The Smiley Smile Message Board

WWP vocals??

Do you mean "The Elements: Fire?"  :)

I think it sounds absolutely fantastic. It's the probably the best fly-in in terms of not being able to tell the vocals are flown in.

I totally agree. I love the vocals on it, and yes, you cannot tell that they were flown in. Terrific!

I have to say -- the Fire vox are one of those BWPS additions that are so obvious in retrospect and that sound so good, they just make you wonder ...

Anyway, great version.

The new mix is great. It is a actually very similar to the mono mix with fire sound effects. I even think I can hear them faintly in the background..for example. It uses the same transition to the ending part as the fire sound efects mix (the 'quieter part with less instruments). For my 'basic Smile mixes' I'm going to make a stereo Fire from the sessions, without the vocal fly ins.

Awesome. I love that transition near the end so much better. The other mix ends WAY too quick.

Like everyone above has stated, those fly-ins work really well!

Come on, there MUST be someone who hates them! :-D

(Not me, though.)

After hearing the vocals on the first live RFH show back in 2004, it was like having a moment of clarity. Those vocals from Fall Breaks... were meant for Fire all along. I love having the vocals on it.

I think the crackling i there as well - wonderful

This about the scariest song ever, but it is awesome! :thumbsup

Well, it IS Halloween  >:D

Good point, should play this song for the Holiday.

out of curiosity where do they fly the vocals in from?

Love the new mix, and these are among the best fly-ins on the album for sure.  I always dug the vocals on BWPS so this is one of the rare cases where I'm glad they followed that template so closely.

"Fall Breaks And Back To Winter". It's generally assumed that the vocals in that song were lifted from "Fire" anyway, so being in the same key, it works really well.

wow just heard it and it sounds perfect.. ;D

-I like how they still kept the fire in (very low in the mix although I always liked it up front  :lol).
-Wow, those fly-ins DO work well. Use to hate that in the PC mix  :lol
-EXTENDED ENDING! YES!
-Sounds clearer then ever.

I think the lifting of the Fall Breaks vocals and inserting them into Fire/Cow was another thing that Brian remembered during the piecing together of BWPS. And like many people, when I first heard it.....'twas like a jigsaw falling into place. Those vocals were made for Fire, no doubt about it.

Scariest song ever? You need to listen to some of King Crimson's headier works.

And also the entirely of Frank Zappa's album "Everything Is Healing Nicely."  Creepiest foda'ing thing I've ever heard.

For an album called SMiLE, it sure doesn't fit overall theme.  I never understood the point of this song being on the album in that context.  Listen to it while you look at the cover - it makes no sense!  This song would certainly have not appealed to young teenage girls in 1967 who expected Barbara Ann or Help Me Rhonda again. >:D

That being said, of course I love it!  This song would fit nicely in a King Crimson show. 

It's a very creative and powerful piece of music.  I'd love to know what the other Elements tracks would have sounded like.

In my mind, the only properly finished Smile track is "Good Vibrations".

All the other Smile tracks (including the released versions of Heroes & Villains, Cabinessence and Surf's Up) were editied after Brian's meltdown in 1967 and are therefore not 100% authentic Smile era. 

Assuming that "The Elements:Part One" is an instrumental (possibly with a vocal overdub) it is probably the next most authentic Smile track. Makes me think that a properly finished album would have been mind-blowing (and much better than the approximation of half-completed tracks that survive today).

Check out the bonus track at the end of CD 4, which has the isolated crinkling "fire sound effects".  If you listen closely, you can hear what sounds like the wind blowing behind the "fire".  Freaking creepy.

Like everyone before, i just dig this with the vocals--takes the song to a whole different level. Hip cred? Yep. No question the boys across the pond would have dug it.

What, now?

Nyet.

If it had seen the light of day back in '67 with vocals like this.

More watting @ "hip cred?"

This is a true story.
Yesterday while driving I had Mrs O'Leary's Cow aka Fire playing on my car stereo at a pretty high volume .Whilst in the process of turning left at an intersection out of nowhere came two fire trucks blaring their VERY LOUD horns at me causing me to swerve out of the way and nearly have an accident.
The hairs on the back of my neck were up for the rest of the day!  :o :o :o :o :o :o

Bad vibes man, bad vibes  ;) Glad you're safe.

Don't tell Brian!

Love this track. Anyone ever dismisses the BB's as just some safe surfing throwaway pop group, just whack this on! I also really like that little bonus track at the end of CD 4 - creepy! When i first saw the sessions box tracklisting i was disappointed at the lack of Fire tracks, but of course several of the H&V tracks are in fact Fire tracks in all but name, in particular CD 1, track 6 and CD 1, track 30.

I think you mean CD2 tracks 6 & 30.

Yes i do.

As I found out during the Beach Boys Survivor threads, this song is very underrated. I love it! It's an essential centrepiece from Smile, and it just wouldn't be the same without it!

Totally agree, it adds a dark undertone to the final suite and feels perfect as kind of a wind up to the last two tracks. I showed my dad this track in the car one day and he said it was like a nightmare.

True. Which makes it unbelievable to me that it's not one of the more popular SMiLE tracks!

Agreed. I think CE was supposed to have the Reconnected Telephones chant over the first chorus but that's not possible to do anymore so it will never be 100%. And that's supposed to be one of the most finished SMiLE tracks. H&V never would have had that Bicycle Rider chorus originally. SU as we all know, is missing that legendary second half of the backing track. The Fire section of The Elements is more or less complete but the entire Elements track is perhaps the single most incomplete of the entire SMiLE Era.


Thats the beauty of it, though. It's such a lovely mish mash of so many feelings and ideas. It's what makes it so fascinating--and it can fit together in so many ways in spite of it. I actually have to wonder then, if perhaps The Elements was to come at or near the beginning of SMiLE? That really would have made people look at the cover, consider all they knew of the Beach Boys up to that point and really bring on the "WTF?!!?" Would perfectly demolish all preconceived notions brought on by the band's image up to that point and by the happly little cover.

Pondering this idea further...What if Prayer was supposed to be the intro, Worms the first track (like on the capitol list and as some posters here have said) then the Taxi Cabber skit where they talk about Chicago...(see where this is going?)...and then Fire as the Great Chicago fire? Amazing. Someone HAS to try that sequence out or I will. I think that'd be a fantastic way to draw the listener in and completely take them by surprise and make them feel every emotion possible in just a few minutes so they'd never know what to expect the rest of the LP.


I love the fly-ins here as well. The only ones in TSS that work, I'd say.