The Smiley Smile Message Board

Anyone else think of 2004 SMiLE as the matured version? Obviously matured in its age but I mean in the very way Brian approached the project again.

Recently I've come to wonder whether Brian is more aware than we have perhaps wrongly assumed, and in more power than we can understand, regarding the nature and direction of his work.

As an example, much is made about Darian and those guys doing most of the music in the studio without Brian, only bringing him in to put his necessary vocal down.

Well, Brian already did the work forty years ago and Darian has probably been into SMiLE for decades. What more does he have to do?

Get the guys in there to do the tracks again. Done. Simple. But what did Brian actually bring to 2004 SMiLE than neither Darian & Co could replicate or predict? Maturity.

The SMiLE of 1966 and 1967, which, while dealing with some very high level concepts both musically and lyrically, presented the entire thing with an air of childishness. And not in the sense that they were purposely putting on that role, but that its source came from there. Brian. The Sandbox. Simple. But SMiLE 2004, with Brian's deeper voice and colored by time individual style showing, has an air of unmistakable maturity. A calm, grandfatherly sort of thing. I no longer seem to be hearing Brian Wilson the adult/child but Brian Wilson the Man, who by putting on an unpretentious air of childish whimsy and simplicity cleverly hides his real nature in order to present something to us : presenting SMiLE

"Our Prayer" is no longer an ecstatic breakthrough piece , but an aged and sombre invocation of sacredness through sound.

There is a melancholy color in it, but in the sense of recalling a previous but now conquered struggle one has gone through in the course of one's development.

 Before it was like a sudden death.
Goodbye Surfing, Hello God?
 Direct, sudden, revealing of the light.

A penetrative breakthrough into the transcendental. It could have caused people to pass out within seconds of hearing it. Just as church bells used to singularly call the faithful and deep to their worship, and the muezzin's solemn and triumphant call awaken a profound faith in the believers, "Our Prayer" would've spoken to specific people directly, and when not speaking directly offering a gateless gate to its kingdom, free for all who desire entry.

Of course, part of the whimsy of SMiLE is that it has successfully blended inconceivably deep pieces ("Our Prayer", "Surf's Up", "Child is Father of the Man", "Cabinessence") with delightfully playful yet still musically and unconventionally unique pieces ("Barnyard", "Vega-tables", etc) without anything sounding amiss.

The Beatles mixed various styles on Sgt. Pepper and their albums of that era but in this mind's opinion their work was jumpy and inconsistent, sounding like a fractured group rather than a single, powerful, masterful central reality or mind as Brian was.

At the moment, I'm feeling confidant that Brian is all that I said before. I'm listening to 2004 SMiLE now after listening to "Alternate Brian Wilson Presents Smile" and like mentioned, there is the unmistakable presence of maturity. This is Brian returning to an original vision he had in his mid 20s while he was like a fish caught in a net of frantic lifestyles and cultural trends, and expounding it again as a 64 year old or however old he was when he made it.

It's less druggy on the whole. The original SMiLE music and most of Brian's music from that time reeked of drugs. Everything was tinged by drugs and the rapid, always changing experiences Brian and the others were having DAILY. It was all over the place and yet still centered - like a child spinning on the ground like a whirling dervish. Ha!

Less druggy, but no less interesting to hear. If you consider reading an engrossing fiction book as a non-chemical intoxication as I do, in the sense that one's awareness is wholly given to some external activity rather than poised in the self, then SMiLE 2004 is more like getting into a good book than having a drug experience (whose qualities are generally ones of instability, teetering over the edge of insanity and the edge of enlightenment at once, the razor's edge).

I don't feel like Brian is trying to make our heads spin anymore. He doesn't want to freak people out, but invite them into his world. Freaking them out almost seems rude to an elderly perspective. I should know, I'm 95 and don't look a day over zero.

You can see it in his performance live. His smiles are effortless and detached. He knows what he's doing, and when he looks into the audience to see how his vision is being received he either smiles warmly with recognition or laughs with the laugh of one who knows in the presence of those who don't. Sometimes while singing various lines I sense some inner throb happening there, a sort of private joke with himself, or a private recognition of the beauty and meaning.

SMiLE 2004 is Brian's returning to his spiritual awakening and realization that happened in 1966 or whenever he had his most powerful psychedelic experiences and giving it his aged perspective, or presenting it like an old fellow tells a story of both wit and deep meaning.

If Bill Tobelman is right, and I don't have a doubt about his important work on all this, then SMiLE 2004 is the aged Brian Wilson reflecting back on it. If it was a Song that blossomed like a flower from the core of his being then he is singing it again in celebration. But now he sings it not with the fresh wonder of the newly born post-larval but the aged wisdom of many other experiences which completed the initial breakthrough.

I have to express something that is quite important. The real differences between the psychedelic experience, when it seems to be in harmony with Eastern philosophies (assuming that these are the sciences of realization, i.e., yoga, tantra, etc and their schools of thought and culture) is that when those systems discuss "ego-death" it is in an entirely different context to the drug culture's use of it. On the drug, the nervous system and brain and whatever else are being altered by the chemical. It can totally overwhelm the system and if one struggles against this process, trying to remain grounded in the former state, it creates an incredible disharmony. It is usually related to a sudden fear of becoming fractured. Suddenly the "I" seems to have been changed, and then one fears that if this "I" can be changed so easily through some chemical, then it's like pulling the rug out from under reality. If I am not who I think I am, what am I? This "I" is the ego of the drug experience. The "I" which clings to its former state or which suffers to receive the new and abandon the old is the ego which may entirely dissolve or suffer gross contortions during a drug experience. Perhaps it will not dissolve as such (i.e., disappear as an active player for some time) but 'shrink' or experience memories from the perspective of that newly contracted "I" (generated different perspectives on previously experienced happenings). When it does dissolve, it reveals that which preceded it and was its basis. The ego was but a wave on the ocean surface. Deep down the depths remained still. Due to the chemical nature of this experience, it happens automatically and forcefully. One can do little but accept that it is happening and you can't do crap about it. Now, in the experience of transcendence through meditation, as written about in those Eastern inner sciences, the mind is transcended through self-effort. By this I mean the willingness to remain centered and one-pointed in that central consciousness that is already present. That willingness and receptiveness develops into a union with that central consciousness. Then various mind-born images may form. The whole process is from gross to subtle to subtlest. After going beyond body consciousness (by excluding these sensations from consciousness, they simply vanish from it) one is in the same realm where we dream and have inner drug experiences. Here, if one is inclined to it, one can create these inner images, or explore memories vividly actually 'seeing' the memory on the screen of mind, one 'watches' this as much as one watches television in a room. Or one can remain in that central consciousness and then even this mind realm dissolves. The ego as the limited self "I" operative in normal waking states belonged to the body and mind. When these dissolve and that central consciousness remains, they are transcended. This is experienced with a profoundly detached feeling of security, of being established in one's own indestructible nature. A sense of fearlessness while traversing the void of the inner sky pervades.

I feel the same witnessing state of consciousness may be accessed through drugs but can rarely be stabilized there due to taking the ride up the mountain in the helicopter. These states are stabilized by offering all experiences into that inner sky of consciousness where they dissolve. Nothing is excluded.

It's difficult for me to recall my chemical experiences of ego-death. You must understand, whoever is unfamiliar with these things, that ego-death does NOT imply (or if it does, they are sorely mistaken) a permanent destruction of the ego. It is not that one experiences ego-death and then is no longer a person. The chemical ego-death is an overwhelming of mind and psyche and it temporarily throws the ego to the side. When one realizes the self in meditation, one comes back to ordinary consciousness with emptiness. The emptiness that Buddha spoke of, I don't mean any negative sort of thing. The emptiness that caused flowers to fall of Subhuti. The limited-"I" consciousness, the egoic state of contraction, simply resolves into its deeper nature which is the central, source consciousness, universal "I"-consciousness. But this state too can be lost if one is unaware and allows previous habits of mind to rise again or be caused. The difference, however, between this state and the unfortunate post-intoxication state of drugs, is that one knows exactly how one "got there" and can "go back" without relying on anything external to themselves. It is just moving deeper into your self. There all mysterious have their source.

The reason I talk about all this stuff is because Brian and the whole movement back then was based on this stuff. The Tibetan Book of the Dead which Leary and Alpert made so popular in acid culture comes from a tradition which was meditation-based. Drugs existed within the culture and time it came from but it was a manual of sorts created through a rich tradition of very sober yogic practices. I think they would have laughed to find how their teachings took form in the drug culture's philosophies. The most dangerous thing about the misunderstanding that pervades the drug culture about the nature of mind and ego is that they offer an apparent experience of the transcendent realms of consciousness but offer no way to make it permanent. This is exactly the point Meher Baba meant when he termed it as "God In A Pill?"

Which leads to a more related question: Brian's big spiritual experiences, which Bill talks about extensively ... did he really use them wisely? Did they solve it all for him? Seems like Brian suddenly had a lot of problems after these experiences. Or did he just have the experiences, which then left him with but a memory. The meaning remained for a while but as time went on it was changed. 

I wrote this while I was high, which needs a mentioning because I really shouldn't attempt to write while intoxicated because my train of thought changes about every three seconds (not joking). Due to that, I try to cram as much into one effort at expressing an overall something and it never works out as intended. Yet, while sober, I rarely feel inclined to gush my thoughts out to anyone, preferring much more to remain silent inside and outside.

It was matured and very polished, which IMO is kinda a bad thing.

Still love it though, but 'what could of been' still comes to mind while playing it.

Wow, that was an incredibly long-winded post.

I do agree, though. And I also wonder "what could have been." It amazes me that it was around (I mean the music) back in the 60s, because it really was way ahead of its time. It's hard for me to imagine being able to create something like that that no one else had touched before and that was almost completely new. It really sounds like something that was meant to be released in this decade, so I guess it was just meant to happen that way.

i didn't mean for this to be a "what could have been" thread, but a look at the element brian brought to the new recordings : maturity.

for example, you might hear an old woman sing a simple children's song. it doesn't mean she has the mental age and awareness of a child, just that she can enjoy it and is adding something to it. same thing here.

however i agree about the sound of BWPS, i wish it had a more warm, close sound. and i wish that ocean wave of harmony on the chorus of Child is Father of the Man that was on the original was done for BWPS because it was my favorite part of the old smile tracks ... indistinct, takes about ten listens to hear, but then becomes immediately rewarding upon each listen

nobody, I have never read a post that I disagreed with more.

But, I respect your opinion and I respect your right to express it. :police:

What the hell is there to disagree with so confidently? At least tell me which parts because I addressed a wide-range of subjects.

Just take everything you wrote and turn it completely around.

Seriously, I'm too burned out on it right now. Plus, people on the board have read my opinions over and over - they're sick of them. However, it doesn't take much to get me goin', so, continue on and maybe my blood pressure will rise once again!

Surely you do not disagree with my big paragraphs on the differences between drugs and meditation?

SJS has issues with BWPS. 

FWIW,  Nobody, I read your entire post and thought (regardless of of your state of sobriety when you wrote it) was probably the one that I find myself agreeing with more than most of the folks here.

You're a cynic when it comes to Brian's career, but a pure optimist when it comes to things like a reunion, SJS. It's a little bit confusing, to be honest  ;D

I, for one, appreciate the technical quality of quoting in this thread heartening. But I'm giving those quotes low scores because, well, that's a long fucking post to quote in its entirety. So combined score (technical + art / 2) is about a 3.7.

I don't agree.

You might not agree but it's the truth. You don't see the gigantic gulf between what Brian was doing before getting heavily into drugs and after? You're blind if you don't. There's a clear relation between Brian's change in lifestyle (new friends with lots of drugs) and his newer music. Have you used drugs?

Brian was no casual drug user by all accounts in the mid-60s. Read about the tent? All kinds of weird stuff happening around him due to drugs. SMiLE is an ode to drugs in the same way Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is. You can deny it, but you sound like a moron in doing so.

I'll agree that it changed, shore, but I will not agree that it "reeked of drugs" or is an "ode to drugs". Seriously?

As much as one feels fit after a banana or slothful after a box of cookies, yes.

Their influence is undeniable and strong.

I'm not saying it's a good thing. I think Brian could've turned on without drugs and we would've had a whole different story to follow. One with more ups than downs, probably.

I don't think there's anything in the Beach Boys' discography, released or otherwise, that "reeks of drugs". Maybe Smiley Smile, but Smiley Smile is like the denouement after a bad trip.

As we say in Britain, "bollocks". To my mind SMiLE 2004, far more than 1966/67, is a song for children. The artwork, and much of the music concept, is a work aimed at making children - probably adopted children - smile.


The 2004 version suffered from lacking the way the original BBs's voices melded together. That, and the occasional, out-of-tune voice.


I'm sure Brian thinks the same!


is this suddenly a Brian Wilson mix then? His intended vision from the '60s? Or a fan mix?



Like something else I've read recently... what was it now?


These days I prefer a good coffee myself. Anyone else notice that if you don't have coffee for 24 hours you start to get headaches, but if you drink too much you become hyperactive and have anxiety attacks?


This is the paragraph which prompted me to respond to this post because it's sheer invention. It's what we as fans would like to think is happening but it's a million miles from the truth. Wilson's behaviour onstage is nothing like this. I suspect you've been to a Van Dyke Parks concert under the misplace belief that Brian Wilson is a short guy with whitening hair and a burlesque moustache. When Brian smiles on stage it seems to me as if it's because he's been told to, or suddenly remembered that it's an unscripted but essential part of the show.


Nothing to do with him saying that his wife and manager thought it was a good idea then?


Thank you for one of the most engrossing posts I've read for a long time. Please don't talk my crits and jibes to heart -  I suspect I'm projecting my envy as I don't have the time or inclination to think or inhale that deeply.  Haven't smoked anything for five years (roundabout the day before I walked over the border from California into Oregon, to be precise) as I realised, after losing an entire evening, that there was f**-all benefit to the stuff.

Great post. One has to marvel at what your creative output could  be if you weren't stoned!

Brian obviously wouldn`t have written some of those songs with out various stimulants so `reeks of drugs` seems fair enough.

Also, can`t agree with the original poster. I think the only mature thing about the new Smile over the old were Brian`s vocals and that Brian contributed little else.

Very interesting post, nobody, but I've got to pretty much agree with Sheriff here.  If anything, BWPS is the watered-down SMiLE.

Hoo boy, this again.

I’m as big a booster of BWPS as anyone, but even I don’t read too much into what Brian may be thinking while he performs.  As many others have stated, he’s there and he’s not there, from one second to the next, so at any one moment he might be in transcendent bliss, then he’s thinking about the ice-cold Miller Lite waiting for him offstage.  Or what time it is.  Or how long till that big juicy steak back at the hotel.

In a real sense Wee Helper’s opinion and “nobody’s” can co-exist; Brian could well be singing of childish things with child-like wonder, but also filtered through his 40+ years since then.  It can be both; ask Peter Paul & Mary (well, Peter and Paul) about songs like “Puff The Magic Dragon”.   Or They Might Be Giants, aging hipsters whose stuff is now beloved by kids.

Written while you were high, huh?  I don’t suppose, Mr. Nobody, you brought enough for the rest of the class to share?

Now we return you to the official Smiley Smile Board party line.  BWPS stinks!  It should be suppressed and all copies burnt!  The wife made him do it!  It’s the Darian fan-mix so let’s yell at him!  The new stuff blows!  Fake harpsichords! Fake harpsichords!  Auto-tuning!  Where’s the other BB?  Where’s Mike and Al?  Can’t they fly in and pitch-correct some “oohs” from Carl off some multi-track?  Sample in some snare thwacks from a Dennis session?  Only the 1966 stuff is the real SMILE!

etc., etc.

There is absolutely nothing spiritual about taking LSD or any perception altering substance for that matter. It is just your wonderful brain getting a free pass to indulge itself and all the blessed litter neuro-transmitters that normally sit around all day twiddling their thumbs waiting for you to go to sleep...and dream.

The human brain is more powerful than all the philosophies, theories and ideas in the world rolled into one. Take moving pictures for example. Show the human brain at least 15 sequential still images and voila! Hourney to the Moon, The Birth of A Nation,  Citizen Kane, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Weekend At Bernies,  whatever you like. It's your brain!! The pictures are NOT moving. Your brain is moving them. And that's without drugs. Just looking at stuff.

The same things that were being said by people about acid in the sixties were said by people about MDMA in the eighties. They even called it the second summer of love for chrissakes. Now most of us are quite happy that we danced and smoked and drank and shagged but didn't go irretrievably crazy. If you like to think getting stoned is anything more than that then you ego has been far from death, Jim. In fact, only an ego would place more importance on a chemical reaction than it's due. To quote Bill Hicks " It's no more a miracle than eating some food and then later a turd falling out of your ass"

Anyway.. what was I saying?

Hey, if everybody agreed that those tracks in BWPS are inferior carbon copies of the '66 tracks we wouldn't argue so much about it.  :)

I don't think you read the parts of my post which are relevant to what you just wrote. My post exposed the vast gulf between the experiences of drugs and the experiences of meditation.

However, you cannot say "there is nothing spiritual about taking LSD" until you define "spiritual" for yourself. Who's to say? Obviously it's been very "spiritual" for many people, as have other drugs and other experiences in life far removed from whatever traditional image one might have in mind of such experiences.

The point of departure as I see it is when misguided and ignorant gurus in the drug culture's philosophical schools claim that drugs lead to the same state of yogic realization that is traditionally reached through (sober) meditation. These people have no experience of those states as attained by sober meditation and their comparison is worthless, misleading, and dangerous.

So I don't know what point you were trying to make but it seems you read a few lines, assumed you knew what I was talking about and where I was going, and then made your post.

Thanks, Nobody, for starting a firestorm of intelligent discourse.  I won't even attempt to comment on your ideas until I've further absorbed them.  Fantastic stream of consciousness (or altered consciousness) writing!  Keep it comin'.

You're most welcome, B-Rex. I'm glad to know my posts aren't universally despised here. I'm aware that I'm not the best writer and that I drift around the main themes but I think I always get something interesting out.

I should point out that expressing an idea or theory does not necessarily mean I believe it 24/7. My thoughts on SMiLE and all those things are like lightning bugs shining for a moment and then vanishing. I don't cling to them.

Hicks, btw, was speaking of babies, not drugs, when he used that line. In fact Hicks loved cocaine and did some great bits about weed and 'shrooms, so it's a little lame to use Bill to defend your view. Just saying...

I think it's lame to quote a comedian on an issue like that in the first place. Maybe I just have a dead sense of humor but I never understood the appeal of stand-up comedians. I feel so far removed from that sort of thing. Bill Hicks is that guy with the famous line about taking psychedelics and realizing everything is one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, right? I don't particularly disagree with that but I hate when people quote it seriously.

For goodness sake.

I was only palyfully popping the pompous bubble that is this thread, which is veering from a discussion on whether or not BWPS sounds as good as Smile '66 and what happens when you take acid. Who said I was replying to your post specifically anyway?

There is no need to torment yourselves trying to figure out what the point of my post was as it obviously doesn't have one.  Judging by the increasing amount of people on here arguing whith each other while talking at completely crossed purposes. This is why twitter rules.

.....What was I saying again? It doesn't matter.