"Surf's Up" is a song that stands alone in the history of music.  Really, nothing else on SMiLE touches it in terms of sheer poetry and artistry.  Whether it would have closed SMiLE will be debated forever, I guess, but it is a very hard song to follow.  It's placement in the center of BWPS is ingenious, because it is done in such a way that effectively makes it the true center of the work.  In a three-movement work of performance art, it works wonderfully there.  But the conventional pop LP could have never contained what SMiLE became when it was completed. 

The conventional LP record of the mid-20th century is literally an entirely different way of experiencing music from how we experience music today.  SMiLE as it was completed in 2004 (and as it exists on TSS) would have never worked as an LP, and that's what makes this hypothetical process so tricky.

Another thought: On Pet Sounds, the song that resembles Surf's Up most in feel and scope is IJWMFTT. Still it is not the last song. I bet if Pet Sounds had been left unfinished and IJWMFTT was used as a closer for a later album, everybody would claim that one would have closed Pet Sounds.

I think that in general mood and instrumentation "Surf's Up" resembles "Caroline, No" more than "I Just Wasn't Made..."  And I think that's one of the reasons it has always been such a contender in people's minds for SMiLE closer...not to mention that it's a damn-near-impossible act to follow!

But I think you're right that if Pet Sounds were the "Lost Album" we're discussing, "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" would be a very strong contender for final track in our imaginary track listing.

I am a big believer that Good Vibrations would have started side 2 and that Surf's up would have ended the record.

Until I did the mix described above, I pretty much subscribed to that view as well.  But when I tried to put together a listenable "Smile '67" that did that, somehow it never felt right, which really surprised me.

Love this thread!  Lots of laughs, and some very intriguing theories!

I've been collecting information and trying to solve this dilemma for years.  Just recently, I finally tried out my own solution in a fan mix.  I'm pleased to report that I've time-checked it, and "side one" clocks in at about 19:28, while side two does at about 18:40--only about a minute longer than Pet Sounds, so I think Capitol could've swung for it.

Yes, I put bands of silence between the tracks.  I have read that recent interviews with both Brian and Van Dyke indicate that was the original plan back in '66.  Before Sgt. Pepper, there was really no precedent for doing lots of segues.  My theory is that several of the songs would have been segued as "sections", but that the tracks thus created would have been separated by the conventional few seconds of silence common to pop music albums of the time.

"Side One"
1. Intro (Our Prayer)
2. Heroes And Villains ("Heroes and Villains Intro" that is now used as intro to "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" followed by alternate single version clipped at the tape delay overload, followed by "I'm In Great Shape" and "Barnyard" as sections, with "Barnyard" used to create a fade ending)
3. Do You Like Worms
4. Cabin Essence
5. Wonderful (utilizing "He Gives Speeches" pitch-corrected to be in same key as an opening "section")
6. Good Vibrations

"Side Two"
7. Vega-Tables/Child Is Father Of The Man (connected by "bop, bop" section used in both recordings, something I've always wanted to try stitching together)
8. Wind Chimes
9. The Elements (my own hypothetical creation, using sliding brass sounds from "George Fell Into His French Horn" session as "Air", the Water Chant as "Water", Bag Of Tricks as "Earth" and of course, good ol' Mrs. O'Leary's Cow as "Fire")
10. Surf's Up
11. The Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine (using "False Barnyard" for the "big finale" like Brian talked about doing)

For what it's worth, it makes an enjoyable listen.

And it will always be MHO that Surf's Up is a terrible closer for an album called "SMiLE". There must be something more uplifting at the end, like Good Vibrations on BWPS.

That's like saying A Day In The Life is too much of a downer to close Sgt. Pepper.

And...if it's true that "The Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine (with "false Barnyard" fade) was once considered "the big finale"--well, let's talk about downers...

Well, one thing I can say is that the final version of "I'm In Great Shape" on BWPS is absolutely unbeatable to my ears.

Now that I've been living with TSS for a few weeks, I really must say that the one thing I'm not crazy about is the way "I'm In Great Shape" was handled.  It's just too damn busy for me.  I would actually prefer them crossfading Brian's original piano demo into the piano-and-sax-only studio session with the genuine tape-delay overload kept in.  That with just a little reverb added would be just perfect, I think (and since I have that exact thing on my latest fan-mix using TSS tracks with a few other items, no problem!)...

Holland was their last consistently great album. After that each record would contain one or two gems, around 50% good to listenable songs and a chunk of crap.

Yeah, but up through BB85, I'm willing to dig through what ever crap there is to get to the gems.  

I've enjoyed reading this discussion (I wish I'd been back on board when it was current). 

My two cents worth (or less).  I come at this question from the perspective of a musician and songwriter.  For me, it was a very emotional thing to read of Brian and Van Dyke coming back together after so many years and actually finishing this great masterpiece they'd begun creating in 1966.  Hearing these tracks I'd heard and learned every nuance of on the bootlegs finally with lyrics and finishing touches such as string and vocal arrangements was truly one of the most thrilling events of my life.  I have fallen in love with BWPS again and again since 2004, and it's happened all over again to me with the release of The SMiLE Sessions (which I've only gotten to hear in it's 2CD form so far--but Christmastime's a-comin'...). 

I think that ten or twenty years down the road, it will be a settled fact that the completion of SMiLE in 2004 marked a milestone in pop music unprecedented, and never to be duplicated.  It will also be a settled fact that BWPS made the release of the SMiLE Sessions not only possible, but inevitable.  And together, the two releases will stand alone as the most amazing musical resurrection story in the entire history of popular music--or even of all music, regardless of genre or style.

38 to 40 minutes in those times.  It was 1967.  Sgt. Pepper was considered a long album at 39 minutes.  Dylan was still considered outside the mainstream, almost in the same league as folk, jazz or classical, so the extended times on his albums were not considered proper for pop releases.  I really don't think Brian himself wanted to put out a longer album than Pet Sounds.  I really believe he wanted to whittle SMiLE down to what he would consider a "marketable" length.  One thing Brian never took his eyes off of was the state of the record-buying public.  He wanted his product to sell.  That has been consistant throughout his professional life.

BB85 is where it ends for me.  From there on, it's all about Brian.  I'll give anything he does a chance (but I'd rather he stick to doing original projects instead of what he's done the last two outings).  Any of Brian's original solo projects are easily head and shoulders over anything that the Mike and Bruce show could manage at this point.  And when Brian is at the top of his game (as on BWPS or TLOS), he's as good as vintage Beach Boys for my money.

Well, maybe after SMiLE, Brian would have done a Christmas album to chill out, and then do a more laid-back, less modular, autobiographical album about life in L.A.

Oh, wait a minute...

I always liked the Dream Academy and World Party as neo-psychedelic heirs.

In the past decade, Sufjan Stevens and Akron/Family keep the psych alive for me.

God Only Knows.

The psychedelic era is my favorite period in all of popular music (or whatever it should be called).  I never tire of psychedelia, and I've done a lot of CD mixes over the years.  On the first one, I attempted to put together all of my very favorite tracks (all by different artists), and this is what I came up with:

Strawberry Fields Forever (The Beatles)
Wear Your Love Like Heaven (Donovan)
She's A Rainbow (The Rolling Stones)
Eight Miles High (The Byrds)
Daily Nightly (The Monkees)
Just Dropped In (The First Edition)
Incense And Peppermints (Strawberry Alarm Clock)
Open My Eyes (Nazz)
Itchycoo Park (Small Faces)
You Keep Me Hanging On (Vanilla Fudge)
Crimson And Clover (Tommy James and the Shondells)
I've Got A Line On You (Spirit)
I Can See For Miles (The Who)
Purple Haze (The Jimi Hendrix Experience)
Magic Carpet Ride (Steppenwolf)
Journey To The Center Of The Mind (The Amboy Dukes)
It's Wonderful (The Rascals)
Soul Experience (Iron Butterfly)
Pictures Of Matchstickmen (The Status Quo)
Green Tambourine (The Lemon Pipers)
Heaven Is In Your Mind (Three Dog Night)
Light My Fire (The Doors)

I first heard "Out On The Rolling Sea When Jesus Speak To Me" back in 1971 on the Warner Brothers "loss leader" 3-LP mail order set, Looney Tunes.  I haven't had that piece of vinyl since 1975, so I've waited 36 years to get to hear it again on this release.  It's good to have it back in my collection.

The Beatles are a huge part of my life.  I was 6 years old when a film clip of them was aired on the Jack Parr show and a few weeks later, they made their big U.S. debut on the Ed Sullivan Show.  Those events were a milestone for a musically inclined kid like myself.  I followed them closely throughout my childhood, and their music has continued to be very special to me throughout my life. 

For me, everything from Rubber Soul on is just an incredible body of work.  I'm hopelessly biased, because their music is extremely sentimental for me, having been such a huge part of my childhood.  I'm not sure I can be a lot of help to anyone wanting to understand why they're so highly regarded.  I think you either get what they were doing or you don't. 

I will say this much.  Very few bands were so capable of reinvention as the Beatles.  What kept me interested in them then, and what continues to excite me about their music today, from a sheer musical perspective, is their eclecticism and how they evolved from album to album, especially from 1965 though 1968.

This is a true story.
Yesterday while driving I had Mrs O'Leary's Cow aka Fire playing on my car stereo at a pretty high volume .Whilst in the process of turning left at an intersection out of nowhere came two fire trucks blaring their VERY LOUD horns at me causing me to swerve out of the way and nearly have an accident.
The hairs on the back of my neck were up for the rest of the day! 

Don't tell Brian!

It's nice to have an "official version" of "Child Is Father Of The Man", but I think it could have been done more interestingly.  I hammered together a version on my sound forge several years ago that is still my favorite.  There are so many nice little pieces in the "Child" sessions, and several of my favorites are missing from the finished version on the new set.

I have always thought that this track was probably one of Brain's "other projects" which he started working on during the Smile sessions- but not necessarily intended for the Smile album. It was reported that he was going off in all sorts of directions and wouldn't focus on delivering Smile because he wanted to create more music before the old music was finished !

He was certainly working on other things.  A lot has been written and said about the "humor" project (which gave us such treasures as "George Fell Into His French Horn", "Brian Fell Into His Piano", "Brian Fell Into His Microphone", "Vegetable Arguments", etc.), and really, who knows what else was going on in his mind at the time.  But I've never doubted that "Look" was intended for some incarnation of SMiLE mainly because of its use of a melody that also is used in the "Good Vibrations" sessions (and on the final mix as well).  On the other hand, was "Good Vibrations" ever meant to be part of SMiLE?  No...so it just all seems to melt together into a body of work that we might as well call "The SMiLE Sessions"...oh, that's what they just did...OK, nevermind...

[thus matching Brian's first thoughts when he was demoing "Heroes and Villains" with Van Dyke early on]

I agree.  The only thing I would like even more is if "Barnyard Suite" followed "Heroes and Villains" and preceded "Do You Like Worms" (thus matching Brian's first thoughts when he was demoing "Heroes and Villains" with Van Dyke early on).  And of course, on my latest fan-mix, that's precisely what happens.

What?

Oh, I shouldn't have worded it like that.  But the piano demo of "Heroes and Villains/I'm In Great Shape/Barnyard" seems to indicate that at one point, Brian considered them pieces of the same song.  And I like to hear them that way.

This one is a new "definitive" for me.

The fly-ins bothered me a little at first, but I really don't mind them at this point.

Despite the questionable use of the fly-ins, I love that we now have a "Barnyard Suite" that runs just over three minutes. "I'm In Great Shape" worked fine on BWPS, but placed in front of "Barnyard" feels right. The first movement now has a nice little "day at the farm" section before the sun sets and "Cabin Essence" takes over.

I agree.  The only thing I would like even more is if "Barnyard Suite" followed "Heroes and Villains" and preceded "Do You Like Worms" (thus matching Brian's first thoughts when he was demoing "Heroes and Villains" with Van Dyke early on).  And of course, on my latest fan-mix, that's precisely what happens.

one of the worst sounds in recorded history is Mike going falsetto near the end of Student Demonstration Time. not surprised it hasn't been mentioned, since most mistake it as an outtake of the Country Air rooster.

That's the very example I thought of first.  And yes, it is dreadful.