The Smiley Smile Message Board

I realized that Sunflower doesn't take up much of a CD, so I thought I'd burn a 'complete' version with all the rejects from that album...  Are there any I'm missing?

*  Loop De Loop
*  San Miguel
*  Walkin'
*  Games Two Can Play
*  When Girls Get Together
*  Tears In The Morning  [original, from 'Sun Flower']
*  Back Home
*  Fallin' In Love (Lady)
*  I Just Got My Pay
*  Carnival
*  Susie Cincinnati
*  Good Time
*  Take A Load Off Your Feet  [original, from 'Landlocked']
*  I'm Going Your Way

Doesn't Soulful Old Man Sunshine stem from sunflower sessions? I always whack breakaway with sunflower as well - not sure if that's wrong though.

Let's consider the "Sunflower period" to be from January of 1969 (first Forever sessions) to July of 1970 (master assembled). So you can add Soulful Old Man Sunshine, Break Away, Celebrate the News, Cotton Fields, and, from 2/24 and 5/24/69 there's a track recorded called What Can The Matter Be?, a demo of 'Til I Die from 11/6/69, the oft-referenced Where Is She? from November of '69 (this exists in fragments a la Can't Wait Too Long), and You Never Give Me Your Money from 1/7/70.

Yeah, I  read that in an article somewhere...  ::)

Am I reading this right? parts of Where is She is on fragments of Can't Wait Too Long?

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A0_la#French

'Won't You Tell Me' is from that era as well... love this one.

Nope...but good song, though.

more Surf's Up-era?

ehh. close enough.
plus its by Rick Henn, so it goes well with Soulful Old Man

Recorded by the Sunrays in early 1971, then overdubbed with Beach Boys vocals on 6/19/71.

Source for this and my last post is (he's obviously pissed) AGD.

Where is this "Where Is She?" existing in fragments business coming from? I never heard anything about this.

Pissed in the American sense means one thing--angry, furious being examples. Rather, in the English sense it means something else entirely...I don't doubt AGD's been that a few times ;D ;D

So what else is new? He's always pissed at anybody, anything, and everything!  Gets old after awhile, dudinit?  

And use his statements and information from his web site (public domain) at will!  Shouldn't have to credit him and kiss his butt every effing time you post something here, eh?  ::)  ::)

Yeah, but "Break Away" and "Celebrate The News" would feel out of place, since they ended up as 20/20 single tracks.  (And they're on the CD version.)

.......And wasn't there another song recorded called "Raspberries & Strawberries"?  Also, the alternate version of "Add Some Music To Your Day" with different lyrics which I asuume was an early version of the song.

That was used, I believe, as the backing track to "At My Window."

With a title like that, why am I not surprised?  ::)

Mikie: The fact that something is on a website does not make it public domain. People have been sued for money and lost thinking that. It's no different than saying that because a book is in a library, you can simply use its words and information and pass them off as your own.

The web is simply another platform for publishing, and AGD owns the content he wrote on his website. It is simple courtesy to credit him.

Yes, I can see Crediting AGD, if for no other reason than he's ours, and we want him to stay;
But stuff from books?  why the heck not?, that's free picking as long as they don't catch on... :o

citing a source isnt really kissing someones butt, it's just giving credit where it is due. Ethics.

AGD's site has been my 'public domain' for years and years and years, Mr. Wirestone. And I've taken recording dates, names, song titles, etc. and reposted some of it on two different message boards for a very long time. Don't think he's ever called me on it, ever. And after all these years, I say thanks, AGD!! Please don't sue me, K?   ::)

Ethics. Sure, I have ethics. I'm very ethical. I'm being ethical right now for admitting that I stole information from Andrew's site and reposted it on a couple of Beach Boys message boards, mostly for the benefit of others and not for myself.  And I just thanked Mr. Doe for that too. I think that's ethical.

P.S. And I've never kissed his butt!!!

Soulful Old Man Sunshine is my fave beach boys not-track and the fact that they could make that whole thing and just not bother releasing it, despite it being such a ridiculously great song just proves that the beach boys had the greatest conflict between being sheer geniuses, and being total reatrds ever. That they would put out Take a Load Off Your Feet and NOT Soulful Old Man Sunchine just shows they weren't operating ever on anything normal humans can judge.

Don't believe I'm not eternally grateful.  ;D


The content I wrote is mine - I try to credit everyone else I ripped off for the remaining 90% or so.  ;D

They didn't 'make the whole thing' - after a couple of vocal sessions, they walked away from it in 1969. The version we have is the product of a finished track tape, a couple of bv sessions, a scratch lead from Carl and some expert compiling by Mark in 1992 or thereabouts (or so I was given to understand at the time). So... couldn't release it in 1969-1991 as it only existed in pieces.

So is the version of SOMS on Landlocked boots the "version" from back in the Sunflower era or the one from EH?

The one on the Landlocked boot, I'm assuming you mean the Dumb Angel release is apparently just a different mix which would suggest it possibly came from the the EH project? I can't see what's different in the mix myself, it's just the tape speed is slightly faster. What were the other songs Rick Henn and Brian co-wrote during this time? Was there a plan for them to co-write an album?

I don't think Mark had anything to do with the assembly of "Soulful Old Man Sunshine" for Endless Harmony. Unless I'm badly mistaken, it was Dennis Dragon who spliced and assembled the final tape, under the direction of Rick Henn. I seem to recall an interview with Henn in (I think) ESQ about what was done.

DD assembled the track from various takes (with a razor blade & splicing tape !) back in 1969. Mark assembled the version we hear for inclusion on the 1993 box, only for Carl to exercise his veto, for reasons we're all familiar with. Come Endless Harmony, Carl wasn't here to say 'no' again.

Yeah, the quality gap between the best unreleased material and the worst released material continues to amaze me.  Look at the Beatles' stuff - with them, there arguably is no gap at all.

Having said that, I think Soulful Old Man Sunshine is much closer to ridiculous than ridiculously great.  I like the basic tune enough, but it was so overproduced as to be almost a parody of itself.  There's an Endless Harmony reviewer--I searched for it so I could credit the author and quote him accurately--who says SOMS "has an arrangement which has you visualising dancing girls coming on stage left doing high kicks ...."  It's a funny line, but I think it characterizes the song well.  (Reviewer is Tim Kennedy, at http://www.westnet.com/consumable/1998/09.11/revbeach.html (http://www.westnet.com/consumable/1998/09.11/revbeach.html).)

The best comment I ever heard about "SOMS" was that it sounded like a shampoo advert.  ;D

I, for one, would definitely buy that shampoo.

It's a great song, nonetheless.  There's so much energy in that one!  I like that over-the-top production.  I think it would have fit in with what was on the radio....Bobby Sherman, Carpenters, and anything Motown had out at the time.

If it had been released contemporaneously, I'm sure it would have been a mega out-of-the-blue hit.   Floored me the first time I heard it.

Had Breakaway been unreleased, I think we might have said the same about that as well. :-\

.

so wait, why did carl veto?  cause it was a scratch vocal?


i disagree.  just cause i don't think so highly about breakaway.

Good point. In a more logical world, that would've been their big comeback hit.

i prefer the demo of break away cause i find the "break break break away do do do do do do" backing to be pretty cheesy and a weak point of the single. 

I think I read somewhere (maybe here) that Carl vetoed SOMS because of that one flubbed line.....

"Old Man Shunshine....."

Yep, on a guide vocal no less.

I've never understood why they couldn't have just spliced in the word from earlier in the song. Sure, it'a technically tinkering with a recording, but nobody except somebody like Andrew Doe would have known.  ;D

Would have stuck out like a sore thumb, as the tempo of that section differs from the rest of the song (not to mention the phrasing of the word).  I'll be honest, I didn't notice until it was pointed out to me (unlike the "Strawberry Fields" edit, which everyone raved about as being so seamless, but I noticed when I first heard it, aged 12).

The opening harmony burst on Soulful Old Man Sunshine is, for me, one of the high points of the entire Beach Boys catalogue.

I think the whole song is, even in it's stitched-together state.  Love every second of it.

Me too!  I've heard similar comparisons when it comes to a lot of other great West Coast "sunshine pop" artists like Roger Nichols, Curt Boettcher, the Free Design, etc. 

Hmm.. Breakaway's a great tune – a fave – but despite its great vox it's not as over-the-top upbeat as SOMS.  B's lyrics are also very personal, whereas SOMS is about that most commercial of subjects, "boy/girl love thang".  And sunshine. It just radiates BBs' commerciality.

SOMS is an absolutely beautiful thing. Brian's vocal demo snippet of it before the track itself on EH is priceless too. All hail Alan Boyd (again) for getting so many great unreleased tracks onto that soundtrack by including them in the documentary. A breakthrough achievement! :o

In the Beach Boys' story, Alan Boyd is consistently on the side of the angels and deserves a ton of credit for all he's done and dealt with.  Of course, I'm biased because he's one of my favorite human beings on the planet.