mind blowing!

Good call. To your basic question, I say a great, big YES.

As for the rest: mind blowing? Sure. Vexing? Even more so. Can't we clone Brian so that his monozygotic twin brother will be a slavish person who will obey each and every wish of ours?

Brian was still using "I Love To Say Da Da" as recently as the Royal Festival Hall show, because it says so on the teleprompter in "Beautiful Dreamer".  So I assume the lame "On Blue Hawaii" title is Melinda's idea.

You know, if Al didn't agree with the box set version of "Worms", he may be implying that the Beach Boys worked on the vocals.  I got the impression from "Dreamer" that the lyrics existed in advance - unlike "In Blue Hawaii", which Brian and Van Dyke seemed to be writing before the show (particularly the Water Chant lyrics).

Can Al's memory from this period really be that accurate? Remember he was a total  hardcore pothead at the time, why, I heard one afternoon he had FIVE hit's off a joint.   :lol

Right -- but those are/were the "titles" and Capitol made covers assuming those were the titles.  At one point -- that was SMiLE.  Nothing more and nothing less.


Well sort of...to me it boils down to this:  at which point do we want to board?  When the "list" was made? -- Jan 67? -- The last day a "SMiLE" session was held? -- In 2004?

Regarding appreciating BWPS -- absolutely.  As I said in this or another thread -- it's the best SMiLE mix I've heard...especially when using the original music.  (I don't us Pink Chicks...I made my own out of the MONOs...with nothing new inserted.)

Yup. Didn't work.

Blimey! One always learns... I never knew that. When exactly did he undergo surgery? And are any specifics known (I mean: what type of damage he has in that ear)?

I know this is off-topic, but I'd love to have a pint and talk European history with you. :)

Same here. Where are you located? PM if the urge is killing you  :hat

The urge isn't specifically killing me per se...I just love a good Eastern Bloc/Soviet Union discussion. :)

Besides, we're an ocean apart, my friend.  :lol

According to Audree, he has a damaged 9th nerve and was born that way (wasn't Murry with a 2x4 or a kid with a baseball bat...)... and as best I can pin it down, the operation was late 60/early 70s, certainly before summer 1971.

What's a mere ocean between BBs freaks?

...but thank you for the nice words anyway!

thanks AGD, another piece of the puzzle put in the right place...

Vosse implies in the 1969 article that the surgery already happened and that's why Cabinessence on 20/20 is in stereo, so that would mean it would have taken place sometime between '67 and '69 then right? He also implies that the surgery was successful, but apparently he was mistaken.

To return to BWPS:

are there people here who own both the CD and the double LP of it? If so, did anyone make a close comparison as to the sound quality?

I happen to have the CD (3 of them, in fact, just in case a copy gets faulty for no apparent reason - it's a bit of a fan's madness, isn't it?) and the LP set. But the LP set is still unopened and unplayed; I waited until I could lay hands on a really good 2nd hand turntable, which I did.

Make my day, promise me a transcendent experience, brighten up my future, whatever...

Have to say that, as Vosse was out of the loop by then, he evidently didn't know that:

1 - 20/20 was largely Carl's baby (in terms of production)...

2 - Friends came out in stereo eight months earlier.

3 - the recording of "Cabin Essence" on 20/20 is only new as regards the lead vocal and (maybe) the 'banjo' vocal. The rest is not only a Smile recording, but also Brian's edit.

In this instance, Viosse isn't a credible source.

By 'banjo' do you mean the 'doing doing' part? You really think that there's a chance that Brian redid it for '20/20'? I thought that he pretty much stayed away from the SMiLE material in the later years.

I think he means the BANJO that is played by Carol Kaye (right?) during the verses and ,No, there is no chance Brian re-did it, as per his post. Sheesh.

With the LP the fourth side is a set of stack-o-tracks mixes available nowhere else, of H&V, Cabinessence, Holiday and Wind Chimes. Mark Linett says they made a special analog master for the LP from the high-rez digital original, to give the vinyl a bit warmer sound and keep the dynamics.   This is NOT one of those brickwall compression masterings.

Which sounds better?  Tough call, very comparable, especially if you play the CD through an HDCD decoder.  LP will most likely sound slightly warmer, as it's ever so slightly rolled off on top and has a little more oomph below.  But it's not a night-and-day kind of thing.

What do you mean, 'Sheesh'? If he was talking about the 'banjo' part being the 'doing doing' (which is why I asked him)and it, along with the lead vocal, were redone for 20/20 then that means Brian redid it for the album. That's why I asked what it was.  Sorry, next time I'll run my question by you first.

I took Andrew's phrase "'banjo' vocal" to mean the vocal "doings" too, not Carol Kaye's played banjo part (didn't know she'd played that though... learn summat new every day round here!). I've always assumed the "doings" were an original SMiLE session vocal, not a 20/20 addition. Can't remember which version of the early SMiLE boots they first appeared on but they've circulated for quite a long time if memory serves me right. I think I first heard them bundled together on a tape with instrumental Iron Horse sections and other scraps and such. If only I could access my full collection right now ... if only I'd indexed it...

Whoops, My bad. Seems I forgot to read Andrews post correctly and now (as is often the case) it turns out I'm a jerk. I guess I was feeling edgy. :P

I've always been under the impression that the only thing added to Cabin Essence by Carl was the lead vocal, and that the rest of the track - instrumentation and backing vocals ("doing-doing's" and all) had been there all along (i.e. or since Brian had first recorded them).  

Perhaps Steve Desper can back me up here but when we talked he said Brian didn't have a problem with the 20/20 inclusions.

Thanks, dr. Tim. Can't wait, and will duly post my impression. I still have to re-mount the cartridge (a great Ortofon one, by the way) and to properly connect the phono-preamp (from Pro-ject). It'll be a wonderful experience, no doubt.

Happens to the best of us. Jerk  :lol

How did Van Dyke Parks characterize Smile in 2004 again? I recall something along the lines of: 'a fine collection of small postcard stamps'. I loved that one... because it is so modest; it does away with the inflated descriptions that often were so exaggerated that they took away from the work itself. When one keeps on repeating superlatives, they become irksome in the end.

""Smile" struck me as much smaller than I'd remembered (I hadn't listened to it in 37 years really). Yet, it appeals to me, like a small collection of finely engraved postage stamps, for intimate viewing. "

Thank you sir. I like that comment, it's very appealing. Perhaps Parks is one of the few in the position to compare the sessions in 1967 (studio-wise, with all the work, the thunderous music he no doubt heard there time and again, the rows, the drugs, the general hubbub surrounding the whole enterprise) with the peaceful proceedings in 2004, and the end product as we know it. Add the 37 years in between... and it seems only natural that he experienced it the way he described it.

Remember that Van Dyke was out of the project before Brian started recording 'Fire' and some other mateiral. But he would have heard what went before it. Given all the fragments and sequences he might have heard, its credible that his recollection might have been of a longer album. He was also aware that there was music recorded after he left the process.

I don't see his comment about "Smile seeming smaller" as being about the length of the album though.   I think he was speaking in more of a metaphorical sense.

Van Dyke wasn't out of the project until early 1967. Fire was recorded in November '66, and it was in December when the infamous 'Mike asked VDP about his lyrics' episode took place.

Didn't he quit  for a while only to return later?

Both times were in early 1967. If he really did quit 2 times, I think there's some doubt as to whether he actually quit the project twice. Maybe AGD or another of the fellas on here that are more schooled in BB-ology could shed some light on this.

"like a small collection of finely engraved postage stamps, for intimate viewing. "

 :serenade

I greatly admire VDP but man does he talk some gobble-de-gook at times or what?

He does have a unique way about him. Without it, though, we wouldn't have those lyrical passages like 'Once Upon The Sandwich Islands/The Social Structure Steamed Upon Hawaii'.

I just got his "Song Cycle" CD on tuesday. Words can't describe it. Gonna be playing that one to death me's think.

P.S.  This may make me sound as stubbon as a mule but now having heard it, I point blank refuse to believe that he played zero part in composing the music to Smile.

Now there's a thought. I must confess, here and now, and for the first time, that I always was of the very same opinion. How and when I do not know. The musical leap from Pet Sounds to Smile is enormous. For these amateur ears, it is pretty inconceivable that Brian changed his compositional talents in such a way. Mind: I do not belittle Brian's capacities one iota here. But since I know Song Cycle for 35 years now, and Pet Sounds/Smile material for 36, I have a more than a hunch indeed that Parks 'helped and supported, mediated, enabled' Brian with the music for Smile also, besides the words.

VanDyke has indicated that although he didn't help Brian with the lyrics to Good Vibrations, that he did suggest using a cello. If true, that would be a good start.

Good call. Oh how I'd have loved to be a fly on the wall, there and then, when these two gentle giants were playing ping pong with all those grand and tiny ideas for the new album... it's my ultimate musical fantasy, in fact. Van Dyke may have played the odd piano suggestion to Brian, or on any of the other instruments he plays, or hummed various suggestions for a new melody line, a connection between different songs, God knows what.

He should have overseen the sessions for 'Rio Grande'. Yes, he should.

There's no question that Van was a massive, massive influence on the whole vibe, feel, aesthetic of SMiLE.  No question.  From the whole romantic sweep of the project -- to its "intimate viewing" of antique details.  Total Van Dyke.  But of course it was all influencing Brian and I imagine it was there for Brian's ferocious appetite to feed on.  Just like all them mystical books and such.

I find the biggest leap is that for all it's lush production and arrangements most of the songs on PS at their heart still carry a "Top 40" ring to them. It's easy to imagine 70% or so of the material making for good singles.  Smile just doesn't have that, it's a very different beast. As VDP clearly doesn't care about material being radio friendly or not I think he played no small part in making Bri think even more "outside the box" than before.

Mike? Is that you?


Wasn't that Carl who suggested the cello?

Dunno.

I've read or heard VDP say it directly. Not sure if Carl had also made that claim.

And remember, Van Dyke played on a few SMiLE sessions. That doesn't necessarily mean that he did anything more than play what Brian told him, but I would think he at least made a few musical suggestions.

Paging Cam Mott... call for Mr. Mott !!!

I don't really know, it depends how they looked at it.  It seems to me that when VDP talks about it: he quit once or did he finish his job [which isn't really "quit"ting] and quit coming around the work place? Siegel said VDP quit and came back, so I'm not sure what sense he means that in. It seems to me that VDP associates his non-association with the project with the time of the lawsuit but he also says something about distancing himself from the work around the time of Fire or something. Maybe I remember wrong.

This is hauling stuff up from the abyssal depths of my memory, but my recall is that VDP quit for two weeks, then returned, and finally took up the offer of a solo contract from Warner's. I guess the latter looked a better bet than Smile ever coming out. Good call, as it turns out.

What I think I remember about VDP's involvement with Good Vibrations is not that he suggested the cello but rather suggested that it be played in 'triplets'.

This is a quote from Van Dyke:
"Well, many years ago, I suggested to Brian Wilson that he put a cello on 'Good Vibrations.' He did, and it became a signature sound of that song. I also suggested the triplet fundamentals in the music."

I think that he didn't quit around fire, but just didn't come down to that session. At least that's what I got out of it.