Thanks c-man!

On a more esoteric note, in reply to Very Extremely Dan:

1.  Do folks here have a "guiding principle" for their SMiLE sequence?

2.  Do you hear BWPS as a three act record or as a unified whole?

1. Yeah, but it's pretty subjective and I can't really justify it historically. My original intent, back in the early 2010's, was to create a version of SMiLE which included a) only '66 musical sections which Brian used in rough assemblies/dubbed cuts and b) nothing which was recorded during the less album-orientated "hit single" rush of Jan-April 1967. So what I came around to was fairly organic, and the thematic connections were more musical than lyrical or conceptual.

I'll give you an example: BWPS made a connection between "Child", "Look" and "Surf's Up," forming the "second suite." In terms of key signatures, the connection is absolutely valid and made for a fantastic medley in performance and on record. But it's hard to see how these three pieces - as recorded in 1966 - were ever meant to join up in such a way. They're all distinct recordings with clear endings. New VDP lyrics for "Child" and the use of its chorus on "Look (or, Song for Children)" covered the join a bit, but nothing from '66 infers any such sequencing.

And yet, we have vintage edits and boots of "Wonderful" and "Child" - both songs with vintage vocals about having children/being a child/child being father to the man - which end with the same three note bass riff. Sure enough, run the first into the second and you have two discrete songs with a very satisfying musical connection. Use a SMiLE-era hard edit from that riff at the end of "Child" into "The Old Master Painter" - which Brian referred to as "[the] grand finale" - and which, with its past tense lyrics, speaks of the loss of a partner and implies an ending, you suddenly have a fairly convincing "grand finale" indeed. (In my mix, at the end of a 17 minute "side one." Side two's about fifteen mins long.)

Now, I grant you this is complete conjecture on my part as a fan-mixer. But I have always believed the driving force behind the album, as with GV, was musical - perhaps ideological also - rather than strictly lyrical. If I recall correctly, David Anderle makes the observation in his multi-part Crawdaddy! interview with Paul Williams that the big factors in SMiLE's collapse were both Brian's conflict with the rest of the Boys and also a deep difficulty over Van's lyrics/some kind of power struggle over what the project was really about. Ie: that Van's final departure in Jan/Feb '67 really marked the final end of the project as originally conceived. (Actually, this could be Vosse from the Fusion piece - my notes are all over the place.)  "They kind of passed each other" is the quote that resonates.

Anyway, my feeling is, as with Pet Sounds, the songs really stand alone. Articulating their collective power is beyond my ken at least.

Double post somehow.

My dear Salty, us long term Terminal Smile Brain sufferers prefer the acronym "TSB." As it happens, I consider myself in a current - if possibly temporary - state of relapse.

Huge thanks for the Cam quote. VDP refers to "Vega-Tables" as the only part of "The Elements" he worked on in the SMiLE '04 tour booklet, and I had a few regrettable exchanges with other posters about whether that was true a few years back. Nice to have some supporting evidence, however belated.

Incidentally, I hope Cam is still around these parts, though it seems not. As a 16 year old when I first started posting on the Smile Shop, and later, he was always very responsive to my posts and full of interesting info.

 

Also: "My vega-tables" - The Elements came from a conversation with Van Dyke about the concept rather than anything written down" is fascinating. Is this from a convo you had with the man himself, or from the original ESQ article? If that's okay to ask

Hey Salty - thanks for the clarification on a bunch of points, and apologies for misattributing a quote to you!

Re: the Worms lyrics. I first got into SMiLE around '97, so that'd be the time period I'm remembering. I've just been futilely attempting to use Waybackmachine to find a site from pre-2004 which might clarify what Worms words we had access to back then.

Re: CFOTM, glad you had those transcripts to hand and apologies for not getting things right. I used to rail about slack scholarship on this site and here I am perpetrating similar errors! Glad I did at least recall the basics fairly correctly: a "child Is the Father of man" chorus being the only lyrics quoted for that tune, the words "Open Country (song)" for IIGS, and the Wonderful backing vox. Just found my notes, and of course you're absolutely right it was CE, not Surf's Up, for which the other backing vocals were noted.

Much appreciated!

Been away from the boards for a coupla days so have a lot to catch up on, it seems! A few stray observations - apologies if anyone/anything gets missed.

1. CFOTM lyrics.

'I got a sneak preview of one of the tracks the previous night when Dennis played me a piano version of one track, Child is Father of the Man, a cowboy song, and then gave me the throwaway line of the year – "And this is a prayer I'm working on for it!"'

Why does the author say "Child is Father of the Man, a cowboy song"?   If Denny was just banging out the titular chorus, no one could possibly interpret that as having anything to do with cowboys.  Now, I've seen it hypothesized that the "cowboy song" was one of the other Smile songs (perhaps H&V, Cabin, Sunshine etc.) and maybe Denny segued into that other song and the author was none the wiser.  And that hypothesis is certainly plausible, but is it certainty?

Definitely not a certainty, but consider Vosse's comments about Cabin Essence in Fusion:

'"Cabinessence," for example, started out as a wholly different trip - Dennis was going to sing it by himself and sound like a funky cat up in the mountains somewhere singing to a chick by a fireplace: very simple - and that's all there was to it.'

The hook of the CE verses being "Home on the range/Home on the grange" - which sounds pretty "Cowboy song" to me - and knowing that at one point Dennis was slated to sing it solo, this seems a possible contender for what Dennis actually played to the reporter. Now, if he'd pounded out the chorus to "Child" just before or after that rendition, it's easy to see how these sections could have been confused.

Interestingly, also, in the transcription of the full Oppenheimer/Inside Pop tape reels which were posted on this Board back in the day, a (probably partial) solo performance of "Child" by Brian is described. No mention is given of any lyrics apart from the "Child - Child" chorus we know and love, while other songs - "I'm in Great Shape" springs to mind - have verse lyrics included. The transcription also includes descriptions of specific backing vocals for "Wonderful" and "Surf's Up" (the "session which went very badly," according to Siegel, just prior to the solo "Surf's Up" recordings).

No definite conclusions can be drawn, of course, but I'd say by inference this tends to support Van Dyke's comments about not writing CFOTM lyrics in '66.

On the other hand, just to hedge my bets, Salty makes an extremely good point in saying:

On the subject of "lost Smile lyrics," it's almost certain that there were some.  If the Great Shape lyrics didn't exist on the Humble Harv demo, would we even know about them?  I can't remember if there's any other evidence of their existence. I don't think so.  Jules Siegel transcribed some of Barnyard, but I think the Humble Harv thing is it in terms of Great Shape lyrical evidence.  And, of course, certain Worms and Cabin lyrics were preserved by Frank Holmes and we'd likely have zero knowledge of them if Frank hadn't retained them.  

Although the "Open country" lyrics at least from IIGS are mentioned in the Inside Pop logs, it's certainly true that most of what we do have from Barnyard and IIGS are from "Humble Harv" - plus the extra sections from CE and Worms Salty refers to above provided by Holmes.

On a related note, in the Beautiful Dreamer doc Brian and Darian S speak about calling VDP to decipher a couple of lines from Worms. This call is, according to all three players in the documentary, what got him back involved with the project. Old-timers might be able to remind me, but did we have the Worms verse lyrics before SMiLE '04? I'm pretty sure the missing/deleted "east or west Indies" passage was already circulating in the Priore days, but if so then presumably the rest of the words were as well?

In which case, why did Brian need to call Van to double check an "indecipherable" lyric? We know Darian was a fairly well-versed (pun intended) SMiLE scholar prior to beginning the 2004 restoration. Was he not aware of the typed-out lyrics available online, if indeed they were?

Either way, the wording in Beautiful Dreamer suggests that either Brian and Darian were working from a handwritten lyric sheet provided by someone like Frank Holmes, or that Brian had some sort of archive of his own. None of which is directly related to CFOTM, of course, but now I've thought of all this it bugs me we can't easily straighten this particular matter out!

TO BE CONTINUED, I'm afraid.

Thanks Salty! My musical knowledge is pretty limited, so the juxtaposition of different keys isn't something that'd occur to me outside of "I like the sound of that."

Re: "The only thing to know for sure about Child is Father of the Man is that Van Dyke Parks wasn't approached to write lyrics." I feel like I might have read something along those lines a few years back, but can't recall the source. Do you know where you got this from?

Some great stuff here, thanks all! This in particular was new to me, I think (it's been a while):

For the record, the title on the November 29 AFM contract is "Friday Night (I'm in great shape)". The tape box itself simply reads "I WANT TO BE AROUND + FRIDAY NIGHT".

For some reason I believed it was the tape box that had the "Great Shape" notation.

My own view is pretty much the same as Saborlord's and soniclovenoise etc:

It was labeled as "Great Shape" on the tape box. This, to me, seems to imply that Wilson's quip about the barnyard suite is true. "Four songs in four short pieces, combined together, but we never finished that one. We got into something else." Since he excised Barnyard and I'm In Great Shape from Heroes And Villains, it seemed they would be combined into I Wanna Be Around/Workshop to make a barnyard suite, as soniclovenoize postulates. I agree with his theory.

My edit of this impossible-to-be-sure track has those four sections, but in a slightly atypical order: "IWBA/Workshop," "IIGS", "Barnyard". The track's pretty short - 2:20 - but as kinda H&V Pt II, or as a more upbeat/personalised development of the themes described by juggler, I think it works well in my placement.

It follows H&V proper (my stab at the "3 minute musical comedy" of legend) - the jazzy chords of IWBA kick in after a hard cut from the "dum dum dum" vocals after "Three score and five", from ""Heroes and Villains: Early Version Outtake Sections" on Disc 4 of TSS. The piano line underpinning the craziness of "Workshop" - in another hard edit - then leads nicely into bruiteur's lovely mix of the IIGS backing with Brian's demo vocal. After the tape explosion, "Barnyard" takes us out with a fairly slow fade on the refrain.

Again, though, echoing my thoughts in my original post - maybe it doesn't work as well as I think it does! Being "my baby" in terms of the mix, I'm probably unreasonably biased towards the sequencing decisions I made back in 2013...

Insert Quote
Quote from: guitarfool2002 on Yesterday at 01:39:26 PM

I understand, and also never said he was going to use the exact tape not featuring the Beach Boys. But the ideas based on the elements in those chants was clearly there. Think of it like a demo, and it makes sense in the context. He wanted to capture it and see what parts he might be able to use.

That's what I was trying to get across - we're on the same page here!

I'm very pleased to be in accord on this one too! While we have some evidence that at least one ad hoc period recording, "Taxi Cabber," was a step in the direction of Brian's mooted post-SMiLE "humour album"...

Safely inside of his hotel room Wilson listens to the cabbie's recorded voice over and over again, clapping his hands and laughing loudly. "Now, THAT is humor. There is so much pretense and defensiveness in recorded comedy today. This man is truly, humbly funny. I want to take this sort of approach to a humorous record, maybe a radio show." - Vosse in Teen Set

... I agree with gf that the connections in the chants to all the Elements but fire suggest a firm link to SMiLE itself. Though, I would agree, later intended to be re-recorded more professionally with the boys themselves.

In my own mix, Fire is the second track on Side Two, kicking off after Good Vibrations. I then use snippets from "Veggies Chant" to lead into the Oct '66 "demo" version of Vega-Tables, an excerpt from "Breathing Chant" to segue into a fairly short edit of "Wind Chimes" (Verses/acapella vocal link/Chorus/Piano fade), then a bit of "Underwater Chant" to take us home into "Surf's Up."

I have no great desire to re-litigate my use of these full tracks to create a kind of "Element Suite" - I'm well aware these choices are likely ahistorical. But yeah, I reckon there could definitely have been a place in a '66 SMiLE for re-recorded chunks of chants like these. They're innovative, unusual, and perhaps most importantly amusing. Listening to some 80-90s fan sequencings of the album, such as Priore's, I was always struck by how dour and melancholy the overall mood of the album was - considering its title was "SMiLE." A bit of silliness like these definitely swings the pendulum back a bit.

EDIT: Re: "Love to Say Dada", the other main topic of conversation here, I don't have much to add. My own feeling is that it probably isn't "Air" and tend to concur with Salty that - despite melodic origins as "All Day," part of the H&V tracking sessions - it holds a special post-SMiLE/pre-Smiley place all its own. But that's just a vibe on my part, no disrespect at all to those who feel otherwise!

Hi all, been a while! Not sure how many of the old gang are still around - AGD, Cam, Guitarfool, Sonic, John, Matt, FilldePlage, Emily, Chocolate Shake Man, IronHorseApples and many more. I've occasionally lurked in over the past five years but haven't been assiduous in keeping up on the haps here.

Have been reading through a few old threads (2011-2014 vintage) tonight and was struck by how easily some of us would cling to hard-won personal insights as objective truths about the BBs, the proposed ML/BW difficulties, and Smile lore in particular. I don't include, of course, the posters and mods who had actual reference materials or relationships with the principals which meant they had a bit more knowhow on such matters than we "absent friends." But I am now a little ashamed of how forcefully I argued for positions that, in retrospect, were clear conjecture.

I've seen that since those post-TSS release days this board has expanded - wonderfully - to focus less on SMiLE the-album-that-wasn't and become a more general BBs discussion forum. So I hope this thread idea is still an appropriate one

I'd love to hear from any poster, new or ancient, about a SMiLE-specific stance you once took and now realise was probably based more on the thrill of "I thought of this myself!" than any objective evidence. To start off:

I spent about a year trying to argue that "I'm in Great Shape," as included the handwritten tracklist, was clearly - clearly - a placeholder title meant to include all the sections excised from "Heroes and Villains" between Oct 1966 and Jan 1967. In other words, it was put on the back cover as a fairly nebulous "H&V Part II," perhaps to include such passages as "Great Shape" and "Barnyard." (As opposed to the Jan-Mar "Part II" which IMO Cam Mott fairly convincingly argued for.) This all felt very brilliant to me at the time, but reading back was a total guess on my part, with little musical or documented evidence to back it up.

Anyone had a similar moment of circumspection over a past SMiLE theory? Would love to read about it if so!

Hi all, sorry to bump an old thread without anything substantive to say - I hope to do so in the next day or two - but I dropped out of the scene about three years ago and missed this wonderful post by IanR:

Ok
HIT WEEK-May 18 1967 (Dutch magazine).  The band were interviewed in Holland on May 14 and asked why they'd released the two year old single "Then I Kissed Her."  Mike answered: "Of course we'd prefer to release something new and we thought that Smile would be released directly after our British tour but Brian is a perfectionist, that's why it takes so long."   Dennis: "Everything was already finished, also the Heroes and Villains single, but my brother Brian is very serious, I find that a good thing."   Bruce (Discussing the rumor that Brian had decided to scrap Heroes and release Vegetables as a single instead: "Heroes evolved and really became too long for a single.  Vegetables also might be a bit more commercial."  

D & ME May 20 1967 reported: "Contrary to some reports, plans for the 'Heroes and Villains' the group's scheduled new single, have not been completely scrapped.  Roger Easterby of the Howes office, who was with the boys throughout their British tour, said: 'When the boys return to the States they will spend a complete month in the studios completing 'Heroes and Villains' and also working on a new LP."

LA TIMES syndicated story that appeared in July 1967 commented: "Rumor had it that, apart from the legal hassles with Capitol. he (Brian) was not happy with the tapes, which had already been through months of mixing, balancing, splicing and mastering and might never let them be issued as records....On July 5 Brian Wilson finished the tape and invited Capitol's director of artists and repertoire Karl Engemann to the house to hear it.  'I arrived' Engemann said 'and no one was there.  Brian had gotten so excited with the finished tape that he'd taken it to radio station KHJ so he could hear it on the radio.'...The album too will be forthcoming, retitled Smiley Smile-the redundant adjective tacked on apparently as grinning finish to a long quiet hassle."    (this article makes clear-that the situation was being spun as BBs finally finished Smile to their satisfaction-rather than BBs scrapped it and did something new)

In August 12 1967 Melody Maker  Bruce refers to the gap between Good Vibrations and Heroes "came about because we were on a European tour; because we were involved in a lawsuit with our recording company in the States; and because Brian decided to record Heroes and Villains again when we got back from the tour.  He scrapped a finished version of the song and wrote it again.  This version is completely different from the number he wrote first."

Sept 1967 Carl Wilson interview with Pete Johnson of the LA Times: "Those six months were a difficult time for us.  Brian just wasn't happy with Heroes and Villains until he had worked it over and over, throwing out parts and adding new ones.  So we had no new records and we were in a lawsuit with Capitol and then my draft problem developed....

Carl commented that the new album is not the same one that Brian was working on at the time Good Vibrations was released "He still has all those tapes but we decided not to have a complicated album this time.  We did Smiley Smile quickly in a couple of weeks to get something out.  It's not nearly as ambitious an album as Pet Sounds was.

Carl interviewed in Fairfield, CT in Nov 1967 "In the case of Heroes and Villains we didn't feel that it would have the mass appeal so we canned it for awhile and decided to release it. Originally we didn't release it because we didn't think that it would be the kind of song that people would hear on the radio and immediately pick up."

Mike in Beat Instrumental February 1968 (Interview done in BBs brief visit to London in Dec 1967)- Regarding Wild Honey "Sure people were baffled and mystified by Smiley Smile but it was a matter of progression.  We had this feeling that we were going too far, losing touch I guess, and this new one brings us back more into reality....Brian has been re-thinking our recording program and in any case we all have a much greater say nowadays in what we turn out in the studio."

Most of this is fascinating new (to me) material, and even after a long delay am thrilled to have read it. I realise several of the players on this thread are no longer around - Andrew, Cam, etc - but hope there's still some information to be mined on these subjects. Looking forward to reading through the subsequent five pages of posts and maybe positing some new analysis as a result. Happy to cease and desist if what's in the past should be left there, though!

EDIT: Turns out I was still around - and posting, what's more! - after Ian posted his excerpts above. The memory cheats, etc. Which makes this whole post even more pointless. Will try and redeem the bump soon.

Thanks for the heads up on this! Interesting stuff - not a lot of specific detail, understandably, about the CFOTM lyrics, but very interesting nonetheless. The window budges open a few more millimetres.

I just downloaded the kindle version of 'I Am...' and read through the 'Smile' section. I was interested to read in the paragraphs about the end of 'Smile', Wilson's attribution of one key factor as being the final departure of Van Dyke from the project:

It was too much pressure from all sides: from Captiol, from my brothers, from Mike, from my dad, but most of all from myself. [...] Nothing was ready. Van Dyke had already split the scene, and there were still holes in the lyrics of [some] tracks. No one could do them like Van Dyke, which meant that no one could do them at all. I tried but they were too sophisticated. I couldn't come close. And with no lyrics, we had to no way to do our vocals.

This statement is amazingly close to one given by David Anderle in his almost contemporaneous (early '68) interview with Paul Williams for 'Crawdaddy'):

Brian was starting to meet a fantastic amount of resistance on all fronts. Like, very slowly everything started to collapse about him. The scene with Van Dyke. Now, that's a critical point. You've gotta remember that originally Van Dyke was gonna do all the lyrics for Smile. Then there was a hassle between Van and Brian and Van wasn't around. So that meant that Brian was now going to have to finish some of the lyrics himself. Well, how was he gonna put his lyrics in with the lyrics already started by Van Dyke? So he stopped recording for a while. Got completely away from music, saying, it's time to get into films. And we all knew what was happening.

Hope I'm not derailing the thread here, it just seemed an appropriate place to put this observation.

He Gives Speeches - not convinced this was meant as an insert into Wonderful, for a few reasons:

1. It was on a tape with Wonderful titled something like (don't have my Smile primer with me) "Nu Songs by Brian and Van Dyke" - note the plural.

2. The August Wonderful doesn't have a break for an insert, and neither does the January one - it's a continuous piece of music.  Wonderful 3 in April does, however, as does the Smiley version.  Jan Wonderful has a vocal tag.  So there's no evidence musically that a break was contemplated in August for the song.

3. I don't think the Speeches lyrics go with the lyrics of Wonderful, although I respect the fact that you do.  The probable insert for Wonderful 3, recorded the same day, was the piano/group vocal Child is Father of the Man, which is a much better thematic fit to Wonderful.

Righto! I did think I might be stretching with conclusion #4. Thanks, BR, all points noted and I suspect I stand corrected.

I have been bouncing a theory back in forth here (to admittedly dismal results) that Air could have been the 10/5/66 Tag to Wind Chimes that was re-appropriated from Wind Chimes proper into The Elements.  What we've been told by Brian was that Air was a piano piece that was never finished.  Well, the tag is a piano piece (a conceptual one at that, as it audibly represents air through interweaving piano notes) and it was certainly never finished (because the finished version of Wind Chimes was the version found on Smiley Smile).  And of course, the connection between Air and Wind.  If we are to go by the "Unfinished piano piece" as the descriptor for Air, then in my mind  the Wind Chimes Tag is the lead suspect

Soniclovenoise - in the absence of any other contenders for 'Air' from the 'primary Smile period', really, and considering how neatly the WC tag slots meets the few criteria we do have for 'Air', I am inclined to feel you have a point. I use it in that spot in my own '66 mix, though I'm not sure I was quite so reasoned as you about why!

[Wilson's Razor, or, If the simplest answers were the correct ones, we'd all have world peace:]

Hi all, nice to be back. Sorry for creating yet another Smile thread in the context of the recent chats on various aspects of the album. I lurked back in a few days ago and, having had a read or two, had a question and a few consolidated thoughts on ideas I've previously posted about.

The question: I've seen in several recent threads the mention of a newly documented 'I'm in Great Shape' session from - I think - December '66. I can't find my copy of the Smile Sessions book with c-man's excellent Sessionography, but I don't recall this being included. Can anyone please elucidate in terms of musicians/BBs involved etc? This sounds like an an intriguing little window snapping open.

And now, the suppositions:

Wilson's Razor, or, If the simplest answers were the correct ones, we'd all have world peace:

1. What was the original (post-May) 1966 structure of 'Heroes and Villains'?
From the hands and mouth of BW himself, in mid-Nov '66: H&V Verse (up to 'she's still dancing... and hook) /I'm in Great Shape/(something else, possibly, then 'another section now': /'Barnyard'

2. What was 'I'm in Great Shape'?
The section containing the lyrics 'I'm in Great Shape', tracked under at least one session logged as 'I'm in Great Shape'. The IIGS tracking being a 40 second snippet, it almost certainly would not have been a named track on the Capitol memo/cover listing if it remained that one short section. Logic suggests, then, that it stayed connected to its fellow orphaned H&V section demoed for 'Humble Harv', 'Barnyard'. ('Barnyard' being tracked as an H&V session, as well as being connected to IIGS in that runthrough). Going by the surviving documentation, 'Workshop/I Wanna Be Around', the notation for which includes the parenthetical (Great Shape), might well have been a late-Nov attempt to fill out the song - which, by December, had become a full track according to the cover slicks and 'Capitol Memo'.

[Further: this gives us four individual compositions, including 'Barnyard', running to approx 2.45 - a not unusual track length for the mid-sixties - matching up with the description Brian (allegedly) gave in the Priess 'autobio' as 'a four part Barnyard suite.' In short: IIGS/BY/IWBA/WS (not necessarily in that sequence) constituting, in essence: 'I'm in Great Shape' (from the LP cover), some kind of 'Heroes and Villians (Part Two)' (being an expanded medley based around two original sections of that song), and a four-part 'Barnyard Suite' (from the Priess 'autobiography'.)]

3. What were 'The Elements'?
According to VDP through the auspices of AGD, this was going to be a collection of unbanded tracks linked by crossfades. We have two parts that a fair case can be made for from surviving documentation: 'Fire' (actually logged as 'The Elements (Part One)') and the '66 'cornucopia' version of 'Vega-Tables' (attributed by Frank Holmes, from VDP's lyric sheets, as 'The Elements' in the LP booklet). Which leaves, presumably, 'Air' and 'Water'. (I'd also accept arguments for 'My Vega-Tables' being either of these, considering no direct documented connection to the 'Earth' element exists). Maybe one of the remaining two parts is indeed 'Wind Chimes' (short version) or Mike Vosse's 'water sound' tapes, which he recalls Brian spoke about editing into a full musical composition. Maybe they were never fully conceived or recorded. What we do have are two 90-120 second tracks directly attributed to this suite, which indicate an approach in terms of section length if not overall style. (Note: it's quite possible the April-May 'Dada' sessions were an attempt to add to the track after an overall change in album conception occurred in Dec '66-Jan '67.)

4. Where was 'He Gives Speeches' meant to fit in?
As an insert/middle eight to the first tracked version of 'Wonderful', obviously. We know that at least one version of 'Wonderful' included either a 30-second(ish) insert recorded on a) the same day or b) actually cut into the song. The first version of 'Wonderful' and 'HGS' appear to have been tracked on the same day, have clearly VDP-esque lyrics, [orginally] a Brian-only vocal, and connect with the same themes of man/woman dichotomies and childhood turning into parenthood. My intuition: Brian knew it didn't work as an insert, so HGS was (rightfully) discarded before any rough assemblies were made. Still: later versions of 'Wonderful' - 'Rock Me Henry', certainly, but also possibly the remake recorded on the same day as the 'Child is Father' April piano-and-voice session - had an insert of about the same length, with similarly stripped down instrumentation, at about the same point. (Sidenote: There's an interstitial bass riff, incidentally, that links 'Wonderful', 'CFOTM' and 'He Gives Speeches', very nicely indeed. And OMP, as a matter of fact.)

So. You'll notice I've avoided any conjecture on internal Beach Boys strife (real or retrospectively imagined) or the inner workings of Brian or Van Dyke's psyches at the time. Just wanting to throw the last few month's thoughts on the subject open to argument, expansion, elucidation or inquisition. I don't pretend to be any kind of expert or eye-witness (being born in New Zealand in 1982 doesn't help your chances of being a fly-on-the wall in 1966 LA) but I do believe the above makes some kind of basic logical sense.

Of course, I could be wrong on that - would really love to hear your thoughts if so. And it is, genuinely, nice to be back.

Pretty Funky, Debbie - I definitely felt Brian was very happy to have Blondie on tour with them. If he wasn't, after all, why would Blondie be? It was only during the extended guitar soloing I suspected any tension, and absolutely that's just my interpretation. Very probably wrong.

Also, I thought Blondie was absolutely brilliant as well. Really dug 'Pretty Funky', which I didn't expect. Should have mentioned that above.

Hi guys, Funky Pretty and Kiwi Surfer have it pretty much covered but a couple of my own reactions to last night's show:

I thought Brian was, indeed, pretty relaxed and into it (for Brian). I last saw him at the very end of the 2004 Smile Tour, when they did comedy bits with the band in the first set and any onstage banter from Brian seemed scripted and occasionally reluctant. Last night, as he and Al struggled to define 'In My Room' and 'You Still Believe In Me' (settling, in the first instance, for a 'very pretty rock ballad' and, in the second, as somewhere between a 'ballad' and a (soft?) rock ballad) his comments seemed much more natural and unrehearsed. A lot less of what one of the band members once described to me as Brian's 'Sinatra moments' - 'Oh YEAH!'s and 'Rock ON's - and the trademark arm movements were comparatively restrained. Compared to twelve years ago, Brian seemed to me much more comfortable - and indeed, quite keen on - being recognised as the leader of the band, the man in the centre of things. 'Probably the best song I ever wrote', he confidently announced before singing (beautifully, though the closing round got a bit muddled) 'God Only Knows'.

This said - and perhaps because of a renewed (post-2012?) sense of place and purpose on the stage - I thought I felt a couple of moments of tension in Brian when other players pulled focus. During Blondie's strutting and soloing, for instance, Brian went quite slack; and this isn't just a result, I think, of his physical manner when not singing or playing the keys, because during the two Pet Sounds instrumentals he stayed much more erect and alert, appearing to engage with the music even while not actually playing on it. And there was a strange, slightly manic laugh during the opening verse of 'Don't Talk' which I thought might have been a reaction to a lack of applause to his previous (very committed) vocal on 'It's Not Me'. (It wasn't that the audience didn't enjoy the number, it just segued directly into 'Don't' and people weren't sure if they were meant to applaud. Same thing happened to Al at the end of 'Wake the World'.) A couple of the hand offs from Brian to Matt for the high parts seemed a bit terse too, but this was probably just a result of it being the first concert of the tour, and will be smoothed out in coming weeks. (Speaking of which, Brian did do a couple of lines in WIBN, I think the beginning of the bridge.)

But that stuff is nothing, really. When Brian was good (and he very often was, and sometimes very good), I thought he sang with a confidence and verve and sensitivity that exceeded what I heard from him over a decade ago. 'I Just Wasn't Made for These Times' was hugely moving. His rock and roll voice on 'I Get Around' was great. 'Heroes' - with Bicycle Rider! - was astonishing. GOK, as I said above, was spine-tingling in places, and 'One Kind of Love' and 'Love and Mercy'' genuinely beautiful. And the band, of course, was incredible as always, not only musically but in the pure love they showed to each other, Brian, Al and Blondie. Jokes and grooving and hugs throughout. A particular favourite moment: Nelson's grinning glee as he squeezed the bicycle horn at the end of 'You Still Believe in Me'.

Let's put it this way: I'm That Sort of Person who loathes 'Barbara Ann' with all of my being. After two hours in the company of these amazing musicians, I was singing along and jiving like a maniac to every 'Ba-Ba-Ba'.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and wanna follow what others have said before me: both Jardines were, of course, phenomenal.

Smiley Smiley YOU"RE A "CLOWN"... YOU JUST JOINED emily... LOL LOL

You know, Rushton, as I was expecting a point-by-point refutation of my substantive arguments, your above riposte does come as something of a disappointment. At least I thought my post was worthy of more than just four emoticons and a mere three incorrectly used quote marks. (CAPS ratio is pretty good though, so I guess I'll take it.)

In any case, I find it very hard to read "you just joined Emily" as anything but a glowing endorsement of my position on this topic, as well as my worth as a human being.

I would suspect Pamplin's book *will* come out, mind -- self-publishing is now easy for anyone, and as someone who has spent time around the self-publishing community (I've had books published through regular publishers and also self-published, so I'm not knocking it as a method to get work out) I would say Mr Pamplin is only slightly less literate, and only slightly more deluded, than the typical participant on the Kindle self-publishing message boards.

Thanks, Andrew - and you're quite right on the above, of course.

deleted

Deleted: An odd joke. Will see how things pan out tomorrow; goodbye all if I what I posted above crossed any lines.

Well, I don't know how one would release a tape in a book... unless I had it transcribed... and it's very LENGTHY.  It's also "ONE" of the things that PREVENTS Mike from SUING ME!  That and the IMMUNITY Charles English got me... as a result of the meeting I took with Brian's Lawyers at the Mezzaluna restaurant in Brentwood! (Home of the Brentwood Butcher)

And this is why we can't have nice threads.

Rushton, can't you just leave this rubbish in the thread dedicated to you selling about fifty copies of your book, if indeed it ever sees print? (Should I mention here I'm also a published author? Or will you ask HOW MANY "COPIES" IVE SOLD   ))

I understand you're an elderly, apparently semi-literate fellow whose employment experience amounts to a) modelling, sometimes to sell smokeable toxins b) not being sufficiently good at sport c) bashing up drug addicts related to your former employer and d) not being able to find a publisher for your unreadable memoirs (and yes, since you've posted 'chapters' of them here, I am qualified to say this. They are - literally, essentially - unfathomable.)

And because of all that, because you're on the back foot in so many ways, because you're an older man with few real achievements behind you - except knowing quite a few people with genuine talent, which is a nominal achievement viewed through any justifiable prism - I have pitied you and ignored this rubbish up until now. But now you're pulling the same abusive, backward, self-serving sh*t in a different thread, on a nominally different subject. And you need to understand: no matter what the view count is, data which incidentally you persist in misreading, you are going to sell very few copies of that book to readers here. Maybe fifty, a hundred, for those who don't already feel they've fed the beast enough already. You were a novelty, when you arrived. A direct link to a band and individuals we, as fans and scholars, wish we knew better. And I understand you think you've been pulling a brilliant promotional coup on us. Maybe you have. I sincerely doubt it.

I came back after several weeks away, and was deeply intrigued to read this thread. Steve Love - though I'm aware you've collaborated in the past, if not on your daily posts - seems like an intelligent, EXONERATED (c) man, whose input I would be very keen to read more of. Your posts don't elevate discussions, they derail them. You have been pilloried on these threads, it's true, sometimes unreasonably, but you've also pulled an enormous amount of  -faced bullying yourself. My advice, unsolicited, is that you should now stop - for yourself, if nothing else. Your total sales to folk here probably peaked about two months ago, before you started posting WHOLE CHAPTERS full of ellipses-punctuated semi-information already present in the Gaines book. Every confused, smug, borderline-abusive comment you make from here on may well lose you a sale, should your book ever see print. Which, again, I sincerely doubt. You may not know how board stats actually work, but I suspect any decent online publisher will.

I am aware I may have crossed board lines with this post, and if so I accept the censure of the moderators. I only hope you see this, Rushton 'Rocky' Pamplin, and on some level understand it before or if it is deleted, and save yourself some time and money. I realise this is unlikely, but it is a genuine and sincere hope. I don't blame you for who you are - let's remember, you lived in a time in which your friends thought the best way to deal with their self-destructive, drug-addicted family member was to have you turn up at his sad little house party and deliver the 'most brutal beating ever' - but for your own sake, get the book published before you go on such an aggressive, contradictory sales campaign. I pity you, Rushton, and I mean that both literally and - yes - biblically. And I'm an atheist.

Regards,
William

I actually heard a vintage 1966 BW acetate which only lasted for 40-50 seconds to about a minute, but it incorporated some parts of DYLW within Heroes.

Fascinating if this is a pre-Jan '67 edit. How do you know this acetate was produced 1966? Is there a date on the disc?

The Old Master Painter:
According to me, SMiLE was more complete in 1966 than in 1967.

With certain qualifications, I agree with this. At least I suspect that it was not significantly less complete in 1966 than mid-67. Certainly conceptually speaking.

After seeing Dennis' and Mike's quotes posted by Ian, I'm beginning wonder if it wasn't Brian who sabotaged the Boys. Maybe intentionally, probably unintentionally, but if you take everybody at their word, the Boys seem to think SMiLE is still a go and maybe will hit the stores after this May tour but at the same time Brian knows it's not finished (he is already recording alternate tracks) and announces it is scrapped in conversations with Taylor while they are on the tour.  Something like that?

Seems plausible.

Read the memo, it says "I agreed with Brian..." (about the booklets). Brian was involved in that decision.

Fair enough. Thanks GF - I should have re-read the memo before posting.

EDIT: So, here's the relevant quote from the memo: "[Engelman] agreed with Brian that the best course of action would be to NOT include this booklet with the SMILEY SMILE package, but rather to hold it for the next album which will include the aforementioned 10 selections."

And just for contrast:

"I told the company, 'No, I don't want this to be released; I want this to go on the shelf.' We didn't tell them for how long. We told them 'For a while.'" - Brian Wilson, 2011

I particularly like that Cam's 'double post' post (considering the next two directly relate to it) could make this thread even more incomprehensible for the casual reader. And considering the amount of time we've spent on the studio doors at Western 3 and press clippings from the middle of 1967, that's quite an achievement.

Just to make it even clearerer, wasn't looking at you.  

Good to know. In any case, redundant posting is kinda my thing.