FYI: The original "You Can't Sit Down" was used by the Real Don Steele on KHJ underneath his manic raps back in the 60's.

Nice info. Thanks! - I have to see if I can get a listen to those. It's a cool song.

Wait -- I just noticed your use of the phrase "jaunty".

How about "You Can't Sit Down" by Phil Upchurch Combo

or "All About my Girl" by Jimmy McGriff

One Mint Julep by Ray Charles?

I don't know - I can't tell by your description but I've got a ton of Hammond stuff

Yeah, rock and roll is a borrower's medium. It's about a fair and collective exchange, not about "this is mine, now keep to yours". And indeed, "originality" is such a new concept in the world of art, anyway. But this is a cool idea and here's some that I came up with off the top of my head:

Neil Young, "Borrowed Tune" - Rolling Stones, "Lady Jane" (acknowledged)
Neil Young, "Harvest Moon" - Buffalo Springfield, "Flying On The Ground is Wrong"
Neil Young, "Days That Used to Be" - Bob Dylan (more the Byrds), "My Back Pages"
Neil Young, "Flags of Freedom" - Bob Dylan, "Chimes of Freedom" (acknowledged)
Sam Cooke, "Ain't That Good News" - Ray Charles, "I Got a Woman"
The Kinks, "Mr. Songbird" - Simon & Garfunkel, "The 59th Bridge Street Song"
The Flaming Lips, "Fight Test" - Cat Stevens, "Father and Son"
The Beatles, "Revolution" - Pee Wee Crayton, "Do Unto Others"

None of the music in BWPS is new (with the possible exception the lead vocal over the water chant).

The brief string interlude before RPR is just quoting the melody of the "canvas the town and brush the backdrop" line from Surf's Up.

Likewise, the interlude before IIGS is just the melody line from "Around and 'round in the warmth / her body fanned the flame of the dance" line from H&V.

I know that but that's not my point. The fact that the segues quote other songs doesn't mean the segues themselves exist in 1966 form, which is what Linett is suggesting in this quotation.

I want to hear what the composer would have done in 1966/67, not what his handlers persuade him to do in 2011.  Figuring out exactly what he "would have done" is an impossibility, I know, but I would rather they make their best guess instead of throwing up their hands and importing ideas developed decades later by the Wondermints.

Priore suggested that Alan Boyd has been working very hard on the history of Smile SINCE BWPS was put out. Linnet, in his interview, stated that where available, they are using Brian's mixes from 1966/67. To me, all signs point towards the fact that they are doing their best to recreate Brian's 1966/67 vision(s) for the album, however unclear they may have been to him.

I hope you are right, but I definitely don't share your confidence.

Well, it's not so much confidence. Like I said, this doesn't disprove that they are using BWPS as a template. It just doesn't prove it.

When Linett speaks of the Smile Sessions even having "the little segue ways," that sounds to me like he's talking about replicating BWPS.  How else could the Smile Sessions include those segues unless the BWPS structure is used?

Well, but keep in mind that throughout the interview Linett's intended audience are casual fans, which is why he says that most of the stuff will be new. When he says that we even have the little segues, I just think that he means, "Can you believe it? We found everything that was on BWPS in the vaults. It's all available to us and it will all be on the boxset."

But, furthermore, that can't be right. What about the segue that connects H&V and Roll Plymouth Rock - the one that comes immediately before RPR begins? Is that really from the 60s - it doesn't sound like it and no one that I know has heard it before. How about the little piece before I'm In The Great Shape? I don't know...

I like 'Surf's Up' from the album with the same name, but to me Brian's piano demo is a lot better. To my ears, Brian was meant to sing it, and I never cared for the instrumentation on the album version (up till "Dove nested towers..." anyway).

Have you heard the Anne Wallace mix? Personally I think the music track to Surf's Up Pt. 1 is one of Brian's greatest achievements. The demo is beautiful but it really does pale in comparison to the real thing and I can't even fathom what he had in store for Pt. 2. Maybe the problem is that he couldn't fathom it either. But I find that hard to believe.

i thought that this was basically going to be "the beach boys present brian wilson presents smile"

There's not much to suggest that's the case at this point.

"Linett says Wilson's 2004 "Smile" album has served as a blueprint for the current project"

http://www.billboard.com/news/beach-boys-lost-smile-album-to-see-release-1005070202.story#/news/beach-boys-lost-smile-album-to-see-release-1005070202.story

Hey Rab,

That quotation has mislead a lot of people. I've written about this before here but I will repaste it, because a lot of people are under the misconception that Linett claimed that The Smile Sessions Disc 1 will be modelled on BWPS. I think mostly this results from the fact that his comments were taken out of context in the summary from the article above. But if you look at the actual interview where the summary comes from, Linett says this:

If you take Brian's 2004 version as a blueprint, [The Smile Sessions will have] all of that music, all of the significant parts and even the little segue ways

What this is suggesting is not that they are going to replicate the structure of BWPS. Rather, he is saying here that all the music that is on BWPS can be found from The Smile Sessions (something that the serious Smile fan already knew) and therefore all the music that was on BWPS will also be on the boxset. Now this can mean two things - he is misusing the word "blueprint" or the sentence as a whole isn't coherent. This doesn't necessarily mean that the tracklisting for Disc 1 of the Smile Sessions won't be modelled on BWPS. Maybe it will. Either way, Linett is not suggesting it will in this quotation. I think the only way to really make sense of the sentence is to read the sentence without the word "blueprint" and see it this way: "If you think about BWPS, we have all that music available for The Smile Sessions."

i thought that this was basically going to be "the beach boys present brian wilson presents smile"

There's not much to suggest that's the case at this point.

This might be a stupid question but will the " Hum be dum hum be dum" be added to this version of Good Vibrations

I can't imagine so.

 

Haha - well, don't take my word for it. I have no legitimate evidence to reinforce this point. Still, if the intention is to defer to Brian's 1966/67 vision(s) for the album, so far as they existed, my guess is they would choose the track that Brian himself chose to release in 1966.

This might be a stupid question but will the " Hum be dum hum be dum" be added to this version of Good Vibrations

I can't imagine so.

Well aware of those tracks, but they're not what I'd call properly mixed. Mostly 1966 BW working/test mixes (which is why the cantina version of "H&V" sounds crappy in parts).

As for being pedantic, if this stuff isn't properly documented now by the likes of me and others far better placed and qualified, then I'm glad I won't be around in say 40 years time to see what's being presented as fact on whatever the 'net evolves into. I think BB research & scholarship may be peaking, likewise I don't see anyone in the future being dumb enough to want to go into such insane detail.

And if you think I'm bad, go hang out on a hard-core Beatles MB: those guys truly are nuts.

Parting thought: if you're so certain you're going to be entirely unimpressed with the set, why waste your time posting in a thread about it ?  Last guy who got a real grump on over it was some dude called... Will Coren, I think the name was. Don't see him round these parts any more.

Sorry Andrew, what do you mean by "properly mixed"?
there are plenty of very good SMiLE mixes by 'fans', with songs wonderfully mixed. I'm not talking about bootlegs, but fans (some of them are artists, musicians...), who did very good mixes. We can be disagree with their choice of mix, but it sounds good.
What I mean, I don't think the songs in the box set won't be mixed as intented to be in 1966/67.  I'm not sure that Brian can recall how he wanted the final mix.
So the team (especially Mark Linett) will have to make a choice about which parts will be added and in wich order.
Ok, I'm not sure what I've said is very clear! 

Erm, the term "mix" implies audio mixing which no fan is capable of doing except to a very limited extent. This is something altogether different from tracklisting and where the parts go.

Need to see video of this

Arriving.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zng9xpQRWP4

BTW. Who is the long haired/ long bearded guy behind Brian being interviewed.

Man, good point. Somebody should start researching to see if Mike Love tried to get hold of a time machine in 1970.

Funny this should come up - I'm working my way through the Freaks and Geeks series for the second time.

Also, on topic:

I'm going through a huge Neil Young phase right now. I've always loved the big albums like Goldrush, Everybody Knows, Tonight's The Night, Harvest, Rust Never Sleeps, etc. But I've been exploring some of the lesser knowns and later albums which were hits but that I never heard. I absolutely love American Stars n' Bars - it's a vastly underrated album in the Young discography. I also really like Ragged Glory. I'd love to say I love Trans but I've yet to gain the confidence to get the whole album. Still "Transformer Man" is a great track. And, really, what is most impressive about the guy is his incredible versatility and that he's still producing music that seems true to the artistic vision he had going back to his earliest recordings (which, you can't really say for many artists who came out of the 60s).

Like in this video, he says he doesn't know what any of the lyrics mean. But just before that he says it was "an American Gothic trip". Well which is it?

It can easily be both. Godard could tell you that Alphaville is a science fiction story but I think he would find it laughable if someone asked him to explain what the movie "means".

The "American Gothic Trip" that Van Dyke Parks is referring to is the picture painted by Grant Wood of an Iowa farm couple with dour looks on their faces. The woman has her hair pinned up in a bun, and the man is bald with what looks like a comb over. He is holding a pitchfork in his hand. The painting`s title is "American Gothic." "....folks sing a song of the grange...."

Erm...did Van Dyke say that he was referring to the painting? If not, I'd be extremely skeptical that this is what he was referring to. The American Gothic is a major literary genre. At the forefront of the genre is Edgar Allan Poe who is all over the Smile album, not just because of the reference to "Pit and the Pendulum" in Surf's Up. Rather, the Smile lyrics are enormously indebted to Poe's poetic style. In fact, AGD posted Poe's The Conqueror Worm a few months ago and called attention to its connection to Surf's Up. It may bear re-pasting:

The Conqueror Worm
 
Lo! 'tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years.
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre to see
A play of hopes and fears
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly;
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their condor wings
Invisible Woe.

That motley drama--oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot;
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude:
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes--it writhes!--with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.

Out--out are the lights--out all!
And over each quivering form
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, ``Man,''
And the hero, the Conqueror Worm.

So, it seems to me that this is what Parks meant when he referred to "American Gothic" - the literary style that he was indeed using to express his ideas on Smile.

I'm not the biggest Mike Love supporter or fan either and love the SMiLE music, but i think Van Dyke should have just told him what the songs ment  

No serious artist believes that he or she can be any kind of real authority when it comes to his or her own work. Had Van Dyke told Mike Love "what the songs meant" he would have been reinforcing two stances: that there is one meaning to the text and that the author is the one who knows it, not the audience. Even by 1966, both of those stances were quite antiquated and someone with the literary background of Parks surely would have been reluctant to answer and (as we know is true) somewhat surprised at someone even asking the question in the first place.

Ultimately, there is a reason why books of poetry are not accompanied by essays written by the author explaining what the poems mean. It, of course, defeats the whole purpose of the poem in the first place. Great artistic works are presented specifically to be interpreted by an endless amount of viewers/listeners who all come to the text with different backgrounds that will inevitably add a different shade to the interpretation. They are not presented to have one singular meaning so that if you think hard enough you will get it and if you don't you can just ask the artist to whisper it in your ear.

I honestly don't believe Brian considered the album to be too weird for release. I think he was made to believe that it was too self-indulgent, which is why he went the Smiley Smile route.

Another one that I have been enjoying this year has been The Exciters. They are more known for "Tell Him" I think but I prefer the more raw "He's Got The Power":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thFy6QnfuOM

And yet The Ronettes still have no votes...

I went with The Supremes - a consistent deluge of great hits (Where Did Our Love Go, Baby Love, You Can't Hurry Love, Back in My Arms, Reflections, Love Child, Up The Ladder to the Roof).

So many great ones there too - it's a difficult choice.

I will add a youtube video of one of the great underrated female R&B singers though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSehtaY6k1U&feature=feedf_more

Why? I'm Not There is the anti-Walk The Line and the anti-Ray. That's why it is a much more compelling movie and it's probably also why it didn't get many award noms.

Agreed. I think this movie will be an artistic statement....

The only statement I could glean from I'm Not There is "I want Dylan's balls in my mouth," so I'm hoping this Brian biopic is the anti-I'm Not There. I'd rather have a Michael Bay movie marathon than watch that again.

In my opinion, I'm Not There is the best movie of the last 10 years.

I undersstand but when you think about it, however it is done its going to be another 'Walk The Line' or 'Ray'.

Why? I'm Not There is the anti-Walk The Line and the anti-Ray. That's why it is a much more compelling movie and it's probably also why it didn't get many award noms.

I can't recall where I heard that.

I seem to recall someone saying it was on some tapes made at home around the time of "Praise Him" (right title?), but you may be right about the Jardine quote. (Between that and "Worms", he sure gets his SMiLE stuff mixed up, huh?)

This was quite a few years ago so my memory on it is as shaky as Al Jardine's but I seem to remember a quote circulating that I think was attributed to him which said something along the lines of the roots of Heroes and Villains go back as far as the early 60s or something. But the actual wording suggested what he meant was that the complex harmonies in H&V were anticipated in the earliest harmony work that the band was doing at the beginning of their career.

OK, one more:
Did the main melody of H&V really originate around 1963? What's the backstory on that?

Is this because of that often misinterpreted quote by Jardine?