The Smiley Smile Message Board

It is also rumoured that the missing Great Shape piece consisted of these noises, which would make sense since Workshop was written as Great Shape on a tape box, which leads me to believe that the Workshop construction noises were to be preceded by the kitchen utensil version of Great Shape.

Looking at the With Me Tonight versions we have, all seem to have been taped in June 67, none were recorded during the Smile sessions proper but for Smiley Smile.

Why would Carl imitate the sectional recording method Brian was using for Smile when he could see how difficult that was making the completion of the album, and how Brian seemed to be spinning his wheels and not getting anywhere?

3. Missing Look vocals
- This is the most mysterious missing vocal bit from Smile. We have an idea of how Great Shape was supposed to work, based off of Brian's radio demo that November, and we have a released version of Surf's Up, so we also have an idea of how Surf's Up should have went like back then, but we have absolutely no idea what the lyrics were for this song, or what the melody was, etc. And why was this once called I Ran? Was this all connected to Cabin Essence or something? There isn't any information about this missing vocal session besides the fact that it supposedly happened.

Not true. There's a Vega-Tables With Me Tonight version, and the full song was recorded on Harpsichord in April or March.

I believe this is because Tune X and IDK were in fact not written by Dennis or Carl. I've yet to see evidence to back up that claim. Can you elaborate more on IDK being recorded in parts as well? Because in Tune X the IDK riff is played twice, and I would like to know if IDK was absorbed into Tune X. Also, I'm beginning to believe that Tune X / IDK was the Barnyard Suite. By this time in March, Brian had finished the H&V single, had recorded the various connecting pieces that would help him form a suite containing H&V DYLW and other smile songs, and was pretty much finishing up the Americana aspect of the album. I bet these sections were a last minute rewrite of discarded material (hence Barnyard Billy [see my posts on the matter]), and they would help glue the remaining threads together.

For me, the greatest "missing piece" mystery is... what would have been the lead vocal for "Worms"? The BWPS version, Roll Plymouth Rock, is epic and wonderful, but I am convinced that the 1967 version would have been after the tantalising, much more uptempo snippet Brian sings in Disc 3 of the Smile Sessions.

I'm convinced that the BWPS melody is the original intended one for the original SMiLE album. I mean, Van Dyke Parks was with Brian and Darian when they put the missing pieces together (at least on the phone with them in the case of DYLW), surely he would've corrected Brian if the melody was actually supposed to be something else! The vocal melody heard on BWPS had to surely have come from somewhere. The fact that Brian was able to recall it possibly shows that some form of vocal sessions were held for DYLW. Whether it was an actual studio recording session that is now lost, or Brian just taught it to whoever was supposed to sing lead (I think Carl would've been a good choice), they definitely got pretty far with the track before it was all scrapped.

I'm convinced that the BWPS melody is the original intended one for the original SMiLE album. I mean, Van Dyke Parks was with Brian and Darian when they put the missing pieces together (at least on the phone with them in the case of DYLW), surely he would've corrected Brian if the melody was actually supposed to be something else!

Yes! There was a phenomenal thread on here a couple years ago that delved deeply into this exact snippet. I'll try to find it and post the link.

6. Lost Tones/Tune X vocals
- This was brought forth by another member from this forum... He alleges there were vocal sessions for this song... I would like more insight on this topic, if possible. Could anyone confirm this claim?

Rab, I think the thread you speak of has resurfaced lately:

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,11527.0.html

In that thread there are also two attempts to "complete" the melody:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYu12MpBqdU           (from page 3 of the thread)

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RpdU8Bep28           (from page 4)

The latter sounds exactly like I've "heard" the melody in my head since I first listened to it. I sing it now and then. :)

There have been discussions on it here before. Apparently the consensus is that they are not related. However, as Bossaroo says in this thread, given they were recorded so close to one another there could be a connection - I'm inclined to agree.

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,11532.msg235241.html#msg235241 (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,11532.msg235241.html#msg235241)

Most definitely! IDK is just a quick riff that is contained in Tune X twice. It's found right before the chorus.

This Little Pad Tune X discovery is outa-sight! I'm gonna make a rough vocal guide for Tune X. The only thing we need are the chords for Tune X. Has anyone on the forum ever written chords for Tones? With the chords we can confirm if Tune X became Little Pad. It's ironic that another Smile song (Child Is Father of the Man), was reworked and titled Little Bird. Is there any other Beach Boys songs that start with the word Little? There might be some clues left waiting out there to be discovered.

If Little Pad is Tune X, the only question I have is "Did the original Tones vocals sing about a Little Pad in Hawaii?" Because the instrumentation proves otherwise.

Please excuse my kaleidoscope eyes but...

Tune X seems to be something like
verse - G Dsus4 G Dsus4
prechorus - Em  A  Em C D
chorus - G  G7 C D F G C F G C

Little Pad chords are here http://www.surfermoon.com/tabs/little_pad_uku.html

The Tune X chorus is a common I-IV-V.  The Little Pad chorus is a common I-ii-V.  Similar but different.  Also note that Tune X is credited to Carl but Little Pad to Brian.  

Signs point to unprobable that they are connected...

Please excuse my kaleidoscope eyes but...

Tune X seems to be something like
verse - G Dsus4 G Dsus4
prechorus - Em  A  Em C D
chorus - G  G7 C D F G C F G C

Little Pad chords are here http://www.surfermoon.com/tabs/little_pad_uku.html

Are we sure that Carl wrote it??

If Carl wrote it, why did Dennis come in earlier and do I Don't Know? And don't reply with "I don't know" :brow

As per the Smile Sessions liner notes:
Tones / Tune X produced and arranged by Carl Wilson
Music by Carl Wilson

I Don't Know produced and arranged by Dennis Wilson
Music by Dennis Wilson

When the Smile Sessions came out I recall someone saying that these sessions were done to teach Carl and Dennis the ropes of production/working the studio (by Brian)...anyone familiar with this?

That would make perfect sense! Brian just finished the H&V single and wanted to rest. Carl was in heat with the draft refusal so let him go in a produce some sections. Make him look like an important contributor.

"Not true. There's a Vega-Tables With Me Tonight version, and the full song was recorded on Harpsichord in April or March."

Unfortunately this is double not true!  It was assumed the short With Me Tonight was recorded during the April Vegetables sessions because the bass line is essentially the same as the verses in Vegetables.  But c-man has dated all versions of WMT including this one and the longer harpsichord ones to June 67.  Check out the liner notes to Hawthorne and the sessionography in TSS.

Hi guys! I just wanted to bring an update. I've made some video with me singing Guide Vocals over the instrumentals to illustrate melodies. I've done this for:

Child Is Father of the Man:
http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,24392.0.html (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,24392.0.html)

And Tune X:
http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,24391.0.html (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,24391.0.html)

I'd recommend you'd watch the Tune X one first, since our goal on this thread is to stay on the topic of Tune X's Little Pad melody. But I've studied the chords and the melody notes and it's a perfect match! Little Pad is in the key of F#, while Tune X is in the key of G! Also, improved Chords for Tune X can be found on that thread.

2. Missing Surf's Up vocals

3. Missing Look vocals

4. Surf's Up Pt. 2 Instrumentation
- Wilson claimed in 2004 that the second part to Surf's Up's instrumentation consisted of an unheard string arrangement. Interestingly enough, Jules Siegel described a tracking session for a song consisting of strings circa December/January 1967, which got interrupted, due to Brian getting all worked up and paranoid about Siegel's girlfriend, accusing her of ESP and witchcraft... Those sessions could have been meant for anything, however...

7. The Air section from The Elements
- Brian claimed there was a piano piece that was meant to be the Air piece in his Elements suite that he envisioned for Smile. Of course, with all things Smile, it gets a little vague after that. Is there evidence such a piece was even recorded for Smile?

Also, if Brian was thinking about the far future where he'd be less involved with making music, it makes sense he would want to pass the torch onto his brothers.

Another interesting thing we're mission is a tape of edited Psychedelic Sounds-type recordings. A Tape from November 8th, during the 1st movement session, contains these Skits:
"Basketball", "Chewing Terry's", "Chicago Cab Driver", "Kid at Fairfax", "Tea Pot" and "Water Hose".

Could you provide a source for those titles? I ask for a reason - Of those six titles, two are redundant as they describe the same piece of audio, one is a definite "known" but I'm wondering where that title info came from, another could be something else but the title is misleading, and the other could be a part of a group of tapes that has been reported since the 1970's.

Chewing Terry's...no clue what that refers to without more background or info.

But these are not missing, they do exist. It's just those titles are a little odd.

A couple of tapes were labeled November 4th; Surf's Up movement 1, Brian falling into the piano and Mic bits. The Humble Harv' Demo. And then there was a tape with those tracks written on it.

You are right about 2 of them being one. The Basketball and the Fairfax kid, right? That's on the Psych Sounds boot. But just those 2 and Taxi driver if I recall, so we're missing 3 others. I think teapot and water hose can be easily replicated. But I have no idea what Chewing Terry's is either. Maybe Terry's is a gum brand or something.

Brian put's reverberations on certain areas on those tracks, which is interesting. I remember for the Taxi Driver track, it's near the end, a part where the driver shouts something about property. Maybe Brian was marking what he wanted to use with the reverberations. Either he wanted to use the reverberated part, or the parts after. I'll have to go back and look.

I'm gonna veer this off-topic for a second. A guy recorded a phenomenal mash-up of Tune-X and Little Pad back in 2000. The lyrics/melody of Little Pad fit perfectly over Tune-X.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHAf8zavRG8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHAf8zavRG8)

If the Beach Boys recorded something remotely similar to this I would have to change my list of top 10 favorite Beach Boys songs to include such a track.

I just was able to listen to this! FANTASTIC, thanks for sharing! :)

Putting some context to the reel descriptions and my repost of that old discussion.

First, the session filmed was held December 15, 1966 at Columbia's Studio A. It was logged from 7-10 PM, and Brian returned around midnight taking it into Dec. 16 to track his famous Surf's Up vocal. This was filmed in studio, but obviously CBS filmed it again at his house and used that in their broadcast instead.

This was over ten years ago, and I put the old text in yellow to separate it for a reason. The discussion which led to more than what is shown here centered around the notion of a session "which had gone very badly", according to Jules Siegel who was there, is mentioned in Oppenheim's camera notes, and which I believe is the only description of that session that was used for reference from 1967 onward. The CBS crew was there, Jules wrote that a Beach Boys vocal session had gone badly. That was it.

Fast forward, as "Dancing Bear" said there were articles written decades later suggesting more than that based on speculation of what had gone badly according to what Jules had described. Some of that speculation centered around "Surf's Up", where some took what was written to assume and speculate there were issues surrounding Surf's Up, even suggesting there were issues raised about the lyrics at this session in front of CBS cameras.

At that point, again, most people only knew Surf's Up had been recorded that night after the Beach Boys had gone home, so the speculations centered on the possibility that something about that song was what had gone badly.

Fast forward to the early 2000's, and Oppenheim's notes turned up thanks to Dan Lega digging them up in a college archive and getting them into the public discussion.

The notes revealed that yes indeed, Surf's Up was tackled at that session and the notes played out similar to what Jules had written back in '67, so that was confirmed if we connected the cryptic camera descriptions and Oppenheim's abbreviated notes to Jules' article.

What the notes also revealed was that the Beach Boys not only were there for Surf's Up, but that they had also worked on vocals for "Wonderful" and "Cabinessence", and this had to be deciphered using words and nonsense backing vocal syllables that Oppenheim used in the notes which could be translated into the songs they were doing. In the post I described, "doin doin" was Cabinessence, "yodelledoo" was the reworked "Wonderful", etc.

When I wrote those added comments in yellow, it was in a discussion where the possibility of "Surf's Up" getting challenged that night was being hashed out, and AGD for one reported that someone who was there says nothing was argued about Surf's Up that night. That's where his initials AGD showed up in the post.

And at that point, as little was known beyond what was in the notes, I was speculating too about what happened in the reel sequence where the session seems to have broken up, the Beach Boys left, and Brian goes for some "Zen accompaniment", which Jules described as Brian perhaps smoking in a car. Was that BW's code for toking up? Who knows, but he used similar code during earlier sessions when he says something about getting turned on, which was his code to light up a joint, apparently.

OK, so the discussion basically got to the point that Surf's Up was most likely not challenged, and a fight did not ensue over Surf's Up that night according to someone who was there. Myth busted.

Also, as Cabinessence was listed in the CBS notes, some I think considered a possibility that this could have been something connected to Mike challenging the lyrics of that song, but nothing - not Jules' article or the film notes - suggest that Van Dyke was there that night. Or was he? We don't know.

But what we do know is that perhaps some liberties were taken when a session that had "gone very badly" led to reports of Mike challenging lyrics in front of the CBS film crew. They also did "Wonderful" and Cabinessence that night, along with Surf's Up, so who knows what going badly actually meant?

Did the Boys just not sing it well and packed it in? Was Brian not satisfied with that night's work? Was he upset that he didn't get what he had hoped to get on tape from himself or the Boys? Did his ideas not work out as he thought they would when he demo'ed them?

Again, who knows. But it did raise more questions and doubts that the "gone badly" description was about Mike challenging lyrics. Doubts, at least, suggested "gone badly" could have referred to anything on three songs that were worked on that night.

Fast forward again to recent years.

c-man uncovered and reported Capitol Records' documents of that night's session. It was booked as a "Surf's Up" session, running from 7-10, as c-man reported all six Beach Boys were there. Jerry Hockman engineered Brian's solo vocals, the engineer for the 7-10 group work isn't noted. Backing vocals for Wonderful were also logged for this night, confirming Oppenheim's notes. Cabinessence is not logged as a session, however. Perhaps they were just listening to a playback or rough mix, because there is no mistaking what song "doin doin" comes from, only we list it as "doyn doyn".

The session tapes have not turned up from these sessions, again according to c-man's notes.

So we can date the reels, match them up with both Jules and the session documents, and trace the storyline of how the action unfolded that night from Oppenheim's cryptic descriptions in those notes.

Aside: It shows more than the fact that the Beach Boys held a session, so I still don't appreciate that kind of reply when I was trying to spell out something based on what was being discussed. Let's stop that garbage, shall we?

Back to the post:

As Jules' account lines up with the film notes, it's hard to think he took journalistic license and made up the "going badly" part. Obviously something happened for him to write that. Unfortunately, all we have is what I've posted above, from Jules, the film notes, the memory of someone who was there via AGD, and the Capitol documentation of what that session was.

So take it all together, it can't be assumed there was a blow-up over Surf's Up any more than it can be assumed there was a blowup over something else done at that session.

What we know is the Boys and Brian showed up, they worked, Brian ate, they took a smoke break, they tracked Wonderful perhaps listened to Cabinessence, who knows what went down with Surf's Up, and then they left.

Then Brian ducks out for a break, comes back, and records the version of Surf's Up that we're all familiar with, but the film footage isn't used in favor of what they did at his house.

Then Brian puts on his coat and leaves.

And that's about it. We can try filling in the gaps, speculating on what may have gone down, but bottom line it's a helluva lot more info than was there when Jules' article was the main source, and it can also put more doubt onto certain specific theories suggesting a blowup over one particular song or issue that night.

What we don't know is still greater than what we do know, which is the story of Smile in general...but it's neat to at least see more pieces of the puzzle that did not exist for decades.  ;D

Here's some earlier reels (in terms of numbering, although 77, if it's the candelabra version of Brian singing Surf's Up at home that was used in Inside Pop actually was filmed after the Wonderful/Cab/Surf's Up session, Dec 17 vs. Dec 15):

(Page 1)

75 (signifying Reel #75)

1. hands to face CR angle
can't see hands pan to hands in dark
child Is the Father of man

2. Heroes & Villains plays
Vandyke Parks has been working on lyrics
sings open country song

Sunshine


76 Surf's up cu (or cw? or au?) CR
-> takes guts to catch wave
can visualize intervals on piano


77 x piano Surf's Up
PB

Surf's up candelabra shot CL

(Page 2)


83

1. engineer
2. pan up to Brian
3. board
4. Boys singing who Ran The Iron Horse
(Above "who Ran" is the scratched out word "Hooray"
as if he wasn't sure what the words were.)
5. Wilson ??????? (judging, foda?!?!)
6. Boys singing who Ran The Iron Horse
7. Do Wa Wa in circle
8. Wilson ?????? (shelving?!)
84 9. Let's work on microphone
boys around mike
Do wa

Comment:  the Do Wa Wa in circle is interesting - could this be an early version of the Water chant?  Also despite the track listing from Dec 10th it appears Great Shape is still part of Heroes (which goes along with the Dec 19th Shape session for Heroes and the Durrie Parks acetate), and Brian was perhaps considering My Only Sunshine as the fade for the song??

As far as reel 75, it seems to match up visually with the AB clip, but the description is pretty nonspecific, really just Brian playing the piano and it being dark (not unusual in a studio), which certainly could be a completely different time.  And if the Inside Pop reels were the source, shouldn't they have the audio with the film - it's printed on the film, isn't it?

Could the "Do Wa Wa" vocals be backing vocals for the "Reconnected telephone direct dialing" lyrics of Cabinessence?  Of course we don't have any corresponding music tracking for that section.  I've been thinking lately that those lyrics were intended to go in the Who Ran the Iron Horse section like the "Truck Driving Man" lyrics, Telephone in the first chorus and Truck Driving in the second.  When Carl and Dennis worked on the song in 1968 they either intentionally left out those lyrics from the first chorus (which was a good move IMO) or they forgot/didn't know about them.