The Smiley Smile Message Board

The new book FAB an Intimate life of Paul McCartney by Howard Souness makes this reference to Brian Wilson and smile! Travelling with Mal in Frank Sinatra's private Jet to LA where he met Brian Wilson, who was so overwhelmed at hearing the new Sgt Pepper tape that he abandoned the new Beach Boys album Smile. Paul then flew home coming up with a new idea for a movie....
The Sgt Pepper tape he played Brian was  "A Day in the Life". Paul had already played for a few stoners on the Height Ashbury strip..Well thats what it say's in the book. on page 170...

How many on this board believe that one of the main reasons Brian abandoned Smile was because he heard a song from Sgt. Pepper's, specifically "A Day In The Life"? I know Van Dyke said that when Brian heard it, it "broke his heart". Do you think Brian totally lost his competitive spirit after hearing one song? First he heard Revolver and was inspired to write Pet Sounds. Did he really throw in the towel, thinking that he couldn't beat (or at least equal) that with Smile??

Authorised bio?  Souness is a biographer, not a music writer (though his Dylan book was pretty good).

Depending on who you read, the song he played was either "ADITL" or "She's Leaving Home", after the legendary "Vegetables" session of April 1967, on a piano in the studio (not a tape). Knowing Macca's melodic bent, I'd bet more on it being "SLH".

And, it has been told that upon hearing SLH, Marilyn broke down in tears at it's beauty.
I don't buy that he stopped SMiLE after hearing anything from SPLHCB, or Strawberry Fields. I think that by April his attitude towards the whole album had already changed, and I really don't buy the Michael Vosse story about him hearing Sgt. Pepper and being so blown away by it he had to pull over onto the side of the road. These are just my opinions, not facts.

The vibe of the page is kinda like this...Paul was hanging out with all the cool freaked out kids in the USA and they were saying the Beatles aint hip and into it.. so he plays a tape of A day in the life and they freak out .. Then he flies to LA play it to Brian and he hears this crazy new wacked out Beatles music played by Paul on a tape and abandons Smile. I have heard Brian say that she's leaving home was played by Paul on piano in the studio to him..
But this book which is decent sized book mentions Brian once and it is to emphasize his reaction to Pepper..  lennon's biographies make little or nil reference to Brian. Nor does the Barry Miles bio on Paul. keiths new book mentions Brian twice pays a little respect to him, but where is the love??

So Paul just happened to have a tape of "ADITL" with him, huh ?  Yeah... right...  ;D

Page 170....In black and white!!

In a Keith Moon biography I read, it talked about how when Keith first heard Pet Sounds, he hated it (as most everyone knows he was a huge early BB's fan), and somehow it's slipped in there that Brian heard Pepper, and went home and went crazy trying to catch up to The Beatles. So you can't believe everything you read!

Must be true then.

Yeah, I thought it was "She's Leaving Home" that Paul played Brian and Marilyn in the studio. And that they both cried when they heard it. Unless it was another occassion, I didn't know Paul played "A Day In The Life" for Brian. That would have been a tape that Paul played, because supposedly he played the same tape for a group of people in San Francisco a few days before in 1967. What are you gonna believe?

I feel the same. Pop journalism is fond of this type of myth-mongering. Emotional drama, people breaking down and collapsing after hearing a new song by someone else... it just sells, folks. Also: nice material for new screenplays. It just sounds better than: after hearing She's Leaving Home, Brian went to the loo and then ordered a pizza by phone. And thought about a new song called: Holidays.

If a story seems pumped up a bit too much in a biography, official or unofficial, then it probably was pumped up for dramatic effect. It's standard, and books are worse offenders than magazines/interviews (IMO).

But the Vosse comments were specifically about the time they heard "Strawberry Fields Forever", as they were driving in a car, and the implication was that Brian thought the Beatles had done with Strawberry Fields what he had been trying to do with his then-current Smile tracks, exactly *what* that was I think was left for speculation. Wasn't the end of the story the image of Vosse and Brian laughing in the car?

For the record, I think Michael Vosse is one of the primary sources of what could be the closest thing to the truth on the whole Smile saga, at least while he was there in the eye of the storm during all of it. The article/history Vosse had published in "Fusion" stands to me as one of the most accurate and informative documents of that whole saga, and it's one not corrupted by time or by other outside biases or factors. Point by point in that article, Vosse tells the story the way it was from his view. Are any of his descriptions in that article, now that we have heard and seen a lot more of the stuff he's describing, inaccurate or overblown? Or has his telling of various events been proven wrong in the near-40 years since the article appeared?

So if a Michael Vosse says they were listening to Strawberry Fields in the car, I believe it. Most of the other beefed-up stories are too close to that biopic of the BB's that shows a bearded Brian clutching a copy of Sgt. Pepper, wearing headphones, and zoning out as Jimi Hendrix at Monterey appears on the screen. 8)

Always said this, always will - the Vosse Fusion piece is as significant for what he doesn't say as for what he says. And yes, unquestionably one of the primary Smile codexes, up there with the Outlaw Blues piece and "Goodbye Surfing' Hello God !".

What sort of things do you mean that Vosse did NOT say?



That sounds great to me  :o

;)

I'd also include Vosse's "Teen Set" piece where he describes the chanting sessions and other goings-on at that time as among the best primary sources for the history of it all, and it's mostly unbiased with just a bit of hype. But again, like Fusion, nearly everything he described turned out to be true! I also like to consider those pieces he describes which we may not be sure we've heard in some form.

It intrigues me, and I'm really curious, can you give a hint of something Vosse didn't say which should be considered? I'm always about looking at every angle, and that's one I'd really like to consider. I know Mark Volman for one was *very* hesitant and practically refused to talk about it in one interview where Smile and the airport photo came up, and there was a side of the story which seemed to be bubbling/boiling under the whole saga which upset Volman and which, seemingly, no one will address. I'm genuinely interested in this!

I'll bet it is a lack of the Boys being confrontational with Brian. When I asked him directly if he witnessed any of that, he did not. He presumed that the Boys were suspicious of him and the Posse but he actually did not have as much contact with the Boys as you would think [as I thought]. The same with Jules Siegel, didn't witness anything, presumed suspicion, had less contact then you/I imagine.

I had always thought that Jules Siegel was right there in the middle of it all as a semi-member of the 'Vosse Posse'. I felt that way until I read something somewhere not that long ago where David Anderle says something about Jules portraying this image of being 'in the circle' when he really wasn't.

There have been several assumptions by commentators that have been repeated so often that they've assumed the status of, if not exactly fact, then a widely held belief. In the Fusion piece, Vosse (who as has been rightly noted was about as close to the proceedings as you could get without having the initials BDW or VDP) doesn't, as far as I can recall, so much as even hint that they might have some credibility. Or indeed, mention them at all.

If you like, it's like the dog that didn't bark - because it wasn't there. Purely my own opinion, but I've always considered some of the higher-flown theories about Smile have less to do with what actually happened than with what various people - myself included - wanted to have happened. History is seldom neat and tidy.

Not true.  Miles begins a chapter specifically stating that the only non-Beatles rock musician who Paul considered his equal or better was Brian.  Paul particularly admired Brian's melodic "rootless" bass lines, which didn't just play the root notes of the chords like those of most other bassists.

So it does...Thanks

This meeting in LA which includes "playing of a tape" is on Wiki and referenced too.
http://www.icons.org.uk/theicons/collection/sgt-pepper/features/reactions-to-sergeant-pepper

Are Vosse's texts mentioned here available online?

To correct an obvious error from a poster above - it was Rubber Soul, not Revolver, that inspired Brian to create Pet Sounds.


Strawberry Fields upset Brian and made him doubt his musical direction - but this event was not an isolated incident.  He did the same upon hearing the Stones' "My Obsession" recorded at RCA.  Brian was insecure and it didn't take much to rattle him.

If I remember correctly, Al Jardine did not get to hear what Paul played Brian from Pepper in the control room because he was in the studio doing vocals for Vegetables.  so that would mean it was not played on the piano in the studio but more likely was an acetate or tape copy he had with him.  We've heard it was She's Leaving Home and we've heard it was Day in the Life - I suspect it was the latter, because it was the more "mind blowing" cut with the orchestral crescendo, final piano chord, "love to turn you on" etc. - She's Leaving Home is a great song but fairly conventional, the fact that Paul is accompanied only by an orchestra and no Beatles instruments makes it different (but no different than Eleanor Rigby).  If you were going to the US and wanted to bring a song to blow people's minds, which one would you take?
Maybe he ALSO at a later time played She's Leaving Home on the piano for Brian and Marilyn?

But... Paul's reason for being in the US wasn't to blow people's minds or promote the forthcoming album - he was there because Jane was on tour with a theatre company.

 :lol great call, that is a fine reality check.

There's a very moving bit from Paul's Ooba Joobu radio show where he has Brian on and Brian talks about when he first met Paul. He goes right into a few lines of "She's Leaving Home," getting most of the words wrong but it's actually really touching. Also, when Brian toured the first run of TLOS, he did a cover version of SLH and he does a nice little intro to it where he talks about the meeting again, to my ears he isn't reading off the teleprompter for that.

And to add a bit more to the reasons why Paul McCartney was in the US in April '67, this was reported in a fanzine from early May 1967 (paraphrase):

Paul was there to spend time with Jane before and after her 21st birthday, as she was on tour with the Old Vic.

So *that* makes more sense and adds some context to the whole trip, other than McCartney flying to the US to catch her on a regular scheduled theatre tour. It was to meet her on the occasion of celebrating her milestone 21st birthday! Nice to have a boyfriend who can afford to fly from Paris to the US to be with you!

And, in that same mag, it reported the Beatles had set a deadline of early April to finish the album, but they ran over schedule so there were orchestral overdubs recorded after McCartney had flown to meet Jane. However, the mag reported the overdubs as having been needed on "She's Leaving Home" when the song which needed orchestral overdubs was "Within You Without You", and that brilliant orchestral part was added while Paul was in the US.

As far as the Smile connection - another thing to note is that Peter Brown's book from the early 80's reported that Brian was working on "The Four Elements Suite" when Paul visited Los Angeles, which would make sense if "Vega-Tables" was still considered part of Brian's "Elements" in April '67.

And also Brown's book suggests the whole reason for the trip was Paul spending time with Jane on her birthday, adding he made several stopovers including San Francisco where he met with the Jefferson Airplane, Los Angeles to meet John and Cass as well as Brian, and he did it all in Sinatra's private jet which Brian Epstein had arranged for him to use. The funny insider story is that Epstein had set it up so Paul could stay in a rental house but the orders were mistakenly made to rent a house in "San Diego" rather than "San Francisco", and the San Diego house was booked for a month at a high cost and never used.

If. And according to the handwritten note in December, irrespective of who wrote it, by then it wasn't part of "The Elements". I don't consider Brown's recollections credible.

What book is this?( I may have missed the name reference in this thread if it was noted) and I tried googling peter brown, but didn't see any references to a book noting Brian.

I thought Billy Shears...um, I mean, Macca, played an acetate, not a tape, of ADITL for Brian.

The Love You Make by Peter Brown & Steve Gaines.

And to be fair, I didn't use Google this time. Amazon works much better for books.   ;D

Here's the thing about Brown's entry on Brian: Gaines also wrote the oft-discussed Heroes And Villains bio in the 80's. How long was he researching that book? Long enough to know about Brian and "The Elements"? If so, can anyone think of another reference to Smile's "Elements" as "The Four Elements Suite"? I've never heard of that title used anywhere else but the Brown/Gaines book (in my hardcover copy it's on page 241).

Obviously Gaines wasn't there, Brown wasn't there, and only Paul and Mal and whoever else was meeting them in LA that day (and it was apparently only one day Paul spent in Los Angeles) can speak with authority. But it could be a case of Brown remembering a conversation with Paul where Paul or Mal mentioned they had seen Brian working on "The Four Elements Suite" when they met him that day.

The confusing part is indeed the "if", because the vegetables theme was something they were chanting about in Fall '66 in the studio, and they basically "chanted" about every other element that day except Fire!  ;D :-D

Again, pure speculation but fun speculation.

And what exactly did Paul do with the Jefferson Airplane? Are there reports from Jorma or Jack or someone else of Paul playing Pepper mixes for *them*? I never looked that up at all. The fact he was in Los Angeles gets overblown a bit in the history I think, because Paul was flying back and forth in Sinatra's jet to see Jane's performances and Los Angeles was only one day out of the whole thing.

No, here is what really happened

Brian returned to the studio to pick up some tapes late one night  in Jan 67. He is startled to find Paul McCartney with an sackfull of SMiLE tapes, climbing out of the window.
The two grapple, and Paul manages to escape with the vocal sessions for Look, and Surfs Up section II.
Brian bursts into tears, and the rest is history.....

See Dominic's LLVS - there's a contemporary journalist quote from March/April 67 (if I remember correctly) that calls it "The Elements Suite" and mentions four parts.  Also says the album is essentially done except for that one song, which is giving Brian trouble or something to that effect.  One reason why I think Dada may have been an attempt to continue work on The Elements.  Also, doesn't Byron Preiss refer to both an Elements suite and a Barnyard suite?

The fact that Paul was using his trip with Jane to connect with other musicians and preview Pepper is just a reflection of Paul's ability to multitask.  I'm sure he was curious to see what Brian was up to, after inspiring Pepper with his previous LP Pet Sounds!  I'm not sure Paul was responsible for this, but the Doors got an advance acetate/tape copy of Pepper prior to release and it inspired Strange Days, and David Crosby heard I believe A Day in the Life before the album came out - most likely through Derek Taylor.

There's an old Beatles documentary from the 80's called 'The Complete Beatles',  and when they get to  Sgt. Pepper, they have a couple of different people making statements about it. They show Bruce, and he says 'We were sitting around congratulating ourselves about having a bunch of hits, and then somebody played us the acetate of Sgt. Pepper'. Or something to that effect.

Um, if I was given just the title "The Elements Suite", I'd probably think there were four parts, and Sherlock Holmes I'm not.  ;D


Strange Days was recorded May-August 1967: however, all the songs date from 1965-66, so any influence would be in the production, and while it's a step up from The Doors in that respect, that's largely due to using an 8-track studio, and having a 'proper' bass player.

The mention of Derek Taylor brings up a major factor in all of these happenings - the fact that Derek Taylor was involved with all these people! A publicist is hired as much for who he knows as what he'll say about you, and Derek Taylor was indeed the traveling ambassador who was connecting all these people, whether directly or simply by association. With Brian, it was incredible how Derek Taylor put him into the company of the upper-echelon of hipness, and having Brian meet certain people, be invited to and host parties with these individuals, and be associated with them cannot be underestimated in the whole story.

Monterey Pop - that was Derek Taylor. Brian being put on the "Board Of Directors" or whatever they called it - Derek was one of the minds behind the whole thing, it was natural to associate his most powerful clients with the concert.

Derek Taylor also had access to two things at the time which very few did: Smile sessions and Sgt. Pepper mixes. No doubt he was spreading the word among all his contacts, and making some of those connections.

He was clearly the messenger. If someone like a David Crosby received a copy of Pepper prior to the release, I'd almost guarantee it had passed though Derek Taylor's hands. I'm betting he also had a hand in scheduling Paul's visit to the studio to meet Brian in April 67.

It's also possible to sense his own disappointment in his press release announcing Smile's demise, and it was revealing to read his own thoughts on Brian after his working relationship with him had been dissolved.

I think all of these things are probably true but I think in April Taylor was operating purely as a correspondent, friend, scenemaker and whatever he was to the Monterey Pop. He had said that he had dropped all his clients as publicist at the end of 1966. I don't know if it makes any difference except it may have left him freer to hand off samples and swap secrets.

Yet some accounts say he was still being paid by groups like the Byrds as well as the Monterey Pop festival as a publicist in 1967. Derek Taylor may have dropped all of his clients as an official publicist but he had to be making enough of a living doing (freelance?) what he was doing having moved to California by  April 1967. In June 1967 alone, I believe he was tripping in the back seat of Lennon's car listening to Procol Harum during the Sgt. Pepper release party one week, and the next week he was doing whatever he did around organizing Monterey Pop. And he was also working in some capacity for Brian and/or Brother because he issued the statement about Smile being "scrapped" that same spring. Or was he just working/writing as a freelance columnist at that point?

Interesting - whatever he was doing, he was at the center of all these goings-on at that time: Smile, Pepper, Monterey, Byrds, etc.

Well not all - at least Strange Days, You're Lost Little Girl, and Love Me Two Times were newer than 65-66.  The first known performances of People are Strange, Unhappy Girl and When the Music's Over were March 67 at the Matrix, and may very well have been written in 67 - or not.  Of course most of the songs came from Jim's notebooks so ALL the lyrics may have been much older than the songs.

But you are correct - Paul Rothchild's production was Pepper influenced on several of the tracks (Unhappy Girl, Strange Days, Horse Latitudes), with the enthusiastic cooperation of the band.