The Smiley Smile Message Board

My favorite is the Cycle Of Life section. Wonderful and Surf's Up are two of Brian's most beautiful compositions and Song For Children and Child Of Father Of The Man are the perfect bridge between these songs. The way these two songs are building up to Surf's Up is just magical.

*edit* typo in the subject

Oh, you mean BWPS!

I agree with you.

Very hard but I voted for "Elements" because I felt like this at the moment...

The first half, with "Heroes" and that lot -- the "old west" kinda movement.

Though my favorite FAVORITE bit is "Holidays" with the new lyrics.

The "cycle of life" section I feel is most perfetly contructed, but the chorus lyrics for
"song for children" takes away the impact from the song with the same name.

Even though I once did the same thread, I just found out that I'm not able to vote. They are all soo DIFFERENT, and that's exactly what I like about them. Each one has it's own unique mood/feel. The sound of the second movement is very close to Gershwin, while the third one reminds me very much of Charles Ives.... If you would hold a gun on my head, I would go with the third one, because it contains the biggest "amount of music". But then I would have to live without "Surf's Up".... no, I really can't decide.

In my opinion, the second movement of Smile ranks up there with Good Vibrations as the best thing Brian's ever done.

The cycle of life section blew my mind at the RFH concert in 04. This was the first time I ever heard Look/SFC and Child is the Father of the Man and at the risk of sounding pretentious I swear I had an epiphany of sorts. These songs were like hearing God Only knows for the first time - they were like a missing fragment of Pet Sounds, yet at the same time they seemed so beautifully sad in the context of Brian Wilson's tragic story. They just seemed to resonate with me on so many levels. From that point on I was obsessed with Smile and have never tired of BWPS. I love the Americana section and the Elements too but I think this sequence is so beautifully conceived that you can almost believe that this was how it was intended in 66/67!

I know that I was certainly mesmerized when I witnessed the SMiLE show in Cleveland in Oct. 2004. No doubt about it. Pure musical magic.

The "doing doings" in Cabin Essence get me every time.

I used to really like the 2nd movement, but then slowly the third movement grew on me.  I like how they kind of put GV on there to represent 'ether', the way it effortlessly flows from track to track too is brilliant.  Holiday and Blue Hawaii are both gorgeous, the way the whispering winds float through the intro to Wind Chimes, etc.  It's all just a masterpiece.  The second movement is very beautiful, but the third movement I like because it's so dynamic, insane, and brilliant at the same time.  The Americana movement drags for me... I like Barnyard, Prayer, and Gee, but a lot of the other sections are kind of repetitive to me and don't hold up to repeated listenings.  I even like the "rock, rock, roll" part better when it's in Holidays.  Also, there's more 'story' involved in the third movement since it's reportedly (who's to say, though?) the one movement that Brian hadn't conceptualized completely or completed in the 60's. 

I can't pick one. I'd pick all three if I could. They're all great. How do you pick one great cherry out of an orchard full of them? (Bad analogy, I know)