The Smiley Smile Message Board

On alot of Beach Boys and Brian Wilson dvds whenever Smile is told people who was around the sessions and Brian's circle of friends would say that Brian would present tracks and then mix them up again the next day so that the end of Wonderful would be on the end of wind chimes etc or something like that?, and it always sounded great whatever tracks Brian would mix into each other. So has anyone else heard and remembered which songs was mixed up or has anyoneeven attempted to mix the tracks like this??.

It mainly comes from David Anderle doesn't it?

YES thank you I was trying to think of his name and is he also the same guy who painted a picture of Brian at the time of Smile as seem in the Brian Wilson presents Smile dvd?. So anyone knows, heared or made any mixes like this?

I think he says they would have been sitting around a record player and a bunch of acetates, so i'm not sure any of these were put onto tape....

which means, of course, that none of us have heared them

David Anderle is  indeed the one who painted the infamous Brian painting.

I seem to remember a discussion, perhaps an interview, in Open Sky a few years ago regarding how the keys of the SMiLE songs were compatible in a way that the songs could be sequenced in practically any order and there would still be a musical flow.  I'll have to search for that issue, and I'll elaborate if I find it. 

It's not like the old days. In the old days someone would have already posted all the relevant quotes and several peeps would already be cobbling together the music.

By cracky.

I have heared alot of the tapes in qwestion. ALOT! The only Smile tapes I havnt heared are the ones in Durrie Parks storage.

I think (hope) there may be a few nuggets residing elsewhere that may see the light of day eventually, Mikie.

True dat. And then, we'd all end up outraged at Mike Love for forcing Brian to abandon SMiLE, and you would swoop in to Mike's defense  ;)

We grew up. Priorities changed. People changed.  But...

Just wait until we're all retired !  ;D

You mean we're not? not by choice, perhaps

...and people would be insulted and insulting and threads would be scrubbed and half the board would be exiled...ah, good times.

Probably so.

Damn, but I miss the SmileShop.  ;D

I'm not sure about "Open Sky" or what that piece was but this is something I worked on in September 2003 before BWPS and using the original Smile tracks that were available at that time. See how it lined up with what eventually became Smile a few years later. Or how it didn't line up, either way... :)


What if the Smile songs and fragments were grouped according to the keys in which they were written? I saw this idea briefly mentioned somewhere on the web, but it didn’t go into much detail and I don’t recall who it was that suggested this idea (anyone here?). So I tried plugging the songs into a similar formula, and the results were pretty interesting. Check it out:

The idea was to group the songs into two sections. Songs written from the white keys of the piano, the natural keys like C, D, E, A, etc. would go on one list; and songs written from the black keys, the “in-between” sharp or flat keys with accidentals like C#, G#, Eb, etc. would go on the other. For example, Vegetables written in the key of E would be on one list, and Heroes in the key of C# would be on the other.

Unfortunately, not all of the Smile songs are so easily analyzed, and a few like Surf’s Up and Cabinessence change keys several times within the song and could probably go on either list depending on the section. Sometimes it was a case of finding the tonal center of the song, or relating the chords and the melody to one central key. Then, some of the sources of these tracks on the various discs are not in their original key, especially tracks like Barnyard which is sped up a half-step for some reason on certain discs. I used mostly the SOT sessions and the GV box set for this experiment, and tried to analyze the earliest version of each song (like Wonderful) that was available. And the pre-Smile Good Vibrations was deliberately left off the list.

Having said all that, here’s the list divided into the natural keys (C,E, etc) and the “in-between” keys (C#, Eb, etc). These tracks and fragments are listed in no particular order, and some such as “Look” may not have even been a part of Smile, so group them however you choose.

THE “IN-BETWEEN” KEYS:
- Our Prayer (D# minor, relative to F# major, last chord is A# major)
- Heroes and Villains (C#)
- I’m In Great Shape (C# is the tonal center, the chords are D# minor and G#: ii-V in C#)
- Barnyard (C#)
- The Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine/Barnshine Fade (F# and C#)
- You’re Welcome (C#)
- Wonderful (box set version) (starts on C#, chorus is G#)
- Holidays (starts in F#, tag is in C#)
- Look (G#)
- Cabinessence (Eb/C minor, but this tune could be both, with the key change to F for “Who Ran The Iron Horse”)


THE “NATURAL” KEYS:
- Wind Chimes ( C )
- Do You Like Worms (tonal center sounds like F throughout, Bicycle Rider chords are G minor to C: ii-V in F)
- He Gives Speeches (F)
- Child Is Father To The Man fragments (E is the tonal center throughout, another fragment/section is in B, the other section’s F#minor to C#minor could be considered a modal progression in the key of E)
- H&V Intro (centered around F)
- Fire (centered around A minor and C)
- I Wanna Be Around/Friday Night (IWBA is in F, Friday is in B)
- Water (Water Chant) (chords are E minor to A)
- Love To Say DaDa (key of C on the box set)
- Vegetables (E)
- Surf’s Up (uh…ummm…the tonal centers are F, then D, then F again, then D, then another mode for the tag in Eb/C minor…the key changes section to section, but it’s mostly “natural” keys)



So there it is: probably nothing more than a great experiment in killing time, and done only for fun and discussion, but I did find it interesting how this grouping matched a few earlier theories about how these songs may have connected to one another on two sides of Smile. It’s a coincidence that many of the tunes with even the slightest “elemental” connection seem to appear on the same list; and a number of tracks on the other list are written in or around C#, F#, and G#, the major chords in the key of C# which was the “magic key” for many of the Heroes sections and fragments. Just being able to form such a list from a far-fetched premise and have each “side” of the album add up to around 20-22 minutes when divided this way was interesting enough, whether or not it signifies anything!

Yeah GF, stuff like that. Are tracks identified as for H&V Part 2 in a particular key or sympathic keys?

I miss the old Smile Shop [Wheeler's original board and Green Mansions] too ol' pal.

I do miss it, and the White Board, also. Those were my first forays into the BB's message board world, and it was an education, indeed.

I miss Dave The Rave.

This is what I wanted to see an long detail answer to my question big thank you!!!

That's the one I was thinking of, and now I can't remember where I read it!  I could have swore I saw it in an early print issue of Open Sky (and that would've been around 2003).  I just checked some of those issues and I couldn't find it.  Sorry, my Alzheimers is starting to kick in !  :-\

If I remember, and I looked at nearly every Smile track at that time to develop that list, nearly everything that could be classified into a certain "key" for Heroes fragments was either in C# or in a key related to C#. That speaks volumes about where Brian was going with that - suggesting no matter where he may fit those pieces in, they'd all be in or around the key of C#.

That is another reason why I never agreed with the box set's title "H&V Intro", despite what was discovered and reported. That fragment complete with Hal Blaine's slide whistles and other gadgets is in a key more suited to "Fire" and the other Elemental tracks, and does not fit into the C# key of the majority of other Heroes fragments and sections. Lo and behold, it did go with Fire after all.

And maybe the decision was made to just screw with the heads of the fans some more, and throw it all to the wind: "Let's stick the H&V Intro on Fire! "

Thanks for all these answers, but I'd like to know weather or not anybody out there has mixed different song sections together of different songs??, Maybe this could be a project for someone to do. In fact I'm going to try and see what i could do with this, any suggests on which sections to try first?.

I think it would be interesting to sequence the original "H&V Suite", per Brian's instructions during his piano demo.  First verse of H&V into I'm in Great Shape into Barnyard. 

Great I'll try that thanks any more sections that may fit into each other?? I've been thinking of using the tag to cabinessence towards the end of Heroes and Villians without the "Over and over" vocal but just the background vocals thats midway and at the end of tag you know the wordless thing. I will try and mix these together over the week and tell all how it all sounds  ;D