The Smiley Smile Message Board

I thought I'd break this out into its own thread. As anyone who's read my posts here for years will know, I consider Can't Wait Too Long to be one of the great unsolved Brian Wilson mysteries... and sadly, one that will probably remain unsolved and insoluble. So, unsurprisingly, the 'new' version on Sunshine Tomorrow was one of the fist things I leapt for this morning to listen to, to see if it would provide any clues.

Sadly, as someone wrote years ago on the late lamented SMiLE Shop board, "...and the curtain pulls back... to reveal another curtain". No answers, really. But as you do (or as I do) I thought I'd compare this new mix of CWTL to previous versions. Then the OP asked about how the new version compared, so I thought I'd share my comparison, as it sort of answers his question.

Can't Wait Too Long as presented on Sunshine Tomorrow is, I believe (though without any hard evidence) a freshly made edit/mix. But seeing as ALL versions that have ever been released of this song have been edited together from various takes over various periods and no-one knows any longer how the song was supposed to go (if there ever WAS one version, that is... the goshdarn song is like SMiLE in miniature... except we actually know way more now about SMiLE was supposed to go than we do about Can't Wait too Long!)... this is just another variant version. I think the OP was right - it's probably an edit of bits that were done in the Wild Honey timeframe, as it has a much more R&B sound than some of the vibes/chimes-driven sections you hear on the versions on the GV boxset and the SS/WH 1990 twofer (which I'm guessing are more likely to have been Friends-era 1968 recordings).

Anyway, I suspect this new version has also been heavily edited together from the original tapes. There are no lyrics that will be new to you if you know the GV box/twofer versions.

As you may recall the SS/WH twofer version consisted of various sections:

1) A 45-second intro with lovely harmonies (later presented acapella on Hawthorne, California and reused by Brian in TLOS) finishing with the lines "I miss you darling, I miss you so hard". This is NOT included on the Sunshine Tomorrow edit (so I guess it was Friends-era).

2) A 23-second chimes/vibes driven looping sequence, featuring a melody very like the vocal line in the chorus of the SMiLE version of Wind Chimes. This ISN'T on Sunshine Tomorrow either.

3) A minute-long fuzz bass looping section, with occasional wordless Beach Boys vocals, again featuring the line like the vocal line in the chorus of the SMiLE version of Wind Chimes. The bass now plays that melody too. This ISN'T on Sunshine Tomorrow either.

4) A sort of bridge/verse section for 20 seconds or so with someone (Brian, I think) trying to teach the band the vocals, and some partial singing, including 'miss you darling, I miss you so hard' again, and with more vocals on the GV box mix of the song.

5) A minute and a half of a sort of chorus (or maybe a verse... that's how unconventional this song is...), with the Boys singing 'Way Too Long, Been Way Too Long Baby'. Neither section 4 nor 5 are on Sunshine Tomorrow. So I'm guessing everything from the twofer mix I've described so far is from the Friends era.

6) Following a fairly brutal edit, suddenly the sound changes, and we're into another 50-second or so section with a much more R&B sound. Here the boys are still singing 'Way Too Long, Been Way Too Long Baby', but a lead over the top sings 'Baby you know that I can't wait forever... windows of darkness are all I can see through, searching the shadows, hoping to see you'.

I think this IS on Sunshine Tomorrow, but in a very different mix. Where the twofer mix of this section was very dry, the Sunshine version of this section (can't be bothered to keep typing out Sunshine Tomorrow, sorry) has much more echo chamber and sounds (to my ears) more late 60s in sound. I wonder if this part was remixed for ST trying to match a 1967 reference mix or acetate or something. It may even be a different recording, it sounds so changed, but listening closely I think this IS the recording in section 6 of the twofer mix, just mixed very very differently. More on this below.

7) A final instrumental section with no vocals, prominent organ, reverbed (Fender?) bass and dry snare. This final part wasn't on the GV box mix, and it doesn't feature on Sunshine mix/edit either.

OK... so what IS on the Sunshine Tomorrow version? The first 52 seconds or so are an incomplete mono run-through featuring just Brian at a piano. This was on the SOT sets in a much longer excerpt, but it doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know. It contains the bit where Brian complains ('Gaaaahd, this piano... so terrible, I hate it') about his detuned piano (which has always struck me as odd, because in recent years he's explained how he ASKED for the piano to be specially detuned by his tuner. So did he like the detuned sound or not? You'd have to say he did, because the piano sound is ALL OVER the late 60s albums... it's another BW mystery. Unless maybe he didn't mean the sound, and he was just complaining about the piano for some reason. He doesn't actually SAY it's the piano's sound that is so terrible).

The remaining two minutes or so of the Sunshine edit/mix are the R&B-flavoured section 6 described above, with the more (I think) 60s sound described above. There are lots of vocals, but they're all the same lines mentioned above, and I think they may possibly have been flown in at different places to give the instrumental more vocals. In other words, I suspect this may be a modern assembly using the one recorded section of lyrics and backing and shuffling them around looped sections of arrangement to create a new Wild Honey-era sounding Can't Wait Too Long that never actually existed back in the day on the 1967 tapes. That might be hideously unfair to Sunshine Tomorrow's producers, though, as I will freely admit that I have no inside knowledge I'm just guessing. And who cares if it is a contemporary fly-in assembly anyway, because it sounds good and like something the Boys MIGHT have put on tape in 1967. The track just fades out repeating the same vocals, though we do first hear a vocal-less section with a Shadows-style reverbed guitar line (playing, again, that circular Wind Chimes vocal melody from SMiLE). Again, though, I think this guitar was always in this recording and was just obscured by vocals in previous mixes we've heard of it. I think a section with the guitar line mixed prominently has just been edited in here prior to the final fade with vocals to provide some variety.

So in summary, the Sunshine Mix of Can't Wait Too Long is different to what you'll have heard before, but I suspect produced from bits you'll already know.

Oh, and the section heard edited onto CWTL on some bootlegs that incorporates the start section heard on the MiC box as 'I Believe In Miracles' is NOT on Sunshine Tomorrow, either.

Hope that helps... probably not. Just the curtain behind, well, the other curtain...!

I'll admit to being very disappointed.  Can't Wait Too Long has been begging for attention for ... way, way too long.  We now have, apparently, three unsatisfactory versions. 

I understand that the compilers did not want to include post-Wild Honey recordings on a Wild Honey set, so maybe a definitive version would have been too much to ask for.  Still, if not now, when?  At a minimum, it would be good to have a version that includes the tag (as on the SS-WH two fer) but less repetition on the chorus (as on the GV box set).

Maybe one of our board sound experts can combine the now-three versions into one...

The beginning of this one has a much more R&B and even Motown influence with those guitar chord stabs, it's a different groove and feel than on the previous "official" released versions of it. Pretty cool. It felt like perhaps the plan was to ditch the modular approach and rethink the song as an actual start-to-finish soul/R&B groove versus the editing on other takes which was more in the Smile realm.

I like the surf guitar at the end, reminiscent of "Pet Sounds".

I don't know Craig, you're pretty au fait with this stuff - don't you think that the main recording making up the bulk of the performance in the Sunshine Tomorrow version is what I describe as 'Section 6' of the twofer mix below, only in a really different-sounding mix?

From your comment above, it sounds as though you'd regard this as a different take of CWTL to any that have previously seen release. And certainly there's none of the chimes and harmony-driven sections that made up most of the 1990 twofer mix in this new version. But I think that all of the musical parts, guitars and vocals in 'Section 6' of the twofer mix (3:44-4:53 or thereabouts on the SS/WH twofer edit of the track) sound like they're performed the same to me on the Sunshine Tomorrow version, just mixed, edited and processed very, very differently. Or am I talking total tommy-rot?

I'm really trying to sort this one out too! I think for my ears, it's the context that sheds new light on the song. Not so much that we haven't heard things before, but it's the way this take sits in that time period that struck me.

Decades ago there was the thought that CWTL was a Smile remnant, an idea from that phase of recording and production. We heard the various released and booted versions, it is indeed like GV and Heroes with the editing of sections, etc. It would be easy to say that was either conceived during that earlier time, or that Brian was still working that way in Fall '67.

But hearing it in this context, I get a different sense of what is included on the set. It has that unmistakable WH texture and feel, that deliberate nod to R&B, soul, and even Motown elements on not just the groove but elements like those guitar stabs.

I'm thinking perhaps this could have been Brian adapting what was one of his modular/editing type of creations into something that the band could play through as a band, even with an eye toward doing it on stage. Unfortunately all we have are still pieces, mostly, in some cases strung together to where one bootleg had a terrific section that nothing else had, or various snippets of sections showing up here but not there, all of that confusion.

If what is on this set is viewed as trying to adapt what was undoubtedly a pastiche of some killer individual hooks and sections (think all the amazing unused Heroes sections to compare) into a sound and groove that fit both the Wild Honey "sound" and overall texture and also being able to get played live on stage which was a concern as well during this time, it put it into a new context to listen and speculate. Not new material per se, but a new way of viewing it and trying to analyze what was going on with the song at various points in time.

I see what you meant now, Craig. Thanks for the explanation. Context and all that.

It's so complicated. On one level Brian simplfied his song arrangments for Wild Honey, and this may well have been with the touring band's live performances in mind. So he 'crushes down' the complexities of something like Wind Chimes from SMiLE, and gets an almost surf/garagey track out of it, with something like the feel of The Letter to it. This is the arrangement of Can't Wait Too Long that we hear on Sunshine Tomorrow, presumably from the Wild honey timeframe.

And then a year later, he goes back to really complex layered arrangements for the Friends-era recording, parts of which we hear on the Twofer mix of CWTL.

And even during the 'simplification' period of Wild Honey (if you can fairly call it that), there's still a hell of a lot of studio 'trickery' going on... an absolute continuation of the advanced sectional recording, mixing and splicing techniques he started using in earnest on SMiLE. Three tracks on Wild Honey that I can think of, at least, were built like that (Darlin', A Thing Or Two, and Here Comes The Night), using a small piece of recorded performance with different overdubs multiple times, mixed down into different verses and cut together (like the SMiLE version of Vega-Tables). There may have been more, but those are the obvious ones to me. They're recorded performances that never existed as through-recorded songs, as far as I can tell — only as mix assemblies from multitrack fragments.

So it's getting sort of simultaneously less complex musically after SMiLE, then more complex again after Wild Honey. And all the while the technical aspects of the recordings are in some ways just as groundbreaking as SMiLE was. You'd have been completely worn out even if you weren't dealing with inter-band squabbles, a collapse in the public's public standing, incipient (and escalating) serious drug abuse and mental illness, and the ruptured (and then poorly mended) relations with the ever-less interested record company... What a couple of years it must have been. And not in a good way.

It's cool to hear you mention the complexities of the recording process for SS and WH. It's an element I've been wanting to expand on for a long time. After reading in the Preiss book those descriptions from Jim Lockert on how they did all that stuff, I also realized he was describing both SS and WH.

It was a process that would become standard practice with the advent of digital sequencing and then ProTools and all the surrounding DAW and editing technology that has been bundled with the most basic Mac products for years at this point. The copy-and-paste method of recording sections and pasting them versus trying to capture a full performance as a basic track. This was 1967, with the tape reels and the razor blade editing as the only tools to make that happen.

I've always said that SS and WH were 'deceptively simple' in terms of what they sound like versus how they were recorded and created in the studio and in the mix process. It goes against the back to basic ethos which the albums were tagged as being a part of, in terms of the methods. Yet there was the attempt more clear on WH (and the Hawaii concerts) to make recordings that would sound the same and translate well to a live audience, as the band had taken heat up to May '67 for not being able to reproduce the records those ticket buyers were familiar with.

Yet, trying to reconcile that pursuit with the way the latter half of '67 was recorded...it's an interesting contradiction for sure.

I'd add "Aren't You Glad" to the list of songs that had the copy-and-paste method of recording and re-using sections versus full backing tracks performed continuously. But...I need to confirm that to be 100% positive... :)

I agree that there sadly still isn't an officially released, "definitive" version of Can't Wait Too Long.

As already stated, the Good Vibrations box set version has that wonderful spoken interlude section, which I personally love, but lacks the last section in the SS/WH twofer.

Those mixes also lack the I Believe In Miracles section (which may or may not be truly meant for CWTL) as well as a section that appears immediately after Miracles only in bootlegs, with a prominent rhythmic element and wordless "aaaahs" from the Boys. I was hoping that part was going to finally see legitimate release this time around.

Ah, the irony of fans commenting on a track named Can't Wait Too Long after it was recorded some fifty years ago and "officially" released now?  Guess we could wait too long, huh?

How many times has it been officially released now in different forms----four times? And it's still largely shrouded in mystery. Which suits me fine. It's kind of taken over where Smile left off...

I created my own edit of the twofer version that cuts the "way too long, been way too long baby" section in half, which as far as I'm concerned makes it perfect in every way. Hearing any new released version is interesting, but I'll only listen to it a couple of times.

Oddly, I find the "repetitive" full-length "way too long baby" section to be wonderfully hypnotic and wouldn't dream of chopping it up!

The twofer version of "CWTL" may lack the spoken/sung bit about looking up at the stars but it's a small concession. I'd say it's perfect as it is.

Same here.  I specifically searched this topic hoping to find that section.   Does anyone know what it was meant for?  Are we sure it is only in boots at this time? 

id like a version that contains ALL sections - 'full strength full length' said the actress to the bishop

Yeah the 2-fer version of compiling all those takes together will always be my favorite, but I'll always listen to any alternate "Cant Wait Too Long" that they decide to release. Definitely one of my favorite Brian tracks, but its sad how mysterious and "obscure" it still is to this day. Guess it's because it was never formally put together, not even with a rough mix

Those mixes also lack the I Believe In Miracles section (which may or may not be truly meant for CWTL) as well as a section that appears immediately after Miracles only in bootlegs, with a prominent rhythmic element and wordless "aaaahs" from the Boys. I was hoping that part was going to finally see legitimate release this time around.

As a huge fan of CWTL, I haven't heard any versions with I Believe In Miracles section - can you point me in the direction where I might find that?

I've also heard another version of the "way too long, can't wait too long baby" chant, featuring an additional vocal overdub by Brian singing something like, "baby you know, I can't wait forever". Here's to hoping for more of this amazing song on a possible 1968 collection ;)

".....as well as a section that appears immediately after Miracles only in bootlegs, with a prominent rhythmic element and wordless "aaaahs" from the Boys."

yes, this particular section mentioned a post or two above has long tantalized & mystified me - has a name ever been put to it anywhere?  It is not the I Believe In Miracles vocal heard in MIC

All the talk about the complexity of the recording process during Smiley and Wild Honey, with modular recording and cut and paste methods, got me to thinking.  The REASONING behind Brian's modular technique during Smiley and certainly Wild Honey was very different than for Smile.  With Smile Brian wanted to be able to juggle sections within songs and between songs and replace sections with new sections, until he finally decided on a final format for the songs - as he did with Good Vibrations.  With Wild Honey it appears the songs were already structured in final form before recording - Brian just didn't want to hassle with having to get a satisfactory take of the song all the way through, with the multiple takes that would require with The Beach Boys as instrumentalists.  Easier to get one good take of the verse, one of the chorus, and use that as a template for the vocals for verse 1 and 2, and the chorus, etc.  so in a way it was less complicated for Brian, more complicated for Jim Lockhart.  Brian had always been doing The Beach Boys vocals piecemeal going back at least to Today and likely before, now he was doing the same with the instrumental backing.

The Smiley Smile Wind Chimes is 100 times more complex than the Smile version. Just listen to that chord progression. The vocal arrangement throughout is stunning, as is the performance. It's everythig that's great about Brian f**king Wilson in microcosm.

Don't be seduced by flashy production. If Smile is the Branderburg Concertos, Smiley Smile is the Art of Fugue. And forget the stereo version. Mono all the way. Stunning album.

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Sounds good. Nice work.

I like this very much.  As you say, the edits can use some polishing, but even as is, it blows away the versions on the two-fer, the GV box set and Sunshine Tomorrow.

Thanks. I'm obsessed with this song!

It does make more sense to think of them as two different songs from '67 and '68. A complete 'definitive' version is impossible. The structure just can't accomodate multiple versions of the same two progressions repeated again and again any more than you could do it for Good Vibrations.

Can't Wait Too Long to me isn't a song. It has two intros, a bridge and a fade

Well, the versions that have been released aren't really songs, because for whatever reason, the compilers haven't made the effort to put the various sections together in a way that makes some sense.  But as wjcrerar has shown, it's certainly possible.  Here's hoping that they do so next year.  Otherwise, fanmixes will be the best we have.

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If we assume that the 1990 SS/WH mix of CWTL contains the full '68 tape (discounting the WH tag), then it would have run longer than almost everything on Friends, and had somebody simply recorded a lead vocal, it would not seem any more malformed than "Passing By" or "Wake the World".

>Proof of concept< (https://puu.sh/xlDN8/d877274ea0.mp3) (ignore that the last fly-in does not match the chords, and thus was probably superfluous)

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That doesn't prove anything other than that they originally flirted with the idea of having two verse sections. You can hear it all over the Heroes and Villains and Good Vibrations sessions, sections that aren't supposed to be leading into each other and Brian inexplicably labeling something a "pick-up to second verse".

I sourced the vocal from US Vol.19 and the GV 1990 box set. Check out track 27 on US. The backing track (with overdubbed vocals) has only one verse section, exactly as on the released version.

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I Love WJCRAW Hipotesis

I'm interested to hear whatever he might do with the isolated vocals.

Is there any bootleg that collects all of the known circulating fragments/versions of this song? It's always been one of my favorite productions from Brian. But I only know the version on the 1990 twofer, the GV box set, the Get The Boot brief fragment, and now the Sunshine Tomorrow version. I'm not that well educated on the making of the song, and I'm kind of having a hard time trying to pick out the parts being discussed in this thread to follow along. I know bootlegs are illegal and frowned upon, so I really hope nobody tries to send me a compilation with every single fragment and version available.  :angel:

Its built partly around the bass line for the Smile chorus of Wind Chimes - as such I've wondered if the chorus melody of CWTL was originally the WC chorus melody..?

I'd love not to send you a comp but I can get my head round it. ;D

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 I think so - same as DYLW.  For DYLW there seem to have been extra lead vox that weren't on the mixes we have.

Wow. I've been listening to both tracks for years now, and I never made that connection. Of course, now that you mention it, it's so obvious it's like Brian himself is sticking his hand through my CD player and slapping me in the face.  ;D

Yeah, there's the Archeology box-set that has the extra "baby you know I can't hold out forever" backing vocals over the verses, which NOBODY seems to use in their fan or studio mixes (I'm looking at you wjcrerar, and you Linnet!) even though its a great little BB chant!

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I forget, what is the source for the story that they worked on CWTL during KTSA, and has ANYONE ever described what was done? Why is info on this track so maddeningly fragmentary!?

I hear what you're saying about Brian's voice on those vox, and the bad reverb certainly muddys it up, but it still "feels" like 60's BW to me, for what that's worth.
Also, that handclap/vocal intro is is so energetic and classic BW I cannot believe the archivists haven't given it a proper treatment! Hoping you can give it its due!

Read an old interview w/Pete Townsend where he was asked about Good Vibrations and the way it was put together, presumable the "modular thing".  This was in the time of GV's release, and he stated that is how he was working and seemed really rather non-plussed about it as a production, which somewhat surprised me as he later came across as a pretty big BBs fan per other quotes of his I have read...

As far as Can't Wait Too Long, I actually can wait quite a while to listen to it as I don't think it has aged that well and really is not that interesting musically as far as I am concerned.  It was too long and repetitious for an album track and couldn't have been a single because it didn't go anywhere or have any real hooks.  It does tend to dazzle a bit upon early listens, but then you realize there is just not that much going on over time....I now rank it an interesting curio but quite understand its long "officially" unreleased status....Ditto Ol' Man River, another fun curiosity, but just not in the pocket and sounds very demo-ish to me as released....Also ditto We're Together Again too, these things are exactly what they should be, bonus tracks!

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Oh man, that's great! That crummy reverb on the Archeology stuff does stand out, but at least this version has some sensible structure to it. A real treat to these ears.
I really appreciate your ability to organize in your mind these various pieces and create some kind of cohesive whole from them. I imagine you sitting in your leather easy-chair, in your lamp-lit mahogany study, quietly smoking your pipe as you contemplate putting these sound-puzzles together. To me they've always sounded like random, fragmentary ideas (SMiLe style) that BW hoped would somehow come together, but your various mixes (including your SMiLe) throw that idea out the window.
Anyway, good job!

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This doesn't really help, but as Grillo mentioned above, your efforts are really appreciated.  You've managed to take a "song" that was never fleshed out in its various releases and show what might have been (and, to some extent, what still could be).  This might be a riddle without a definite solution, but the best guess is still a very nice listen ....

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I've been away on holiday and missed all of the additions to this thread that happened at the end of August. Just catching up now. wjcrerar's analysis of the structure looks really interesting, but I need to work through and absorb all of his comments and track assembly attempts, and haven't had a chance to do any of that yet. But for now, I just *had* to reply to Hickory Violet's comment above...

As you may have independently realised by now... I wasn't referring to the Smiley version of Wind Chimes when I talked about Brian 'crushing down' the SMiLE version of the song to create a surf/garagey track — the surfy track I was talking about was the section of *Can't Wait Too Long* that's been used to make track 15, disc 1 on Sunshine Tomorrow, the version of the latter song on that compilation.

Names (of songs, sections etc) are always a problem with SMiLE-era stuff! But what I was talking about was how the SMiLE version of Wind Chimes mutated into the garagey/Motown-y 1967 version of Can't Wait Too Long, not the Smiley Smile Wind Chimes track.

You'll never hear negative criticism from me of anything on Smiley Smile, whatever the difficulties of how that album came about might have been. Ever since I first heard it over 20 years ago, I've *loved* it in all of its off-the-wall strangeitude. It's a beautiful thing. And the Smiley Wind Chimes is one of the most interesting parts of it. It's the same song as the SMiLE version... but on another level, it's IN NO WAY the same song. A great example of how to do a completely different take on the same fundamental song idea, by modifying chords, arrangement, and feel in the way that only someone operating on a high musical level, like 1967 BW, could achieve.

OK, now I'm off to work out what wjcrerar has been trying to get across here for the last couple of weeks...!

I'm feeling that Smiley Smile love Matt. I will listen to it tonight in your honour.

Could someone try analyse the 1978 Preiss tape version?

Just checked it, and I think the twofer version is an edit of it, follows the same structure.

UPDATE: Asides from small studio chatter which was deleted in the twofer, the 5th section listed is longer (2:20-4:30) and has an instrumental ending. LA might've had something similar to the twofer edit, I guess.