The Smiley Smile Message Board

Smiley Smile Stuff => General On Topic Discussions => Topic started by: Jason on February 18, 2006, 04:29:15 PM



Title: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Jason on February 18, 2006, 04:29:15 PM
I'm having a rather deep discussion with Katie about this, she seems to think Smile tells a story. I vehemently disagree. Am I alone here?


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: I. Spaceman on February 18, 2006, 04:35:56 PM
It tells three stories, that add up to a greater tapestry of American history told through song.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Jason on February 18, 2006, 04:42:47 PM
I don't see the connection, man. I believe Smile is thematic, it has the three distinct ideas. But I don't think ideas imply a story. Americana, Cycle of Life, and Elements. I don't think there's anything that even resembles a story in the Elements section. The Cycle of Life piece, that just seems like four of Brian's most beautiful songs put together in the same movement. Americana is the easiest one to consider as a story, but it jumps all over the place.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Reverend Joshua Sloane on February 18, 2006, 04:50:07 PM
It reads more like the index of a book.

You open the book and find several sections which you automatically assume all relate to each other and possible link up toward the end.

Chapter 1 - America, into the Old West

Chapter 2 - The Cycle Of Life 

Chapter 3 - The Elements

When I listen to the album I always have a distinct small town, 1800's image in mind. Where some topics may be universal (Wonderful etc) I attatch the theme to my own image of this little town. Perhaps that's not how the album was intended, or how you guys interpret it, but that's how I view it.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: I. Spaceman on February 18, 2006, 04:53:03 PM
I don't see the connection, man. I believe Smile is thematic, it has the three distinct ideas. But I don't think ideas imply a story. Americana, Cycle of Life, and Elements. I don't think there's anything that even resembles a story in the Elements section. The Cycle of Life piece, that just seems like four of Brian's most beautiful songs put together in the same movement. Americana is the easiest one to consider as a story, but it jumps all over the place.

So do Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson and Robert Altman's films.
Yotta think outside the box of linear storytelling. Stop thinking so literally.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Jason on February 18, 2006, 04:56:01 PM

So do uentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson and Robert Altman's films.
Yotta think outside the box of linear storytelling. Stop thinking so literally.

You know, when you put it that way, I agree.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Sheriff John Stone on February 18, 2006, 05:07:17 PM
The way Darian and Jeff, and, oh yeah, Brian, pieced it together, I suppose it could tell the story of the Bicycle Rider, who on his journey from Plymouth Rock to Blue Hawaii, faces the various heroes, villains, and elements.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: I. Spaceman on February 18, 2006, 05:09:02 PM
They straightened out a story that already existed and was intuitively created by Brian and Van DYke.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Sheriff John Stone on February 18, 2006, 05:11:25 PM
They straightened out a story that already existed and was intuitively created by Brian and Van DYke.

That's a good way of putting it, yes...


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Dr. Tim on February 18, 2006, 07:04:15 PM
In all the discussions about the "story" there's one little detail I've not seen mentioned anywhere: to the extent one thinks of the piece as a "journey", the "bicycle rider" never actually reaches Blue Hawaii.  He wants to.  But as the journey ends the next-to-last line is "so far away from Blue Hawaii."   Maybe he vibrates his way there.  BTW, while I go along with the "journey" idea as an organizing principle, there's no "plot" in the linear sense as there is in, say, Tommy, Quadrophenia, Arthur (the Kinks, not the Dudley Moore movie) or S.F. Sorrow (to use other rock examples).


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Jeff Mason on February 18, 2006, 07:37:13 PM
http://www.smileysmile.net/jeffmason.html

Just be gentle -- that was an ordinary few posts that got compiled and stored on the site by Charles and is not my best writing.  It could use a lot of editing.  But that is my take on what Smile is all about.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: runalot on February 18, 2006, 10:04:27 PM
If SMiLE "tells" a story, then so does Abbey Road.

A story? No way.  Not to me. I guess it depends. I look at it as a pack of great songs created by a great musician.




Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: I. Spaceman on February 18, 2006, 10:06:12 PM
Quote
then so does Abbey Road.

What are the recurring themes in that album?
Then I'll tell you the recurring themes in SMiLE.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: jabba2 on February 18, 2006, 10:26:45 PM
The instruments on Smile were all supposed to older kinds that would have been available in the old west, like Surf's Up with the pearls or whatever that jingle in the guys hand. Electric guitars and organs like on Smiley would not have been used in the original version.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: JRauch on February 19, 2006, 02:18:32 AM
Jeff´s essay pretty much nails it for me.

I like to watch at the movements as three (almost) seperate dreams. They don´t tell a specific story, but they cycle around a certain theme, the first one of course about America and so on. Kind of a "stream of consciousness"-thing, like what James Joyce tried to do with "Finnegans Wake".


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Old Rake on February 19, 2006, 09:11:35 AM
It strikes me constantly that the whole damn record is an americana trip and has a very STRONG thread throughy all the songs. Hell, think about it, even Mrs. O'Leary's Cow has an americana vibe, even Vega-Tables, every song basically hearkens back to an America of yore.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: buddhahat on February 19, 2006, 01:31:55 PM
Maybe a dumb question but is there evidence that 66 Smile was going to have 3 themes? I thought maybe the cycle of Life was a BWPS creation. Surely, Child was going to be a cowboy song so could have been part of Americana?


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: I. Spaceman on February 19, 2006, 01:35:45 PM
Quote
I thought maybe the cycle of Life was a BWPS creation.

It was assembled in that form for BWPS, sure.
But those tracks have musical and thematic links that probably would have met in a 67 SMiLE, IMO, had it been properly thought out and assembled.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Jason on February 19, 2006, 04:14:54 PM
Maybe a dumb question but is there evidence that 66 Smile was going to have 3 themes? I thought maybe the cycle of Life was a BWPS creation. Surely, Child was going to be a cowboy song so could have been part of Americana?

Brian told Peter Reum in 1981 that the three movement scheme was the plan.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: I. Spaceman on February 19, 2006, 04:15:41 PM
Exact quote?


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Jason on February 19, 2006, 04:16:14 PM
I don't have his exact quote, but Peter has posted about this here on several occasions.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: I. Spaceman on February 19, 2006, 04:18:31 PM
Peter??? Could you help with this?


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Jason on February 19, 2006, 04:20:50 PM
If the old board was still around I could've dug up Peter's post.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Jeff Mason on February 19, 2006, 05:05:51 PM
I'll vouch Ian.  Soon after the premiere of Smile, someone suggested revealing info that they had been sitting on for any length of time that was no longer needed to keep quiet.  Peter immediately piped up that Brian had confided in him back in 1981 that Smile was a three movement piece, along the lines of Rhapsody in Blue (though how those connected I never quite understood).  Peter DEFINITELY said that.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Ron on February 19, 2006, 05:20:35 PM
I posted this on the old board, and most sneered, lol, but I think it fits pretty well.  I don't believe that Brian necessarily intended it this way, but this is how I interpret the third movement of SMiLE.

The third movement is about the elements, but also about Brian's life, as completed in 2004.  

1. I'm In Great Shape is the first of the 'earth' songs.  It represents the element earth because it's about earthy things, our existance and health on earth.  You get thrown for a loop by the "fresh clean air" but he's talking about how beautiful the earth is.  He's healthy, etc.

Now, part 2 of that is, he's talking about the land that his ancestors settled in, namely california in the past century or whatever (I don't know how long Brian's family lived in the area)... but he's talking about his ancestors and the clean, undisturbed earth they found back when it was farmed, etc.  Keep in mind too this is the time period he was complaining about smog, so the cleaness of the earth getting destroyed was somewhere in his mind at least.

2. "I wanna Be Around" is the love story of his parents meeting.  It's also about the earthy act of love.  Notice it's stylized and sounds like a 40's crooner song... around the time his parents would have met, and this is the type of music they would have romanced to. 

3. "Workshop" is another earth song, the construction of something... and in my opinion, it also represents the conception of Brian.  LOL.  Tell me that doesn't fit.  

4. "Vega-Tables" represents the earth, and the vegatables in it, and also... represents Brian's childhood.  It's the most childish song on the album, and Brian gets the biggest kick out of performing it because it truly represents him as a child.  He's talking about his parents raising him, etc. Eat a lot, sleep a lot, brush 'em like crazy.

5. "On A Holiday" is the one song in the progression that doesn't fit as neatly as the others, but in my opinion, it's the beginning of the air element.  It also represents Brian's career starting (which it of course did shortly after his childhood, represented by Vega-tables).  The woodwinds in the background clearly start the 'air' element, and the song is about a pirate, talks about the sea, hawaii, etc. it represents the birth of the Beach Boys, and their early surfing songs, and love songs represented on the first few albums.

At the end of "On a Holiday" Brian has added (in '04) the lyrics "Long ago, long long ago" or something similar.  Everything slows down, and you go into "Windchimes".  Notice how incredibly, undeniably beautiful everything gets.  I believe this represents Brian's mindframe and creativity around the time he matured as a songwriter, which we all know co-incided with all of the traumatic incidents that started overtaking his life (his exposure to drugs, his attempts to leave the record company, his father, his new marriage having trouble, his mental illness, his struggle with his weight, etc. etc. ).  

So, I think by saying "long ago" and having everything slow down, Brian is essentially saying "o.k., lets go talk about this album"... basically, he's approaching the trouble, what has caused him so much grief for 40 years, and the "long ago" is an acknowledgement that this next segment of the album is deeply personal.

6. Windchimes.  This song unfolds as a nearly perfect recording of a nearly perfect Brian Wilson vocal at 63.  He is purposefully in my opinion trying to recreate the beauty of the original recording, and also harken back to the days  in 1965, and 1966 when he was recording things like 'let him run wild' and 'pet sounds'.  His vocal is beautiful, and the mood of the entire song.  This song, not only represents of course a continuation of the wind element, but it also represents the next section of Brian's life... if "On A Holiday" represents the dawn of the Beach Boys, this song, Windchimes, certainly represents Brian's period of maturation, and like I said, the great music he made on albums like Pet Sounds.  The song is very introspective, and the songs had turned very introspective shortly after the Beach Boys began their great career.

7. Windchimes of course falls into "Ms. O'Leary's Cow".  Ms. O'Leary's Cow obviously represents the fire element, but it also represents the next stage of Brian's life.  We have the dawn of the beach boys, then the songs become more introspective with windchimes, and now here we are at the turmoil.  You have a vastly different song, you can hear insanity and chaos in the music, and you can hear dispair in the vocals (from fall breaks).  You can hear hell almost.  When I hear this song, I see a burning building with people leaning out of the windows screaming for help.  This song represents what it must have been like to be inside the head of Brian Wilson as he basically lost his grip on reality and spiraled into a sickness that would eventually keep him in bed hiding for the world for months at a time.

At the end of "Ms. O' Leary's Cow" you hear the famous "Is it hot as hell in here, or is it me? It really is a mystery.  If I die before I wake, I pray the lord my soul to take my misery" This is of course about the trouble Brian's been through in his life, the "is it me" line is genius (thanks Van Dyke!) and I think accurately describes what Brian's lonlieness must have felt like.  It's so quiet, too, it sounds like Brian is in space by himself.  Isolation.  I think this represents Brian eventually coming to terms with his illness, and trying to get his life back together.

"feel like I was really in the pink!"

This (and I'm not trying to be sick here) represents Brian meeting his wife, Melinda.  Brian gives Melinda a ton of credit, and I think anybody can see from the outside that she was the beginning of his life turning around as it has in these last few years.  When the music changes so dramatically on the "pink" it represents Brian's drastic improvement, and how it's night and day from the despair that he felt in the past.  I'm not saying he's all better, I'm just saying he clearly can cope better than he used to.

8. "Blue Hawaii" - This song of course represents the water element.  It also represents Brian's new life with Melinda and his children, and his renewed career.  The song is about Hawaii, what Brian's music has been about since he was 19.  "Hawaii lay beyond the sea" is an acknowledgement that as Brian looks back at his early life, when he was 19, 20, 21 starting the Beach Boys... it's beyond a sea.  He's not there, he's not what he once was... he's scarred and older from all the years of madness he's suffered through... but here he is, still looking at Hawaii.... he can still see himself, he can still see that great guy he was destined to be when he was sitting on top of the world playing bass and singing with his brothers.  Note as well that out of everything on the album, this song sounds the most like a "Beach Boys" song, and it's very much a throwback to the early music.  This song represents how Brian feels his career is right now... similar to what he was in the early 60's, but different and many miles removed, over the sea.

At the end of the song, you're greeted by Angels whisking Brian away at the end of his life to whatever lies beyond.  Try listening to that next time without crying.

9.  In the end, you're left with "Good Vibrations".  This is the creme de la creme.  This is the "oh merda" moment of the whole album.  Not only does this fit the element theme, it caps Brian's life.  Philosophers long ago came up with a 5th element, the Ether... which is defined as either space, or the electromagnetic waves between objects.  So "Good Vibrations" perfectly represents the ether element, and it also represents Brian's career after his death (symbolized by the choir of angels at the end of the previous song).  What do we have? A somehow eerier version of GV Brian pulled off in 04... his voice sounds incredible on it, he hits strangeeee falsetto notes "it's weeeeeiiiiiiiirrrrrdddd" and has the original, trippy esp lyrics.  that fits the ether element part, but the song also sounds like a voice from the past, he sounds younger and it just sounds strange, like a dead man singing might.  The "Hum de dum" that has been reinserted in the 'vibrations with her" fade out honestly sounds to me like Brian singing from beyond the grave or something, it's spooky and has a very atmospheric sound to it.  I think it represents Brian's career continuing on after his death, and represents what we'll remember of him: the brilliant genius who recorded the greatest single of all time: Good Vibrations.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again: I don't think they necessarily meant it to fit like that, but I do think that sometimes people do things for reasons they don't totally understand.  Divine Inspiration?  



Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Jason on February 19, 2006, 05:23:23 PM
Sneer. Just kidding.

I don't think I read THAT much into it.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Ron on February 19, 2006, 05:27:43 PM
Well of course you don't, you said it doesn't tell a story.  I say it tells *the* story!


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Jason on February 19, 2006, 05:29:02 PM
I think it might tell a story, some of the posts here have made me relisten. I don't think Smile is autobiographical. Hell, I don't even think Pet Sounds was.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: I. Spaceman on February 19, 2006, 06:19:07 PM
Quote
Hell, I don't even think Pet Sounds was.

Of course it is. Any art that reaches that deep is autobiographical. Dylan has even admitted that.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: I. Spaceman on February 19, 2006, 06:29:51 PM
Quote
but I do think that sometimes people do things for reasons they don't totally understand.

Exactly, Ron. If things are correct in the creation of art, the artists lets go of will and interprets what the cosmos/muse is sending him. A great artist is nothing but an interpreter of universal truths into a personalised package.
Dylan talks about that, and he's a smart, smart man. He does not know how or why his songs were writen, and is sometimes just as clueless as we as to their literal "meaning". He's a conduit, a greatly skilled conduit, it takes a lot of work to open yourself up like that, but a conduit nonetheless.
All knowledge and beauty does not come from us, but we can reflect it. Wiping off the ego-power smudge off of our glasses so we can properly see is where human craft comes into the picture.
The most open and vulnerable of artists, that can tap into the universal well without self intruding too heavily are those that are called geniuses.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Evenreven on February 22, 2006, 07:50:51 AM
I don't have his exact quote, but Peter has posted about this here on several occasions.
Indeed. I remember it too. Very puzzling. This also lead to a SMiLE theory that might just be true:

1. Dumb Angel - a three movement thingy, loosely structured in Brian's mind.
2. SMiLE late '66 - at most two movements; maybe just songs. A compromise.
3. SMiLE 2004 - Brian's, Van's and Darian's approximation of the original three-movement Dumb Angel concept

I believe something to this effect was postulated on the old Shop board, maybe by Chalk & Numbers, spurred on by Peter's statement.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Bubba Ho-Tep on February 22, 2006, 08:40:26 AM
But Brian said many times that the difference between Smile and Smile 2004 was that they “added a third movement. Now it’s a rock opera.”.

Why can’t he ever give a straight answer?

There is no recorded evidence that any of the original tracks would have run into one another as “movements”. Just about ever cut is designed for a fade out. He may have brainstormed a “three movement” piece, but from what he recorded it appears that the plan was an album of stand alone tracks. Perhaps linked lyrically but not physically.

I am not sure that a story can be traced throughout the album. In hindsight, one can be fathomed from the songs as they are now, but really we just have a bunch of songs about several different fields of interest, although perhaps with an “all American” feel.

H&V and Worms are the only 2 songs that seemed linked, both lyrically and structurally (assuming that the “bicycle rider” theme was meant to reoccur, that it wasn’t just an act of desperation leaving Worms incomplete). But one is a tale of the old west and one is a tale of pilgrims and Indians. Both songs take place in the past but I would say that they are probably a couple of years apart.

Wonderful, CIFOTM, Look share a similar piano riff, but since we have no vintage lyrics for 2 of the songs, we can’t say that there was a connective story.  Wonderful is not tied down to a specific date or era.

SU also is a snapshot of the past although Brian, in his description of it in the Hello God article said that the second movement was of “Europe, a long time ago”, which is the only time the album seems to leave America.

I don’t see any sort of narrative to these songs. Like Pet Sounds, they are just a group of songs bound by a similar state of mind.

Of course, in 2004, they knew what to look for and easilier manipulated the material to work in a more comprehensive way.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: donald on February 22, 2006, 09:19:37 AM
Once upon a time.................


...............................No one knows if the mysterious Pied Piper of Night
Was the one who came back to visit the princes and princesses again
But if you have a transistor radio and the lights are all out some night
Don't be very surprised if it turns to light green
And the whirling magic sound of the Pied Piper comes to visit you


now THERE is a story!   ;)


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Roger Ryan on February 22, 2006, 12:08:40 PM
The instruments on Smile were all supposed to older kinds that would have been available in the old west, like Surf's Up with the pearls or whatever that jingle in the guys hand. Electric guitars and organs like on Smiley would not have been used in the original version.

An interesting Eno-esque idea, but it doesn't allow for the fuzz bass included on many of the tracks.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: buddhahat on February 22, 2006, 02:24:46 PM

H&V and Worms are the only 2 songs that seemed linked, both lyrically and structurally (assuming that the “bicycle rider” theme was meant to reoccur, that it wasn’t just an act of desperation leaving Worms incomplete). But one is a tale of the old west and one is a tale of pilgrims and Indians. Both songs take place in the past but I would say that they are probably a couple of years apart.

Wonderful, CIFOTM, Look share a similar piano riff, but since we have no vintage lyrics for 2 of the songs, we can’t say that there was a connective story.  Wonderful is not tied down to a specific date or era.


According to Badman, Brian abandoned worms as part of his developing vision of the Smile album. Look apparenty suffered the same fate. Do people on this board agree with this or is this an example of one of the inaccuracies in the Badman book that I've heard of?


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Evenreven on February 22, 2006, 03:44:20 PM
I think it is.

Badman seems to be doing some guesswork here. Worms may have been scrapped when Brian re-recorded the Bicycle Rider theme for Heroes and Villains. Then again, we just don't know if Brian wanted to use the theme twice (or more). I haven't seen any mention of scrapping Worms specifically except in Badman's book.

With Look, he's probably going from the fact that it's not on the December handwritten tracklist. I'd be wary of taking the tracklist as gospel, especially considering Brian probably didn't write it. Look may still have been in the picture. We don't really know. And I don't think Badman knows anything we don't know either.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Reverend Joshua Sloane on February 22, 2006, 03:50:17 PM
"Worms" is one of the strongest tracks amidst all of the others. To get rid of it would be a great loss. Luckily they re-thought.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Evenreven on February 22, 2006, 03:55:12 PM
Do You Like Worms is the best song ever cut by the Beach Boys, bar none.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: Bubba Ho-Tep on February 23, 2006, 06:17:42 AM
But maybe he didn't just get rid of Worms...maybe he got rid of everything by that point and was only working toward a single. In his mind, since the album was not what he wanted to do anymore, he felt that the riff was available for something else. From that point on he was recycling Smile riffs left and right with no concern that the original compositions would be released. He only looked forward, he never looked back.

The fact that he gave the CIFOTM riff to Denny for Little Bird shows that that song was dead, and actually, it shows that it meant very little to him at all. It was just another unused riff. He clearly didn't give a merda and was not planning on ever returning to the project.

The Smile songs that appeared on Smiley Smile were the ones that existed as finished tracks from the Smile-era. I don't think that is a coincidence anymore. The ones that appeared later (Cabinessence & SU) needed the least amount of work. The others were of no consequence to Brian. I sometimes think that maybe he didn't finish them because he didn't think they were good anymore, either on his own or because of what others were saying around him. And maybe he was right. Is Barnyard anything special? OMP? Woodshop? Great Shape? These are not proper songs. This is not what Brian Wilson does. So he stuck with the songs that had the most conventional forms. And he started recycling the junk right away. And Smiley Smile turned out to be what he really wanted to say.

You want to know the Smile tracklist? Look at the back of the Smiley Smile cover.

I have a different point of view next week, of course.


Title: Re: Does Smile tell a story?
Post by: matt 1234 on February 23, 2006, 09:17:03 AM
I think it was a bad move to call it, "do you like work worms?" do you dig worms is where the cool wordplay ahh wheatever