The Smiley Smile Message Board

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL6TQ9thSNo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL6TQ9thSNo)

I'm So Young might get overlooked -- it's so simple and sort of nostalgic.  But did you know that it portends novel future production ideas?  Watch the video to find out what those are!

Not a BW original, but even though it's from an album full of great BW originals (plus one other cover), it's still probably my favorite cut on the album!  In close competition with the next two cuts...

Glad to hear some support for the track!

I think I may have mentioned this recently somewhere else, but for some reason when an uncle of mine gave me a dub of Pet Sounds, he put I'm So Young at the end of it, right after the train.  I knew it wasn't part of Pet Sounds, but it became firmly associated with a sort of post Caroline, No catharsis and release.  So it'll always be a special one for me.  I remember driving around never taking that tape out of the deck for months on end.

Great insights! Lots of things I hadn't picked up on due to the swimmy mono mix. I thought you were going to suggest that the sparse arrangement and growly organ were presaging Smiley Smile, though the one on the actual BBs track is a bit creamier.

Don’t have much to add, but I enjoy watching these!

My exact thoughts. I wish I had more to add to the discussion, but I'm just happy seeing how these songs are recreated. Actually, one thing I found interesting when listening to the recreated backing track was how bare-bones the instrumental is (I never really noticed how sparse it was)...The Beach Boys vocals really take this song to a whole new dimension.

Great work aeijtzsche!

Thanks, It's really nice to hear that people are enjoying my work.

Incidentally, Thanks to those of you here that have subscribed to the channel, I just hit the 200 subscriber mark, which is about 195 more than I expected.

Make that 202

197 more than I expected!!

 Absolute gold, once again. Thank you so much for doing these videos. Captivating and fascinating.

Nice video.

I really enjoy "I'm So Young," but it seemed to me that earlier Brian had written his own version of the song with "We'll Run Away," about being too young to get married.

"We'll Run Away" is one of my favorites, by the way,

Here is a related question that as far as I can tell hasn't been discussed here or over yonder in the more elaborate "I'm So Young" thread. Just exactly when did Brian start preparing this song (and his own original compositions) for the TODAY LP? The session dates place the recording in early January, which is darned close to his breakdown on the airplane.

The session dates tell us that of the tracks on TODAY, "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" came first (barely after sessions for ALL SUMMER LONG), followed by "When I Grow Up" and "She Knows Me Too Well" in August. A first cut at "I'm So Young" followed in September--JH, was any of this track retained in the final version?

"Dance, Dance, Dance" was next in October, rush released as a single later the same month. Most of November was taken up with touring (UK, Europe, East Coast USA). Then a couple of weeks of downtime in LA in the first half of December, when Brian could've written a number of other tracks that weren't recorded till January. A first session for "Kiss Me Baby" on December 16, giving us two of the more advanced compositions clearly written before Brian's breakdown.

There are approximately two weeks before the next TODAY sessions occur, with fresh tracks (not worked on or existent previously) kicking off eight more days of studio work from 1/8-1/19, with "Please Let Me Wonder," "Help Me, Ronda," "Do You Wanna Dance," "Good to My Baby," a reworking of "I'm So Young,"  and "In the Back of My Mind."

So five new, previously unknown tracks emerge here, three up-tempo, two more reflective, but all having some connective tissue in terms of production and arrangement. If we look at the six tracks that wound up on TODAY from '64 and these five (apparently written late in '64 and possibly into '65), can we tease out anything about the two groups of songs that separate them?

Of course there are some assumptions in here that could easily be way off. JH, c-man--comments/corrections/etc. on this more "compositional" approach to how TODAY coalesced?