The Smiley Smile Message Board

As I was daydreaming at work today, I always catch myself thinking what I'll be posting on the SS board. I was really wanting to discuss and observe what examples of the other Beach Boys material (minus Brian) are considered genius by other Smilers here on this board. But I thought, what the hey, why not include Brian.

As we can see, after Smile, each album (slowly) went down hill in its intelligence towards creativity vs. cliche. Mostly, after the Beach Boys Love You, the creative juices were drained. But I know I'm not telling you anything new or anything you don't know...I just feel a lot of us could point out some great examples and bits from Smiley to present. I know we all have our own opinions of what is genius and so on. And just to make things interesting, I'll throw in solo albums as well as rarities, because I know there's something hidden that some of us just haven't found yet.

Wind Chimes/Smiley Smile style- What Brian did with a beautiful tune and arrangement he already had written and recorded for Smile is one bit of genius on Smiley that isn't GV. The tone of the original WC is peaceful and serene and makes one feel relaxed. The Smiley cut, in my opinion, is the total opposite...there's a certain sad quality to it. One could hear Brian's emotion towards the whole fiasco. The real genius part, musically, is the vocal arrangement. He really gets the best of each Beach Boy (except Bruce from what I can/can't hear). As a group vocal, this one is a killer!

Of course, sticking in the Smiley era for my next example, Brian's still gonna crank out other pieces of 'amazingness' and shades of genius.  Brian's 'back to basic'/"Smiley approach" for the Lei'd in Hawaii, is just fantastic. Sure, some stuff comes off as unrehearsed sounding but still, the vibe the guys set for the night, Brian's organ, the vocals; it's just a shame it's not celebrated or given attention as it should. Of course, the version of Surfer Girl we (most of us) associate with the Lei'd in Hawaii era unfortunately wasn't the performance of those concerts, but thank God there was someone recording that rehearsal! Kinda wondering why record a rehearsal, but I'm glad they did. What Brian did with his symphonic-like songs (i.e. California Girls, Sloop John B, Good Vibrations, etc.) must have been mind blowing to him, taking such an approach of limited sound and instruments, you know Brian had to have a certain sound in his mind, whether they went the way Brian wanted, we'll prolly never know, but I'm guessing he was prolly disappointed with the results.

The vocal arrangement of Be Here in the Morning is something of possibly one of the best and most shinning parts of the Friends album. Knowing there's no Mike around to sing bass, what's Brian do? Ask ol' papa Murry to sing the bass vocals; the results? A beautiful recording.

Dennis' creative and variety of sounds per song is just fantastic. Just putting his contributions from Friends and 20/20 together, you've got quite a spread of sounds. While we don't know for sure what Brian did for Denny on Little Bird, I'd love to give Dennis credit for something so pretty. The great and creative sounds of the banjo and the upright bass on the track is just fantastic. How much he offered 20/20 is just great. Starting on Be With Me, and I'm not gonna get into whether that's Manson's style or writing, the track itself is so beautiful, I'm so glad it was included on the Hawthorne discs. The lush string/orchestral arrangement makes me think that this had to have been written or recorded around Mona-Kani. And as I'm writing this, I'm checking in on A. Doe's website to check my dates on this, in conclusion, Be With Me was recorded literally 5 dates before Mona-Kani; but why it wasn't included 20/20 is beyond me. But the only thing I can suggest is Bruce's Nearest Faraway Place, and typically, trying to get everyone's stuff on an album would be their goal. While we're on the topic, Bruce's Nearest Faraway Place is pretty on par with what Brian could do in the studio with something a piano, strings, and a lush arrangement. Moving on, Dennis' All I want to Do makes 20/20 really rock. I'm assuming he wrote it specifically for Mike to see, he really utilized his aggressive lead vocals. And lastly, Dennis' take on a Manson songs turns out great. Sure, some of us have heard the Manson material from this era, and it's not all that crazy, and really, we're hearing some pretty good writing. So what Denny did with Charlie's material is somewhat of a miracle. He can take the mood of Charlie's Cease to Exist and turn the track into something great, a standout production among other fresh material from this era.

I felt like Brian's approach to the covers: Walk on By and Old Man River had some sort of element of Smile. I know I'm not the first to state this. I think you know why I picked Walk on By, because of likeness of the ending vocal line and Fire. But also, there's just something about Old Man River, it's very Americana; his arrangement of the track with the horns and such is so dynamic.

The vocal arrangement of Soulful Old Man Sunshine has got to be one of the best and most underrated tracks from the Beach Boys' career. Considering when it was recorded and comparing it to the current recordings, this is outta left field for Brian, let alone the band. I see a whole lot of creativity just flowing all over the place when listening to the vocals.


Well, I think I started a book but I'm nodding off, so I'll continue this tomorrow. I just hope this stimulated some creative conversation. I meant just to list my examples and maybe a brief reason, but maybe it's what I'm on that makes me wanna talk about everything.  ;)

Little Pad, This Whole World, Steamboat, Let Us Go On This Way.

Not a rehearsal, unless Brian was truly pushing the envelope by rehearsing for a show they'd performed 17 days earlier.

I thought the true reason for the 9/11/67 Wally Heider session was common knowledge and had been for a decade or so.

The boots say "rehearsal".. I think but they were done to polish up the sound..

Hawaii gigs were on August 25th & 26th 1967

The 'rehearsal' session was September 11th 1967.

Now, I'm going out on a limb here... but I'd say there's a slight possibility that the boots are wrong.

Yeah I agree thats why I had them in " "

'Country Air'... another work of sublime genius. (Especially *that* stereo version with the count-in.) Those harmonies, falsetto, whistling, mmm-mmms, "Come on!", that distorted organ......... well it sure seems like Heaven too-oo me.  8) 8) 8)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kymhUNr7Yhk

Wasn't it Rick Henn who did the vocal arrangements for Soulful Old Man Sunshine?

Yeah yeah, I knew that.
It was just real late, I hadn't gone over that material for a while. But I honestly thought that cut from the extra disc on the GV boxed set was a rehearsal and not the Wally Heider session...Because on my Lei'd in Hawaii rarity, the Surfer Girl version included on the "Heider sessions" section of the boot is a different cut.

Oh Andrew, you always get the best of us.  ;)

No, he arranged and produced the track - Brian handled the vocals

That's what I was thinking.
That track is a whole different standard than what the BB sound was at that time, it's a great track, don't get me wrong.

Thanks for posting that YouTube!  I love Country Air, this one seems like an alternative version...if you want to see a clip of it 'live' there is one under Paris - Gaumont Palace...

Thank you very, very, very, very much!

and I agree with punkinhead about "Soulful Old Man Sunshine!" - it wakes me up on EH while I make my coffee nearly every day!

I never understood why it was not a single (or did I miss something?)

Thanks again!   

Story goes something like Brian and Rick wrote it, Rick did the track, and when Brian gave it to the group to add vocals they didn't take it seriously at all and Brian eventually gave up getting them to record it. Carl's vocal is essentially a guide, but the bvs seem rather complete if they were so supposedly half-assed about it.
In terms of it's release, it was left lying in bits, unfinished and oddly mixed (for example, the track jumps from mono to stereo and back in places) around the vaults until they assembled it for the boxset, and Carl vetoed it because he sings 'shunshine' during the middle eight.... so it ended up on EH.

'A Day In The Life Of A Tree' - and along the same lines:

'At My Window' has the same outro/harmony style as ADITLOAT.

'Time to Get Alone' - that bridge is fantastic!

'Add Some Music To Your Day' - the Hawthorne Acappella version is stunning.

Not this time - it's been so long since I've listened to disc #5 of the box, I'd completely forgotten that was on there. My apologies, you're right.

"'Til I Die."

"Can't Wait Too Long."

I was thinking about those, but of course, I love discussing and wanted to bring something to the topic of those examples as to why they were works of genius.
I was thinking about how Brian uses the bass line from Wind Chimes ... the fact that he makes it kind of come off as a coordinated studio jam with him at the helm. Of course the vocals are phenomenal. In my observation, I think it's the last song Brian worked on (of that era from GV to H&V to CE) that would be "pieced" together.  And I think it still needs pieced together...The bonus tracks included on the SS two-fer and GV Boxed set just seem like they threw together some of the sections from the sessions.

Heh, what a job. That's the kind of work I want to get involved with, putting together outtakes and sessions for your favorite band.

This might be a bit left field, but the group vocals at the end of "A Casual Look" is one the most rewound/replayed over and over moments in all of music for me!

Simple, of course, but pure genius to these ears!

As far as The Boys' go, the last great studio performance and vocal arrangement for me is "Chasin' The Sky". I think it's the last time that really pulled off a tight, intricate 4 part harmony type backing vocal. Brian's vocal arrangement is marvelous. Man, I love when they sing like that. I still get goosebumps every time I listen to it.

It's totally welcomed!
Out of left field is what I'm looking for and I totally agree with you.

I totally agree, wish this song ended up on an album. I love that beginning vocal, it's very 80s.

While we're on the subject of the Boys in the 80s, I'm sure there's only a handful of genius moments from that decade.
My observation is concerning the BB85, it woulda been a genius move had they include a cleaned up version of Oh Lord from the Cocaine Sessions.

I really wanted to discuss Brian's use of recycled Smile tunes, but I think that's been discussed til we were blue in the mouth. So for the most part, I want to say that re-inventing Surf's Up for a different concept other than Smile is pretty ballsy and how it works and fits with the rest of the album is some sort of a miracle.

Using Surf's Up as the closer of an album that sings about hope (Long Promised Road), the good ol' days (Disney Girls), environmental failure (Don't Go Near the Water & Day in the Life of a Tree), people fighting in the streets (Student Demonstration time), and a man's fight and struggle within himself to make himself relevant  to society, family, etc. (Lookin' at Tomorrow and Til' I Die) makes total sense from the album's perspective and a point of view from the early 70s.

From a genius standpoint, it is made the most relevant Smile-leftover to fit with the album it was later used for.
Try finding the intelligence behind putting Cabinessence/Our Prayer at the end of 20/20, or Mama Says at the end of Wild Honey; they just don't fit as well as Surf's Up does at the end of the Surf's Up album.

I would say the next five years after Smile were full of genius from all the boys Brian very much included.

This has most likely been noticed before, but I just realized the opening piano lick for 'Don't Go Near The Water' has a very similar structure to 'Heroes and Villains'

And to add to your point about Surf's Up - those three ending songs (ADITLOAT, Til I die, Surf's Up) is, IMO, the best consecutive lineup on a Beach Boys album.

The album really flows great all the way through.

"Til I Die" is one of those simple works of art using the classic poetic "trilogy" theme; cork in the ocean, rock in a landslide, leaf on a windy day." I think it is genius because of its simplicity, straightforwardness, and imagery that is easy for every to understand.

Post Smiley Smile, in my opinion shows the greatest group creativity, and individual growth, with or without Brian.  Holland and Carl and the Passions work is brilliant, as is Surf's Up, and much of the rest.  Someone of the 80's stuff I really like, notwithstanding how it "fit" in the scheme of commercial success.  It makes a great music and sociology, to the US for many issues, and globally for other more universal themes. 

What I am finding a slight problem is the real disadvantage there is to the members who might not have "access" to other recordings or "boots" that the rest of us don't have.  It is the old "haves v. have-nots."

Maybe, a little "disclaimer" about the fact that it was not "commercially available" to the rest of us "peasants."  ;)

   

Dude, you poached my avatar . . .

Bits of genius:

"This Whole World" - One of my top ten favorite Beach Boy songs.

"At My Window" - This song has grown on me through the years.  The whispered "Poof" and "Window" are inspired.

"Cool, Cool, Water" - This song evokes a peaceful feeling.  It is more a meditation than a song.

"'Til I Die" - The best lyric lyric Brian ever wrote matched to the music perfectly.  It is a downer but it is brillant.

"All This is That" - This is perhaps the most blissful song in pop/rock history.  It is amazing that there is no Brian involvement.

From Mount Vernon and Fairway Part 6 Radio Kingdom - The fragment heard at 2:22 through 2:43  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O-a-ep3-uA&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O-a-ep3-uA&feature=related) ).  too bad there was never a full song developed from that.

"I'll Bet He's Nice - Carl's vocal from 1:17-1:39 and the tag - As much as I do not appreciate the use of synths this really works.

I was going to mention Mount Vernon and Fairway.  Not the narratives, but the music.  All of that stuff is incredible.  I know Carl helped with that quite a bit, but how much?  Did Carl do any of the vocal arrangments?  That main synth theme is just frikkin' great (wonk wonk).

Time To get Alone is Brian's lost treasure. As Mike Love once said, Heroes and Villains is Brian's last powerful (or something to that effect) song. Some say Smiley Smile is the end of Brian's production race era. In my opinion, Time to Get Alone is Brian's last classically produced song, and in itself is part genius. Everything about this song makes it one of the most creative BB songs of the later part of the decade...the lyrics, the vocals, the production; it's all classic Brian.

The genius of Holland

This is the Beach Boys with direction, but not under Brian Wilson. To me, a lot of the post 67 albums still have a Brian direction to them, even without his personal touch (ie Sunflower or Surf's Up). Carl and the Passions seems to have no direction at all; it's like they're waiting for some direction and it never arrives. Holland, though trying to strike interest in Brian (and failed), mostly gave some sort of direction to the rest of the guys to write, produce, and perform a cohesive album.

Breakaway.

and I know I am going to catch a bit of flack for this but "When Girls Get Together" has a wonderful and fun SMiLE-type feel to it. I love the song.

not at all from me...the track is an exploration in creativity, some type of sound that was never explored again. I enjoyed myself

"When Girls Get Together" is like a fun romp through an Italian funeral march, and I mean that in the best way possible. I personally think that "My Diane" is the most underappreciated song Brian wrote in the '70s. That, and "Winter Symphony". Those two songs represent another musical avenue Brian could've explored: piano songs with dense chords and light symphonic touches.

It is an unusual melody for a Brian / Mike collaboration...but, in pulling the lyrics off a web site, the poem itself would make great fodder for a Womens' study program and perhaps the whole "women's sphere" communication issue.  My sense is that Mike (in all likelihood) nailed the essence of girlhood to old age, and the seasons in between... The lyrics appear to have been written from a  "bystander" point of view, where the girls just "keep to themselves" - they call it a "hen" party.  No pun on Thanksgiving Day!

Been to an Italian funeral lately...pass the biscotti!  :lol


 

The production of POB is a genius in its own way.

How Dennis took his main influence (Brian) and almost duplicated what Brian did highly under the influence of Spector.

So it seems I did! And I thought I had one no one else had. Let me work on that for you!

No worries man.  Time for a change.  If anyone already has this, please let me know.

Ahhh...the cover picture for Volume 2 of "Get The Boot".  That was fun.

"Aren't You Glad"...one of the most underrated post-Smile songs, imo. 

I've always felt that too. I feel it outshines the song Wild Honey. I just like the back-to-basics intro.
I've included it on a couple of mix tapes I've made for lady friends.

I think the entire Wild Honey album has genius written all over it.  It's sad to me that the production on it was so minimalist, but then some folks may argue that that is part of the genius; the fact that they got so much out of so little.  Still, a little polish in the mastering would have been nice.

Thanks for the link. I kind of feel that I've really heard the song for the first time. I would love a stereo remix of Wild Honey.