The Smiley Smile Message Board

Why was Brian Wilson Scared of doing Smile in 1966 and i mean Why was he Paranoid of album and did the Album reflect about his Father?

If only Brian were a member of this board, he could answer this question directly. Unfortunately, his handlers will not allow it.  ;D

If only we could sit in a room with Brian, like the old days, these questions could be answered.  :smokin

He wasn't scared. He was incapable. Someone who keeps re-recording tracks is struggling to achieve the aspired quality. The "world not prepared" excuse came decades after the fact as a relief for the guilt.

Maybe Brian was scared because his pants were too tight. I think he should have started wearing loose fitting robes and pajamas earlier. Really, I blame the pants (and those speed pills).

Brian was paranoid because he smoked way too much hash

 :ohyeah

The 'abandonment' of SMiLE (in '67, not '66) is a science in itself. ;) Many factors contributed to it. I suggest you get yourself a couple of good BBs books to get an impression. :) Or use the board's search function - traditionally, it's one of the most discussed topics in BBs fandom.

You'll never get a definitive answer; most BB fan's have asked themselves this question for years. Although most chalk it up to Brian's demand for perfection, the insane amounts of uppers and hash that were consumed, and depression that was starting to creep it's way into Brian's head. Also, the sheer amount of work it would take to arrange all of those sections had to be a factor. If they had pro-tools back then, maybe it would've been done.

These days I put it down to the stress that Brian put himself under to produce a worthy folllow-up to Pet Sounds that not only kept up with the Beatles (etc) but also pushed the boundaries of pop music even further.

On top of that, he had to keep up his profile as a hip, experimental, drug-taking member of LA alternative pop's high society, defer to the other band members' hissy fits, and be a loving husband. Then Van Dyke Parks exercised his option to "walk", leaving him with a heated oven, a boiling pot, a half-finished idea for a recipe and only half the ingredients.

I think he simply decided to start again, and condensed most of the pre-formed ideas into Smiley.

And thinking about it in those terms, that might be what I'd've done too.

The pressure to deliver a hit was too high.
Brian was too high.
Label issues between Capital and the beach Boys were mounting.
The technology wasn't available to make his production plans realistic.

That is it, in a nutshell.

Had they just focused on getting it done, they could have released the album by the end of '66 - right at the point where GV was peaking at number #1.  They wouldn't have had to worry right away about H&V being a follow up hit - it could have been, initially, an album track.  The album could have been released with a world wide number 1 accompanying it.   They blew it with all the delays.   

Drugs, my son.  Don't do drugs.  Paranoia big destroya!

If you played music that sounded like fire with eerie violins and cellos and drums and fire engine sirens and crinkling shrink wrap and a bucket of wood burning in the studio and musicians are wearing fire hats, then a building burns in the same neighborhood as the studio and you think you caused the fire through your music.........that's paranoia caused from smoking a lotta good hash.

Nonsense. The drugs are a red herring. It was the pants that were too tight which brought him to his breaking point. And Mike really needed a bath which also added to the paranoia. It's really not too much deeper than that unless you want to make it deeper than that.

The pants were tight and itchy causing Brian to cancel certain sessions or shut them down early. Come spring of 1967, due to so many pant-related delays in the recording, Brian realized that he had come way behind schedule but still refused to go to JC Penny and purchase some more comfortable (and larger) pants. Had he recorded the entire project wearing only his underwear (preferably loose fitting boxers), we would be listening to a 1966 version of SHaRT SMiLE instead of Maurice Ravel's "Pavane pour une infante défunte sans pantalon". Bruce would have been in heaven of course and would have contributed a lot more.

Edit: fixed the name of Ravel's composition

I agree with you, to a point. I don't think that it had the effect that a lot of people thought even 10 years ago-that Brian shattered himself with drugs and the album didn't get done, and he went into this room for 3 years.

However, I can't help but think that smoking a lot of hash and popping uppers doesn't do someone with a fragile state of mind any favors. And, there's a chance that it did cloud his mind to a point as far as the music goes; I think back to what he said in the 'IJWMFTT' doc; '20 seconds of music seems like 2 hours when you're stoned; we were REAL stoned'. Or something to that effect.

I'll tell ya what.  I useta smoke dope and after I'd spark up a J at work during breaks and lunch, I'd come back to work paranoid as hell that my boss would find out! Man, all the thoughts that went through my head! Spent more time worrying than concentrating and focusing on what I was doing.

Obviously there is no simple answer to this.....or even a number of simple answers.  I believe it was a very complicated series of events encompassing all the details that have been discussed over the years, plus details we will probably never know.

Think about it.  It must have taken a major barrage to take down a powerful warhorse like SMiLE!

I would argue that it is very simple why SMiLE was dropped: Brian was getting it made but didn't like it. Based on his most contemporaneous comments about it, he thought it was "old fashioned", too elaborate, he wanted a different mood  and approach, he thought the lyrics were too arty and he didn't have a commercial feeling about.

It has been made mysterious but it has never really been a mystery.

"old fashioned"?

I've always heard it be the opposite.  I believe Brian was quoted as saying something to effect that he thought it was too modern for the current scene; nobody would get it.  And that makes sense to me.  I understand that he used a lot of old school instrumentation and recording techniques, but the concept of the album itself was pretty cutting edge.

That was my interpretation anyways.

“BUT ALAS…
Brian Wilson began to stare at the glittering ships of tape and as the day of the launch became nearer than a date on the never-never calendar, he gazed at his plans and he turned his mind’s ear inwards and the longer he stared and the more he heard, the clearer it became that he was now in his jet age, building steamships."

It was a claim/explanation by Derek Taylor in the "scrapped" announcement about Brian, so not a direct quote.