The Smiley Smile Message Board

I fully understand that this a topic that has been discussed exhaustively in this board, sometimes to members’ dismays.
In December 1966, Brian Wilson created a work-in-progress compilation reel of songs that were intended for The Beach Boys’ “Smile” album, which was slated for release later that month. This reel included tracks: “Cabin Essence, Do You Like Worms, Wonderful, Child is The Father of The Man, Vega-Tables, Heroes and Villains, and Our Prayer.”
Using this reel’s track sequence as a starting-point, I’ve created my own track-list featuring 12 songs:

Side One:
1. Good Vibrations
2. Cabin Essence
3. Do You Like Worms
4. Wonderful
5. Child is The Father of The Man
6. Vega-Tables

Side Two:
7. Heroes and Villains
8. The Elements
9. I’m In Great Shape
10. The Old Master Painter
11. Wind Chimes
12. Surf’s Up (w/ hidden track: Our Prayer)

I would like to call this the December 1966 track-list.
If you like the track-list, I could make a fan-mix around it. What do you guys think?

Looks good, OMP. "Exhaustively" may be an understatement! And I think members were daunted rather than dismayed by the sheer quantity of on-board traffic on the subject. I know I was.

Since then, I've been getting into fan-mixes, as I now feel that what was good for BWPS (a fantastic achievement) is not necessarily good for Smile '66/'67. So your own fan-mix would be most welcome. :=)

It's good.

But my thinking is that chronologically speaking, Do You Like Worms is about the discovery of the New World - 1600s, the Mayflower, and Plymouth Rock. Cabin Essence, meanwhile is about frontierism - the 1800s, Westward expansion, the creation of the railroad. They are definitely connected. Together they tell a story of ongoing territorial expansion but I think the order needs to start with Worms then into Cabin.

I will consider that as well. Thanks!

I also came up with another track-list, but it isn’t based on any specific compilation reel as a guide. It goes:

Side One:
1. Good Vibrations
2. Do You Like Worms
3. Cabin Essence
4. Wind Chimes
5. The Elements
6. I’m In Great Shape

Side Two:
7. Vega-Tables
8. Heroes and Villain
9. The Old Master Painter
10. Wonderful
11. Child is The Father of The Man
12. Surf’s Up

What do you think?

That looks great too. Honestly, I have nothing but respect for those who try and figure this all out. It doesn't surprise me that Brian himself struggled with this.

Personally, I am very much hung up on narrative of expansion. I also see Heroes and Villains as being an essential part of it. After all, in the frontier myth, California was the end point of the westward expansion - hence, it's special place in the American narrative. It is the land of dreams - the culmination of everything we were trying to get to (but the restless spirit of course has to continue and so the narrative went upwards into space - hence, the immortal words of James T. Kirk, "Space: the final frontier," a more American phrase there could not be). But the way people thought about space, the moon, and beyond in 1966 was the way settlers and travels once imagined California. And thus, for me, Heroes and Villains is the culmination of the trip that starts in Do You Like Worms? They reach California. But all along the way, the settlers had to confront the fact that this was not their territory or at least not solely their territory ("Bicycle rider, just see what you've done," "Who ran the iron horse?") and the same is at work in H&V as English meets Spanish.

Now is this theme only three songs long? Maybe but maybe not. I can't for the life of me see how I'm in Great Shape and Barnyard fit into this narrative - at least not without stretching really hard. To me, they fit in better with Vega-Tables and Eat a Lot. So this is probably why I'm in Great Shape is spun out of H&V into its own track by December.

So what does that leave us with? Most significantly, Surf's Up. I know - placing Worms, CE, H&V, and SU together is a real whammo and a better person would keep them separate so as not to give the lister all the classics at once. But Surf's Up plays so well within this narrative. We have seen the arrival, the expansion, the end of the expansion in California, and Surf's Up is when it all comes crashing down - we are now into the future of the great society that has been being built up over the previous three songs and it's all falling apart now. Appropriately, it would take us further west, right into the ocean where the surf is literally up - back on the water where Do You Like Worms appears to begin but instead of waving hello as the explorers arrive, we are waving goodbye to the columnated ruins.

What else? Well, what about Child is Father of the Man? It's been long assumed that the reference to it as a cowboy song is an error. I'm ok with operating under that assumption. However, it is worth noting that the title of the song takes us back to Wordsworth, the Romantics, and the beginnings of the 19th century, placing us within the time frame of Cabin Essence and Heroes and Villains. The title also happens to derive from the century that saw the emergence of cowboy culture. The downside? It's often paired up with Surf's Up (but this might not be a downside as we see above). Also, I really don't see how Wordsworth figures in as a British poet. With that in mind, though, Parks did refer to Cabin Essence as a Gothic trip and Gothic fiction does emerge in the Romantic era.

What about Wonderful? Well, it is a song about about the loss of innocence with references to liberty, religion, etc. Could be a preface to Surf's Up as well along with Child.

And if religious themes are being brought in then The Old Master Painter relates. And My Only Sunshine does connect thematically with H&V and the loss of a loved one.

So unless I'm forgetting something, that leaves us with Good Vibrations, Vega-Tables, I'm in Great Shape/Barnyard, Wind Chimes, and The Elements. Only five songs, but one was presumably made up of four tracks and who knows what that could have turned out to be. That leaves with a collection of songs that focus on both the material (the body) and the immaterial (elements, vibrations, etc).

After much consideration, I have created a track-list that is based on your explanation of prominent themes that are noticed in the music and lyrics of ‘Smile’, and with emphasis on migrant expansion throughout the progression of American history. I have only slotted Good Vibrations to be the first track on “Side One” because I believe it was meant to follow “Our Prayer.”

Side One:

1. Good Vibrations
2. Do You Like Worms
3. Cabin Essence
4. Wonderful
5. Child is The Father of The Man
6. The Old Master Painter

Side Two:

7. Heroes and Villains
8. The Elements
9. I’m In Great Shape
10. Vega-Tables
11. Wind Chimes
12. Surf’s Up

Of course, this track-list is a compromise between the prominent Americana/expansion theme and the elements/vibrations/cycle of life theme because I believe those themes were interrelated at one point before the focus shifted toward the “Heroes and Villains” single in 1967.  

Wow! That's really cool -- now the theme runs through the whole album. Never thought of that before. Very impressed. I'll have to try and rig that order up myself soon.

I was under the impression from interviews .. Our Prayer was the opening track on Smile and it went into H+V .. cantina version..

That sounds quite interesting there. I can’t recall an interview from that period in which Brian Wilson said that “Our Prayer” preceded that “cantina” version of “Heroes and Villains.” Would you mind going through the trouble to find that quotation? That would be very revealing information.

Musically, Our Prayer would have worked great as an intro if GV had been the first track. You're Welcome works as an intro to H&V . It was only 2004 that we got Prayer into H&V. I love BWPS, but that beginning is very clunky. Imagine how much cooler You're Welcome woukd have been, if they'd all walked onstage singing it like the boxed set outtake!

You're Welcome - intro to the album.

My fan mix will be out by December or January. Mixing “Vega-Tables” is going to take a while!

Ha! Where have I heard that before???

:lol

@oldmasterpainter, can’t wait to hear your mix!

I am going to wait a maximum of 37 years....

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Okay, this is the fourth time I’ve posted something like this, so if it’s ignored, that’s totally fine, but if you all have a moment to listen to my finished mix of the first side, that would be much appreciated. I scrapped the ‘duophonic’ concept, so it’s available in mono.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1L_YcrRzSMmlcMLAzIpOiRnh-SS5vWyAK