I've often wondered if Brian pointed Van Dyke in the direction of this poem by his childhood favourite, Edgar Allan Poe

Yes! My hunch is that Parks was similarly a Poe fanatic as most of his lyrics from that time period tend to be in that style.

Check out this line from The Coliseum:

"Here, where a hero fell, a column falls!"

Damn Poe and his acid alliteration.

Most of this reaction isn't mine.

Which is why I was referring to your quote, not you. This is made crystal clear in the above post.

I don't much care--just friggin' around. Though you'd have to quickly see the difference between 1) Beach Boys fans not being fond of excessive retreading of one sliver of Beach Boys lore on a Beach Boys message board and 2) non-Justin Bieber fans posting on a Justin Bieber message board. That was a pretty bad analogy.

That's because you don't understand the analogy. I didn't say a single word about "non-Justin Bieber fans posting on a Justin Bieber message board". I agree if I was making such an analogy, it might not be that good.

I'm eager to see what you think the difference is between being uninterested in posting in Smile threads and being uninterested in posting in Justin Bieber threads. Is the one example of "uninterestedness" qualitatively or quantitatively different than the other example of "uninterestedness"? If so, how might you even begin to explain that difference? Keeping in mind that explaining that difference is the only way to show how the analogy is bad.

I don't, either (think there is anything wrong with it) and, in case you didn't notice, I haven't (gone into those threads).

Well, to be fair, you were quoting someone who does think there's something wrong with it.

And, to be honest, I really don't understand such a position. I mean, I have no interest in posting in Justin Bieber forums, but I don't waste much of my time being irate about the fact that they exist. I really don't think there is much to the point either that the only thing people are talking about is Smile. Yes, those threads are dominating (and, remember, this message board is directly related to another board that no longer exists that functioned to deal specifically with Smile) but there have been other threads on other topics that have received attention. So, again, I don't quite understand the nature of the reaction.

I'd like to weigh in on this issue if possible.

I really don't understand the issue that many of you are taking with Fishmonk's analysis. This is not to say, necessarily, that I agree with Fishmonk's analysis or his way of making it. But the charge that he is "reading too deeply" into the lyrics sounds like the response a first year undergraduate would make regarding a literature course. Yes, there is such a thing of reading things wrong - one can't say, for instance, that The Canterbury Tales is a critique on rampant capitalism, for instance, since there was no capitalism to critique in Chaucer's time. But to say that someone is reading too far into something is merely a meaningless rhetorical trick that you say (either consciously or unconsciously) when you don't have anything to say at all.

Furthermore, there has been far too much weight placed on what the original authors (Parks or Wilson) intended. Yes, Parks's interpretation on his own lyrics might be useful but we can't take that as the be all and end all. At the end of the day, Parks's interpretation is just that - another perspective. In fact, great works often tell us lots of things that weren't intended by the authors. Take, for example, Alexander Pope's mock epic poem The Rape of the Lock. Pope's intention (as far as we know it) was to mock the trivial behaviour of the English elite that was taken much more seriously than it ought to have been. Fair enough. But the poem also reveals how obsessed the British were with reason and logic - an obsession that at the same time produced philosophers like Descartes, Locke, etc. Pope himself was prey to this obsession - otherwise he wouldn't have found the behaviour he describes in the poem to be as problematic as he does. Now the poem says nothing about this - nor was it Pope's desire to reveal this. Nevertheless, the poem does reveal it. Works of art do LOTS of things that fall beyond the creator's intention. And, yes, we can believe, as Lewis Carroll did, that "Jabberwocky" was made to show people how to not write a poem. But that takes all the fun out of it - personally, what's I like about "Jabberwocky" is all the fun things it does with language - how it shows that language is not merely restricted to traditional words with traditional meanings. I suppose what I'm saying is, the minute we simply say that "Jabberwocky" is nonsense and we should leave it at that, is the minute we deprive ourselves of the fun we could really be having with the poem.

And to be honest, I think we should be encouraging that kind of fun or at least working with it, rather than simply dismissing it, which, as far as I'm concerned, is far more troubling than reading too deeply into things.

*Koff* Parks didn't write any of the songs on Discover America. They are calypso tunes originating from Trinidadian musicians (and Lowell George).....

Yes. But that doesn't challenge my point about what the album is doing or what Parks is doing by calling the album containing those songs and the music, "Discover America".

I think you may be using Parks' quote out of context. My understanding is that he was distressed that all things American were being ridiculed and dismissed as phony patriotism (especially in the way the British rock music invasion had culturally overshadowed American musicians). His lyrical concern for SMiLE was an attempt to present what he perceived as the truth about America, both good and bad. Writing about this was something he thought was so uncool that it would become cool.

Yes, I would agree with this. Certainly Parks believes it is crucial for Americans to write as Americans. His songs, after all, are riddled with American references and are highly indebted to Poe (he elsewhere described Cabin Essence as Gothic).

I didn't want to politicize my fanciful analysis of "Wonderful", but the "non-believers" could very well be something like the House On Un-American Activities Committee, destroying lives through misguided patriotism. I agree with you that Parks' lyrics are not blindly patriotic, but I believe he was attempting to address a core value that the country was founded on and the ways it had deviated from that value.

Here's where we might part ways a bit. I think that bringing in the House of Un-American Activities is somewhat of a stretch - there's not much in the song or elsewhere in the album that alludes to this sort of thing. Parks appears to interested in reaching further back in American history to, really, the origins of American mythology.

I think the lyrics of Do You Like Worms unsettles this notion of "core American values" suggesting instead that America was founded on an act of aggression and repression. This, incidentally, runs though a lot of Parks's lyrics. In Song Cycle he has a song where he brings up both Jim Crow laws and the taking of Mexican land in the same song!

To be honest, I think it is impossible to not politicize Parks's lyrics since they demand that kind of reading.

It's not surprising that only a few years later Parks released an album entitled DISCOVER AMERICA with songs about "G-Man Hoover", FDR and Bing Crosby!

Well, yes, but even in that album, Parks is challenging what we mean when we call ourselves "American". After all, the definition of American, from the point of view of the United States, typically excludes places like Trinidad & Tobago, which play a big role in that album. When Parks says "Discover America" he is calling attention to the imperial practices that are at the very core of "discovery" (Columbus's "discovery" for example, was part of an imperial and consequently exploitative mission) as well as the voices that are typically excluded in the name "America". And it is precisely these excluded voices that he calls our attention to in Smile as well.

There's no question that "recess" is a play-on-words evoking both a crevice and free-time for children at school. "Chalk and numbers" is there to make sure you don't miss the second meaning.

Perhaps this has been suggested before, but reading the opening line "She belongs there left with her liberty" again, I was struck that perhaps "she" is America. Certainly, Parks is writing about a boy-girl relationship, but maybe he's using that as a metaphor for the loss of innocence in the U.S. The ideal of America, or perhaps freedom itself, is what the boy bumps into. But that freedom becomes mishandled. The "non-believer" represents those who wish to put limits on freedom, political freedom or freedom of expression. But like the idea in "Surf's Up" that the children will triumph over the collapsing traditions of their parents, America will return with her liberty intact if it can rediscover its innocence.

Interesting observation but it doesn't quite ring true with several of the album's thematic concerns. In the words of Van Dyke Parks: "There was an obsession to reject anything that smacked of patriotism." This is certainly the case in several songs that work to undermine traditional American assumptions of manifest destiny. Do You Like Worms? calls attention to the displacement and ultimate destruction of Native American society, while Cabin Essence uncovers (and I use that word on purpose) the repressed history of Asian workers who helped bring white Easterners to the West (or the frontier) to make the fortune that said Asians were themselves kept from having. The lyrics typically challenge the conception of an "American ideal" rather than support it. I think Wonderful does fit in here -- we've been treated to Plymouth Rock, with DYLW? which puts us squarely in the location and time period of the height of New England Puritanism. Indeed, she belongs there, in the Puritan dream of the city upon a hill, treated to liberty, but also repressed sexuality. Again, Parks and Wilson challenge this by having the girl encounter someone who is sexually open. Instead of rejecting her religious beliefs, she simply revises them to account for her new found sexuality.

Just to get back to the very first post for a moment...

When we say Surf's Up Pt. 2, do we mean the music for the second half of the song? The second movement?

Personally, I can't fathom why it would have never been recorded? The music for almost all of the major pieces appeared to be complete and while Brian went on to revise some of the songs, all the vocals were overdubbed onto songs that we could pretty much call complete. Why, then, would Surf's Up (clearly an important track to Brian) be left unrecorded and why would the boys be putting vocals on a song that was incomplete?

Yes, when folks around here talk about "Surf's Up Part 2," they mean a studio instrumental track for the final two minutes or so of the song (i.e., corresponding to the lyrics, "Dove-nested towers..." onward).  It'll be a dream come true for diehard fans if this piece has finally been located.

Indeed it would be.

It would seem strange that Brian never recorded anything for it, but my guess has always been that he intended to come back to it later (after the new year, perhaps), but once his primary objective became finding a single, the album tracks took a back seat.  Finishing "Surf's Up" became secondary to getting the next single finished and released.  Of course, we all know how that turned out and what it meant for the album as a whole.

Certainly, that's possible.

But I just don't understand. According to AGD's site, there were three full sessions for Surf's Up before a vocal session, which also included Cabin Essence, Wonderful, and Surf's Up (incidentally, what happened to these December 15th recordings? And I apologize for asking because surely this has been asked and answered repeatedly). I find it difficult to believe that all that would happen and we'd only end up with half a song. After all, this all seemed to be happening at a time when Brian was voracious in the studio and, also, quite focused. The idea that he put it aside, while being indeed a possibility, doesn't quite jive with everything that was going on.

But, then again, there's also the fact that so much has been released through boots and that hasn't.

But, then again, it was years before we knew there was music for I'm in Great Shape that wasn't I Want To Be Around/Friday Night.

Just to get back to the very first post for a moment...

When we say Surf's Up Pt. 2, do we mean the music for the second half of the song? The second movement?

Personally, I can't fathom why it would have never been recorded? The music for almost all of the major pieces appeared to be complete and while Brian went on to revise some of the songs, all the vocals were overdubbed onto songs that we could pretty much call complete. Why, then, would Surf's Up (clearly an important track to Brian) be left unrecorded and why would the boys be putting vocals on a song that was incomplete?

Some great ones have been mentioned already but I'd like to thrown in Bee Gees' 1st.

So in your world the only definition of bias is one you propose, and I should, what, submit to that and say you're right?

If you are honestly being smug about this issue, then you are not prepared to engage seriously in a discussion.

Yes, I am suggesting that we agree to an official definition of the term, rather than make up a definition for ourselves. Of course, if we make up our own definitions of words we are clearly going to choose one that reinforces are own position. That's why such behaviour is intellectually dishonest.

It is more than ironic that the person who has been railing against a biased perspective should be so smug about being forced to adhere to an official definition of a term rather than the one he happens to spin out of his head.

You're right about everything!

And I should reinforce yet again here that, no, I would not be "right", since I'm not the one who is proposing my own definition here.

I'm "making up" a definition through what I consider specific examples of bias relating to the Beach Boys?

Putting "making up" in quotes doesn't change the fact that you are making one up. And you can't define a word through examples.

You're still trying to relate a historian choosing between minutiae and pertinent facts to a standard which would effectively eliminate the ability to judge anyone's writings as biased because any historian who writes history is biased in what details they choose to include or exclude.

Well, yes, given that all history is biased, it is a stupid criteria on which to base one's judgement of history. Since a lack of bias would imply that it is not history, there is no reason to judge history on the basis of how biased it is. Fortunately, bias has rarely been a criteria for such judgements and has only really become en vogue in the past several decades, in particular in US news organization who use it as a basis of critique.

Or any historian who focuses in on pertinent facts like "who-what-when-where-why" is biased by not including what color shirt an individual wore the day the event took place, in fact even saying that's not relevant is showing a bias.

You've really taken my example and driven it into the ground. In fact, what shows more of a bias in this example on the part of the historian is not what details they give but who the "who" is they decide to discuss. In fact, in the time when this "who-what-when-where-why" criteria was most used in history, history was typically focused on only the very powerful or the very wealthy (typically, the same people). The "where" was either the battlefield, the kingdom, or the construction of a new society. Historians as far back as the early 20th Century saw enormous problems with this as it painted a history that essentially excluded the work of the common man, women, the East, non-whites, etc. and if those people were described, they were only described in relation to powerful people. So, that's where "who-what-when-where-why" got us, and that's why no historian today takes that method seriously.

Let me ask this: Is the size of the hat Mike Love wore at Knebworth important enough to a historian writing an account of the Beach Boys playing at that show? Is the historian biased if he or she does not include Mike's hat size in the history of the Knebworth show? Common sense and reality at some point kicks in where relativism would suggest the hat size is as important as the setlist.

It depends on the historian. If someone was writing about the history of fashion amongst rock stars in the latter-20th century, then yes, Mike Love's hat would be much more important than the setlist at the show. But in order to believe that, you'd have to believe that historians come to particular past events with a particular perspective, which you don't believe since having a perspective means having a bias (see above definition).

Again, you clearly haven't thought this through. The fact that you are assuming that Mike Love's hat has no historical relevance when I've just given a perfectly reasonable scenario where it would be relevant is telling of that. Clearly YOU wouldn't be interested in the hat but would be interested in the setlist, because simply put, you are biased. You are looking for specific things because you have specific concerns - namely, in this case, The Beach Boys' music. So because you have very specific concerns, you are going to be relaying only the information that pertains to those concerns. The hat to you is irrelevant, while the setlist to the above historian would be irrelevant. This is why your "just the facts except for the ones that are minute details" philosophy is just entirely non-sensical. What is minute details to you could be a treasure trove to other historians. And what is important history to you could constitute minute details to them. And that's just the nature of history writing. It's not so clear cut as presenting the facts. When you are presenting the past as a narrative, that means you are melding the past into a story and there are many different stories to tell even if you are just dealing with one past event. The fact that you would choose one story (which requires certain facts but not others) over another is incontrovertibly a biased choice, but there's nothing wrong with that, because that's simply the nature of history writing.

Again, you seem to put a lot of your opinions on what I have said out there as fact, and the way you're saying I'm defining bias as putting out true versus false information is not what I'm saying despite what you may want to think.

I suggest you re-read my post. I didn't say that you were defining bias as presenting false information. I observed (correctly, I might add) that your examples of bias thus far concentrated solely on false information. What I am suggesting is that that's a problematic way of only looking at bias.

The Mike Love example was one where if a historian were to put that out in a book about Smile knowing what the speech really was yet failing to mention that fact in the history, that is a bias, especially if the rest of the book's theory revolves around the notion that Mike Love was a jerk. Excluding that fact in order to promote a more far-reaching hypothesis or belief is clearly a bias, and an obvious one.

I might offer that I would much prefer an obvious bias to the hidden ones that pretend to not be biases that you clearly prefer.

It's absurd and smacks of relativism to equate not including what Mike ate that day with failing to mention the whole thing was a rehearsed skit, talking hypothetically of course and as always in my opinion.

I would agree. It's a shame that I wasn't relating those two examples at all, else you might actually have some kind of case on your hands.

I think the notion of "bias" in general is getting taken too far in some of these responses. If you think showing bias includes the decision to include or not include the most minute details, it's too literal a definition to be a workable standard, in my opinion.

I'm merely using the exact definition of bias. We can use Wikipedia as an example, though any definition you find will say the same thing, and that is, holding a partial perspective at the expense of (possibly equally valid) alternatives. Now these details that you call "minute" are not only alternatives but they are "equally valid" by your own standards since you are the one who is privileging facts. Again, there are millions of facts that occur during a single event like the one you describe. Clearly, if one is forced to delete "minute details" or even if one decides that certain details are minute while other details are of historic importance, then he or she is clearly partial to a particular perspective of history and to certain ways of telling the event over others.

What this comes down to, seemingly, is that you prefer one kind of bias but not another kind of bias.

I think showing bias is an obvious thing to notice - by your standard since the simple act of saying something is relevant or non-relevant to the story shows a bias, up to and including details of meals, then the original notion of bias is rendered useless? Again, some of it seems to be touching on the concept of relativism.

No, the definition of bias is not rendered useless simply because it can be applied in a way you don't like it. What is rendered useless however is any conceivable idea of an objective history that is beyond the historian's perspective and opinions.

The heart of this may be in fact how to define bias. I'll go back to the Beach Boys: the Brian bio was biased to show Landy as a savior, and in a very positive light. That, to me, is writing history with an obvious bias, and a glaring example of it. For that book to leave out details of a specific recording session in a chapter on Smile, however, is not showing a bias in that context.

Good - I'll stick with the official definition of bias, and you can stick with the one you've made up. As long as we're playing by those rules, you're certainly going to believe you're right now matter where this conversation goes.


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This is quite a stretch. This bias, according to your analysis, would be what exactly in the case of not reporting in a history of a single Smile session what kind of food they ate during a lunch break or what brand of cigarettes Carl is heard smoking during the breaks?

The bias is favouring particular facts over others as being relevant to the narrative that you are constructing about this event. It's fairly clear.

Are you biased if someone asks you tomorrow how your day is going and you fail to mention every bite you took of your breakfast?

I thought you were concerned with someone interjecting their personal opinion? If someone asks me how my day is going, my answer is going to be a personal opinion even if my personal opinion happens to be a fact. So by your standards, my answer is problematic no matter what. And if your answer to this is, "well, of course, your answer would be a personal opinion", then you must realize this isn't a very good hypothetical example for you, since you're the one who believes that there is a significant difference between  me telling you about my day and me telling you about an historical event.

I define bias in reporting historical facts in a much different way than failing to include every last detail to the point of obsession.

Right - because, again, you yourself are biased in terms of what constitutes history.

An example of bias in the Beach Boys world, a glaring one actually, is the biography of Brian Wilson that reports obvious lies as facts.

Your examples thus far of bias seem to rely heavily on incidents where information was given that was incorrect (the above example, and the Mike Love transcript example, for instance) but, in actuality, the definition of bias has nothing to do with true or false information. I haven't seen any definition of "bias" which suggests that if you are biased you are presenting events falsely. It seems as if you are making an incorrect assumption that if you privilege one view over another that you are being false.

I still don't think it's showing a bias, when charged with writing history, to do the best we can with what we have available.

But who decides what makes for the "best" history. To be honest, the hypothetical examples you've given me so far, don't make the cut.

The best history books I've read are books that question how certain narratives of history came to be known as "history" while other events were discarded from those narratives. I might suggest reading Michel Foucault's book as examples. Foucault, incidentally, really changed the entire way most people understand history.

Like a good teacher would want to see their student eventually become better than that teacher, wouldn't a good historian like to be proven wrong if it means getting closer to the truth?

I think a good historian would gladly be proven wrong, yes. And they are proven wrong all the time, which is why a good historian would be fooling themselves if they thought that we were "getting closer to the truth" simply by finding another piece of information.

Can you not see the obvious difference in reporting how many bites Al Jardine took of his ham sandwich on December 12 1966 and reporting the facts of that session?

Is one more factual than the other? If so, how do you determine this?

You're trying to throw everything but the kitchen sink into an example that was hypothetical, you're picking and choosing which comments to address while ignoring others, and maybe that's the kind of history you're into reading, I don't know.

I'm not sure what you're talking about here.

Again, am I suggesting anywhere above the kind of absurd, minute details you're throwing out there should be the standard for telling the history of an event?

No, you're not, and that's exactly my point. That you consider the fact that "they recorded in front of a U47 microphone set to the omnidirectional pattern" to be relevant and the fact that Jardine took X amount of bites from his sandwhich to be an "absurd, minute detail" is telling that you are extraordinarily biased. That the former should be "history" while the other should not be known at all is exactly a case of a historian interjecting into past events, decided himself what constitutes relevant information.

Or a telling of the facts in a historical account must include details like eating and bathroom habits of the band?

You need to step back a minute and re-read this thread because you are blatantly missing my point. You are the one suggesting that you need to get the "full story" and to collect all the facts. Wasn't that the point of the Mike Love transcript story?

So, no. I'm not saying you have to "include details like eating and bathroom habits of the band". I'm saying, rather, that the historian is always making a biased choice as to what constitutes history and what doesn't. History, in order for it to function as history, and in order for it to be coherent in any way, is always necessarily an act of exclusion. Now what a historian decides to be history is typically an ideological construct. Different societies and different time periods have always had different ideas of what counts as history and what doesn't. And the cool thing about ideology is that it always passes for "reality" when it fact, it's just a particular perspective. This is why you see certain facts as being relevant and other facts as being minute and absurd because you have been taught a concept of history that is particular to your time and place.

And how does not including when the band took a piss or ate their food constitute a bias?

Because the historian is making the decision for everyone else what constitutes history and that is purely his or her perspective.

If a historian takes on an assignment to write about a specific event in history, and if in your definition and standard of what makes a historian the reporting and recording of facts isn't the ultimate goal for that historian, that person is indeed a commentator and is not a historian and the book should be titled that way, as commentary rather than history. My opinion.

The role of a historian is not a matter of opinion. History is a cohesive and organized narrative of past events and it is the historian's job to either construct those narratives or help find the information that allows other historians to construct those narratives. Their job is NEVER about "reporting and recording" facts.

At what point would you determine a historian has to inject his or her own personal opinion or bias into recording those past events in order to meet the standard for a "cohesive and understandable narrative"? Is the suggestion then creating a situation where history cannot present facts as cohesive and understandable without injecting the historian's bias? If it is, I'd disagree strongly.

I should probably wait until you respond to my last post, but in the meantime I will say that if you disagree that a historian isn't biased when they are presenting facts as a cohesive and understandable narrative, then you haven't thought through what it means to do that.

The Mike Love rant was historically relevant because it radically shaped an opinion of the entire "saga" of Smile until the full story was told, that it was in fact a put-on, a "joke" which I'll still call it, and not a serious rant

I wasn't asking you to explain why the Love rant was relevant. I was pointing out that whenever you, or me, or anyone deems an event "historically relevant", they are showing a bias. You are implying that certain events are relevant and certain events are not, which is exactly a bias.

There was no context given with the speech, there was no date or time, there was just the transcript of a speech Mike Love delivered during a Heroes session, and it made him sound/look like a jerk. I can't count the number of times people have heard that speech and asked about it with the same negative opinion of Mike until someone pointed out it wasn't what it appeared to be.

This story in many ways works to challenge the very notion of history as truth. The story suggests that as we find more information from the past, our understanding of the past changes or shifts. And, of course, we can never exhaust all the information from the past, because there was always something going somewhere. Therefore, we can never really know the "full story" of the past. It is always beyond our reach.

When or where did I say history is a random collection of facts? Please show me.

May I point you in the direction of the question mark at the end of that sentence?

But you're right, given what you've asserted so far, you couldn't conceive that facts are collected randomly. Apparently they just happen in a neat package and it is the historians task to merely take that package and, I guess, publish it.

A hypothetical history based on facts might be reporting that on a certain Smile session, backing vocals for Cabinessence were attempted, and these 5 band members were present at this particular studio on this date from this time to that, and they recorded in front of a U47 microphone set to the omnidirectional pattern. Session tapes reveal they attempted parts of the verse and the chorus, before calling an early end to the session and deciding to go home. The session was logged with the AFM, and Diane Rovell was listed as the contractor.

Is there anything random about that?

Yes.

Where were the five standing? At what time did they arrive? What were they driving in when they arrived? Did some walk? Did some stay longer than others? How long approximately was the hair of each member? Did they all shower before coming? Did any of them bring anything to eat? Was there any eating that took place? If so, what? If so, was any of it left unfinished? How many chews did they take of their food? Did anyone leave at any point to go to the bathroom? What did they do in the bathroom?

Now, the answer to all of these questions would indeed constitute facts. The number of "facts" that probably occurred on this day alone, amongst this group of people, would probably total over a million. But, of course, you want to concentrate on particular facts. There are facts to you that are relevant and facts to you that aren't. And that, my friend, is a bias. Sure, there is no interjection of commentary and there is no interjection of opinion but the very fact that you have decided what constitutes relevant information and what doesn't is pure out-and-out textbook bias. More over, it's not only just as biased as injecting commentary and injecting opinion, it's much much worse, because it pretends to be objective when it isn't. At least the person who is open about their positionality in narrating past events is honest. The person who pretends that what this kind of "history" is objective and free from bias is presenting a falsehood.

I put "history" in quotes by the way because your example is not history by any stretch of the imagination. It is, indeed, just a random collection of facts.

What possible reason would a historian have to inject commentary or opinion into a reporting of facts such as that if that was his or her assignment?

Well, if their assignment is to report facts then he or she probably isn't a historian.

Did you read my examples related to Smile?

Yes, but your examples do nothing to suggest a way out of bias. So you would add to the transcript that "it was a joke"? That doesn't quite explain why such jokes were being made in the first place. And furthermore, why are we considering this information historically relevant? What makes it important as a historical document? These are all personal decisions that you yourself seem to be making.

it's about presenting facts...if you're writing history.

No, history is not just "presenting facts". It's about turning past events into a cohesive and understandable narrative.

All history is not required to come from someone's viewpoint if they stick to the facts.

And who decides which "facts" are relevant for the history books? You aren't seriously suggesting that history is ever simply a random collection of facts, are you?

Was the previous day St. Patricks Day, March 17th 2011, a Thursday?

Yes, but that's not history. That's a calendar.

True. That's why it's probably best to present all existing viewpoints instead of just one.

I disagree. First, it is impossible "to present all existing viewpoints" of a historical event in any manageable and structured way.

Second, there is a small chunk of lunatics whose viewpoint on WWII is that the Holocaust is a fabrication. Clearly historians should not be forced to "present" this viewpoint in their analysis of WWII. It's best for them to, instead, present their own interpretation of events using the standards of evidence available and let readers decide for themselves. And after all, placing "Holocaust denial" in with other perspectives on WWII gives the impression that such a position is as equally valid as the other ones (kind of like when news stations put on a Global Warming denier on to debate a climatologist to give a certain false impression).

To try and escape subjectivity is, in my opinion, fruitless at best and dangerous at worst.

History authors can be neutral. An author who writes about World War II who is born 10-20 after the event, usually writes from the viewpoint of the parties involved, but generally not from his own.

Well, for starters, why does the historian choose to write about WWII over other historical events?

That's just the beginning of the personal bias but it can go on and on - where after all does WWII begin? When does the narrative end? All of these questions rely on subjective interpretations of events, which is impossible to avoid.

But I do prefer history be told without a personal bias, and unfortunately that's a tall order

Not only is it tall, it's impossible!

Most of this thread has been devoted to Disc 1, best you reread

You are infuriating. Have I said anything that in any way suggests that I don't know we've been talking about Disc 1? I've been talking about Disc 1 as well. It just so happens that when I say I have few expectations when it comes to Disc 1, I really mean it.

Boy, you sure like quote a lot. I do remember what I posted. I'm done.

Kudos to your memory. Sometimes I like to think that the others who are reading this might like to know exactly what it is I'm responding to, for the sake of clarity and organization. After all, you and I are not the only people here.

You go ahead and believe whatever you like about Disc 1.

I don't care what's on Disc 1 as long as it's good mixes of Smile material. I find it hard to believe that I could possibly be disappointed in what I get.

Oh, and I'm not being arrogant, just realistic

And prey tell, how does telling me that I need to look up words in a dictionary constitute being realistic?

and I don't tend to read more into things than what is actually stated.

In fact, that is precisely what you have done. You have taken one word that Linett said and assumed that he was talking about the sequence of the album when he wasn't. That is exactly "reading more into things than what is actually stated". Again, I highly encourage you to read the quotation from Linett that I posted above because it will put this entire matter to rest.

You have been way more outlandish in your thought processes than I have throughout this thread.

What you mean, actually, is that Linett and Priore have been "way more outlandish in their thought processes" since I have done nothing other than provided their quotations and then summarized them. So if anyone is being outlandish, it's them, since I am merely quoting them directly.

I would imagine it would be very easy to counter my position. All you would have to do is look at the quotations I have provided and explain why it is "outlandish" that I have reached the conclusions I've reached based on those quotations. You've had ample opportunity to do that, and you have entirely neglected to do so. Instead you keep harping on this one word, "blueprint" (well, initially it was "template" until I provided the actual quotation that came from the interview rather than Billboard's summary) as if we should ignore everything else Linett said, and then telling me that I need to look at a dictionary or that I am not taking them at their word, or other nonsense on that level.

Some here act like Mark Linett doesn't know the english language and what words like blueprint and template and approximation mean. I'm sure he chose his words carefully when being interviewed. But of course, we all know better than the actual people working on the project. Also, as Peter stated, BRI, and especially, Brian have to approve what he and Alan are working on. I know I'm reading into this a little bit, but I can see that Brian is leaning toward what he did with the material on BWPS.

I would accept this kind of arrogance if you didn't carelessly rip the word "blueprint' from its context and pretend like it means something different than what Linett actually meant what he used it (something we can see clearly by reading the context - again, I suggest you do so because you might be surprised with what you see there).

One thing that I am in agreement with here is that Linett is choosing his words carefully. In other words, he doesn't want too give too much away, nor does he want to say anything definitive about a project that is still in the works. Note that in answer to the question of whether BWPS will "serve as a guide line for the Smile 'Sessions' track listing", he certainly never answers in the affirmative. In fact, the first thing he seems to say on the subject of the track listing is as follows:

We have some rough mixes from 1966, which will probably become part of the quote album

In other words, they seem to be relying on the 66/67 vision of the album where and when they can.

And this position is summed up by Domenic Priore in his recent press release:

Brian Wilson wasn't hiding information, or what the sequence would be from anyone during 1966/1967," Priore says. "He was quite lucid not only with talk on the session tapes, but in Pop magazine interviews, private conversation with the musicians, with notation on tape boxes and so on. Alan Boyd has, since the release of "Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE" (the 2004 Brian Wilson release that featured the 'finished' album) really gotten into the science behind this kind of detail, with complete access to the Beach Boys' tape archive

Of course, if BWPS is now understood by Linett and Boyd as the authoritative sequence or the "blueprint" sequence for the new collection, then why on earth would Alan Boyd need to seemingly investigate this further, as Priore suggests here? Granted, Priore is not necessarily the most authoritative figure here, but what he says in many ways corroborates Linett's own remarks in the Billboard interview.

Again, I am all in favour of taking the people working on the project at their word. However if we do that, we have to do more than just rip a word out of its context and then arrogantly scoff at people who actually examine what the person really said. The fact is that Linett was a bit cagey in that interview and that is perfectly understandable. The project surely isn't entirely figured out yet so what is he ultimately supposed to say?

I think we are setting the compilers of this box an unrealistically high benchmark if we declare that the Smile box they produce must exist in some sort of 1967 bubble, untainted by Smile's subsequent history and BWPS. Most people outside Beach Boys fandom, if they know about Smile, will know that Brian revisited and 'finished' it in 04. He, VDP and Darian also came up with a brilliant, critically acclaimed sequence. Commerically it makes very good sense to tip a nod to that sequence with this box.

First of all, I should make it clear that I don't think that "the Smile box they produce must exist in some sort of 1967 bubble". In fact, that's impossible since if it did, it wouldn't ever see the light of day since it didn't in 1967. That being said, I think that if Linett and Boyd are doing some very serious research for this project that may work to uncover some information about the 66/67-era Smile that BWPS didn't account for, then they will probably defer to that. And I think that everything that has been on the subject so far seems to reinforce that.

I might also add that commercially it wouldn't make sense to simply reproduce the exact same tracklisting. I would imagine that something a bit more distinct would compel people (not the kind of devotees like we are who would buy anything related on the matter) who bought BWPS to buy Sessions.