I think many of you are rather misunderstanding the creative process. This will obviously differ from person to person and start in different ways and in a different order but a huge part of it is working out the form and linking the individual ideas which have been triggered in your head.  You have to then find out which things are realisable and which parts are not and rework in other ways the parts which are not.  The whole thing remains in flux right until the final moment and even then it is difficult to know when to stop and when it is finished.  

Perpetuating the notion that Brian was not moving things around and that there was a recipe which Brian followed strictly is not just wrong, it's provably wrong.  I don't know that Da Da was always intended to be the water ritual that brought Brian back from death in his LSD trip so is combined with the cries of a new born or if that is just the elegant culmination.  It may have been one of those happy accidents that turned it into this but VDP is the master of double meaning and esoteric knowledge and I find belittling his skill to prove a small and relatively insignificant point an irritation especially since I would think this is one place where his skill would be appreciated.  We also don't know exactly what Brian thought Da Da was - he may always have had the idea of using it as water and may have written CCW to combine with it deliberately since they match quite well and since that is actually what he did with it for a time until he decided he didn't like it.  This is more undocumented information which we will never know the answer to, because even if you could ask Brian, he may not remember, may have some motive for distorting the truth or may not know what his unconscious may have been swilling about.

So what is written on the tape boxes, while helpful in identifying what they thought they were recording at the time, does not tell you what it morphed into nor how Brian intended to overlay these pieces or if they may be used in more than one place.  

We don't think that this was ever completed in the way he wanted to do it and no doubt BWPS would have been different to the original.  Yes, the fans versions are interesting and a build your own Smile would be interesting (the fans versions because they are continuous sometimes highlight the beauty over looked in the individual themes when we are all working out how to put it together) so they do have a purpose but when I spoke about the way the listener hears and interprets the music I was not so much talking about them creating their own version but their response to the music created by the composer - it effects all people individually and triggers memories and knowledge of which the composer was unaware.  Some people like me and Brian may think that is deliberate but that might be a bit woo woo for most of you.  

I am sure that WilJC is right that Brian was struggling to complete it and it was an enormous burden lifted from his shoulders but he also said 'if you don't want to progress you shouldn't live' and did his damnest to put himself out of conscious thought for a good few years.  And you have to ask yourself why it became such a huge burden and the answer is surely that rather than having any help he was being fought with.  It was a difficult project to start with but when your collaborator has been chased away and you have to fight everyone to get anything done you might just throw the towel in.

We listened to an old pod cast by Mark Dillion last night in which he gave his ordered version of the album and many of his ideas were interesting.  Whilst we all knew of the various themes which were supposed to be included in the album I had not realised that the westward expansion in the album was geographically sequential and that The Elements and life cycle are all sequential within it too - or at least they could be:  the site of the Chicago fire being further east than than the pool and waterfall in Hawaii for instance.  If this is what was intended it ought to be possible to work out what the exact sequence should be.  I don't know where this would place Surf's Up given that VDP based it on a French book but surfing was a sacred activity in Hawaii and we finish with Song for Children which seems from the coda of the first recording to be intended from the start (irrespective of what Rieley claimed) so it finishes on a good old zen idea of reincarnation.

Angela, a fan's interpretation of a song is just that - a fan's interpretation. That's fun, and I do love that kind of thing. I encourage it really, even when I have a different interpretation! We can all add letters to the syllables that Brian sings, in order to create some justification for the way we wish to view it. But this does not actually say anything about Brian's plans, and if a fan theory is contradicted by detailed reports about the song from people who were literally in the room with Brian while it was being written, well, that should be obvious.

VDP wasn't a fan he was the lyricist and collaborator.  If he had written in Italian presumably you would have translated that.  This is VDP we are talking about this is not accidental.

Craig, thank you for that post -- I think part of what's going on here is that we are trying to cover too much ground, so we are sort of running into talking about the same thing in different ways.  Category errors, perhaps.

In any case, let me attempt to clarify -- I do not think that the classic Dumb Angel/Smile material sounds similar to the Smiley material.  What I object to is attempting to use that difference in sound as evidence for Smiley being a quarantined project from what Brian "really wanted to be doing."  Does that make sense?

What listeners perceive is super, super interesting to me, and makes for ultra-fecund soil within which to plant some seeds of discovery, but their perceptions of the sound have no bearing on what Brian was doing.  Which, as you'll know, I believe to have been an intentional move towards the Smiley Sound all along from late 66 into the summer of 67.

Make sense, even if you disagree?

Not really.  It really seemed that losing his ability to complete Smile broke Brian.  Carl said “We’d just let the tape machines roll. We’d just make up stuff and do it. There wasn’t the same type of effort put into that album. It was very simple, more like a “jam” album.”  He also said that it almost destroyed the group's reputation for forwarding thinking pop.   I can't substantiate that quotation because sadly Carl is no longer with us and in any case, as you have already pointed out, people lie.

I'm glad that you and others enjoy Smiley Smile. It sunk their reputation for a good while and they only survived by releasing items from Smile.

Jamie Atkins reviews in retrospect for Record Collector, July 2018:

“Smiley Smile had the unenviable task of restoring the reputation of The Beach Boys. On the surface, it’s a goofy, at times spooked take on the psych in the vogue at the time. Despite the verdant, Rousseau like sleeve, the songs did not, with the exception of “Good Vibrations” and “Heroes & Villains”, appear to be finished; at least not when compared to the meticulous, lush Pet Sounds. Songs seem barely rehearsed and fragmentary, such as “Little Pad”, which collapses in hilarity, thanks to a blossoming interest in mind-altering substances.”

“Smiley Smile must be one of the strangest ever releases by a mainstream pop group, yet it has a definite charm. The vocals are intimate and heavy-lidded, as a result of the relaxed nature of the sessions. Musically, it’s deceiving; the arrangements of many of the tracks are remarkably complex, yet sound simple: “With Me Tonight”, for example, a heart-swelling slice of beatific barbershop. The legendarily aborted SMiLE material was completely overhauled and re-recorded. “Wind Chimes”, previously breezy and bucolic, became tense and claustrophobic; the usually angelic harmonies of The Beach Boys sound discordant, even malevolent, until the end of the track when a beautiful a cappella flourish gives way to a barely audible Dennis, Brian and Carl harmony tag. Similarly, “Wonderful” flipped to show it’s sinister side; a sweet, harpsichord-led piece of harmonic heaven was updated to sound hushed and full of foreboding.”

I think that's a pretty fair summation.

This thread has taken a life of its own and some of the directions it has taken I have found very interesting and others I have found boring and a distraction from the more interesting aspects.  I haven’t read all the posts and I’m not sure I can be bothered given that it seems to be continuing on proving a narrative to which I do not subscribe using a faulty methodology and a data set whose margin of error is unknown.

My initial question was to ascertain if it was possible that Brian could have completed Smile partly covertly but not released it due to pressure of the band over complexity of the music and lyrics.  We haven’t really established that one way or another because if it was covert and done in Brian’s home off the record then just consulting the records is never going to tell you that and it seems that in this forum we are not allowed to speculate only to provide clear proven evidence.

I am an artist.  As an artist the things which I find fascinating about Smile are the way it makes me feel, the images it places in my head, the concepts and the mystical background.  I was never the kind of artist who wanted to know what size brush Rembrandt used nor am I remotely interested in what kind of guitars were used in Smile (or any other music) or what was written on a tape box or who claimed expenses for the sessions.  So producing masses of information on those subjects is of no interest to me so enjoy yourselves and I hope you have a happy time with it. 

But the information itself can only tell you a limited amount.  It can’t tell you if Brian wanted to continue with Smile or if the band had a bust up or if Brian was worn down by lack of support from the band and his collaborator just gave up and gave them what they wanted. I am also disinclined to believe the narrative that Brian was crazy, incapable of rational thought through doing drugs - this is just gas lighting - he was able to produce an album in a few weeks using extraordinary methods, some of which have become industry standards when they were unknown before.

Early May 1967 a press release was issued that Smile was going to be scrapped. On 19th May 1967 Brian cancelled the session for LTSDD.  On 6th June the group began recordings of a project named Smiley Smile. 

Composers often reuse themes - Brian has done it often over the years and music written for one album has ended up on other albums so it is unsurprising that he used some of the music written for Smile and included it on Smiley Smile.  If Smiley Smile was Smile it would have been called Smile. When we see a man on one side of a door and later see him on the other side of the door it is reasonable to assume that he stepped through it.  No amount of taped evidence is going to prove definitively what happened but we KNOW they gave the music recorded after 19th May a new name, we KNOW that Capitol was conversing with Brian about the covers for the Smile album in July, we KNOW that much of the recorded music for Smile went unreleased for years and we KNOW that the band continually referred to releasing it and even tried to get Brian to release it for years afterward.  So, no, Smiley Smile is not Smile.

As for if LTSDD was ‘water’ or not - I don’t really care that much and as an artist I know that there are 3 things which make up a piece of work 1 - what the artist thinks it is and the concepts behind it  2 - the thing itself 3 - what the listener/viewer thinks it is and the concepts behind it - they too have validity. You cannot feel the impact of the Notre Dame by looking at the size of the bricks or listing the craftsmen involved.  If LTSDD was always intended to be water, well fine, that tallies with information I have.  If it wasn’t and just later on became ‘water’ because we thought it was, then that proves the validity of the listener’s ideas.

I'll just mention that Liz, the originator of this (once) great thread, has gotten only the thanks of being effectively bullied and chased from the thread, and maybe from the board.
And this reminds me why my personal story with BB fandom is a story of participating, quitting, participating again, quitting again...
Too many delusional self-appointed "authorities" on these matters (not directed at the always excellent admins).

Thanks Zenobi!

I haven't gone - yet!  I just went to bed - I'm in the UK so on a different time to you.  I have been here before so I know what it can be like I can take a bit of being showered with rubbish, just not being showered with it all day and I get fed up of having my words distorted.  But you obviously understand having been there yourself!

Wait…I thought Air was never recorded? At least that’s according to Brian himself… “it was a little piano piece that never got recorded “

Vegetables was separate from Earth, at least according to Brian’s memo.

DaDa may be water for BWPS but it wasn’t on the 66-67 sessions. That’s the thing… if we’re talking about it being released in 67 , we can only include what was already there on 67 and not include anything afterwards. Plans change but we can’t retroactively apply things that hadn’t happened at the time

Edit

I hope it doesn’t look like I’m picking sides …I’m 100% neutral on this!

Look at the track list Ang sent you. Obviously we don't know if it was bona fide but it preceded BWPS.  My point was as it ended up being Da Da perhaps Da Da became water earlier.  I also found an article from Keith Altman dated January 67 when he interviewed Brian and Brian told him they had 12 tracks ready.

Da Da was intended for Smile.  Cool Cool Water wasn’t. 

Vegetables has a title and yet was Earth. 

I’m not asking you what is Da Da - I’m asking what song was Water for The Elements because it seems we don’t have one?    And rather weird that Da Da was reworked into Blue Hawaii - the water sequence for BWPS.

You've made all of that up.  You are assuming that there was at some point a Water element, and Earth Element, and an Air element, because there was a Fire element.  It's a cool idea to have an elements suite.  Brian thought so too for a couple hours before he changed his mind.  But there is no contemporary evidence for the Elements ever getting beyond Fire.  The fact that Darian put together Blue Hawaii in 2004 has no bearing on that.

Vegetables was Earth
Mrs O Leary's was Fire
Wind Chimes Cow was Air
And the track list on paper (so it must be right) dated before BWPS was released says LTSDD is Water.

From another message board "Remember the coda from Holidays has the same melody as the coda for the Smiley Wind Chimes. I flipped when I first heard it, I thought I'd single-handedly discovered the missing Air section only to find out it was common knowledge."

I count 4 claims in that message that are objectively untrue, as they are contradicted by the documentation that I have access to, and are founded upon absolutely nothing. I can't do this anymore, sorry.

There you go again - what message, what claims what proof?

What do you mean you can't do it any more, you're not 'doing' it now. 

You distort what I say, disagree with published information without providing evidence that it is untrue and avoid pertinent questions I ask and the fact that LTSD is the water section on BWPS renamed as Blue Hawaii.  An inconvenient truth for someone who is trying argue that  LTSD wasn't "Water".  It's possible it might not have always been, but it is now.

I like the discussion too; it's fun. I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, but when misinformation is spread about The Beach Boys' recording career, I feel some responsibility to correct it so that impressionable fans don't get the wrong ideas about the music. This isn't related to what the band said to each other behind closed doors, the fights that occur off the records, etc, etc, because no one can ever know about that for sure. And it is fun as hell to speculate.

But when the theories are founded on information that is just not true, such as the water chant being recorded for LTSDD in May, or the entirety of LTSDD being a section of The Elements, the truth needs to be clarified. If you don't quite understand what I'm saying regarding the documentation and what it shows, that's fine. But if you're continuing to "stick to your own beliefs" when your beliefs have been shown to be founded on misconceptions, and when they are directly contradicted by actual evidence, you are just choosing not to believe facts. Which is fine, but it's not something I like seeing spread about my favorite band, and my favorite era of my favorite band, when there's already so much confusion and misinformation, about admittedly a very confusing album(s) and time period.

This isn't a logical conversation, though, if we're going to ignore actual evidence in favor of objective falsities simply because we like them better. It's not a conversation I wish to continue, as it feels a little bit like trying to explain that the earth isn't flat to some older relatives. I do hope that other people appreciate some of the new found info, and the attempt at narrowing down the truth.

I said Da Da was recorded in May - it was - you concurred.

I asked you for details of the Water section of The Elements - you can't answer.

Well we can definitively say that LTSD is the water section now can't we - though it has been renamed Blue Hawaii.  

I'm irritated at your evading the question and distorting my remarks.  I am irritated with the idea that the whole of history is going to be captured on the tapes or the side of a box.  The crucial questions are not and it is those we are speculating about and drawing conclusions from the pieces and events we know.  You may choose to believe some things and I might not share that belief and you may never be able to provide proof so we will both have to carry on believing our own conclusions.

I was enjoying the thread and ideas of others and then it just gets into a fight which wears me down and reminds me why I gave up posting here.  In the end life will go on whatever you or I write and time will tell if Brian is the victor and has history written to his advantage or if Mike is.  Everyone has their own beliefs and what we know about the world now is that just because it is the accepted version doesn't make it true, so I'll stick to my own beliefs.  I remember someone saying there was 'incontrovertible  proof' of a historic event and I wondered  what proof could be incontrovertible - the scientists aren't even sure that we're not a video game.

Oof, well, of course if we operate under the assumption, arguendo, that there is no such thing as truth, then yes, things get tricky, don't they?  I think we probably are living in a video game, so I don't worry about it and just use the rules of the game to construct what truth I can within those bounds.  That is way more comfortable to me than a version of the world where nothing is true so I construct my own reality regardless of external input.   

I think there is such a thing as truth I just think that in many cases it is absolutely unprovable unless of course you limit your research into the minutiae of what is written on a box label.  But as already discussed I didn't drink coffee this morning because it wasn't captured on tape and Neptune didn't exist before 1876.  

Just to make it clear, so we are not dealing in innuendos and such, there is a team of people working on a real, actual book about all this -- not just Smile, but the complete studio sessions.  It's a real thing, and we are doing actual research, and real people out there in the world are interested in it.  Because of this interest, we are able to do genuinely new research, and we take it very seriously.  Please don't denigrate our work.  The fact is, some of us are essentially working on this documentation full time.  Don't blow it off.

I'm sure that's all very lovely. But you'll have to get used to denigration if you are going to be published, there will be critics.  I think there is a very niche market though for this kind of book.

We are not writing the definitive history.

Some of us are, actually....

 . Here?  Get a publisher - no one is going to read this except some fans.

One step ahead of you.  

Also, truth is not venue-dependent.

No but disseminating it is.  Will there be a peer review?

I am pretty confused at some of these questions, but there's more misinfo that I feel the need to correct.

Love to Say Da Da was first recorded, under that title, in December 1966. It was recorded again in May 1967.

Cool Cool Water was recorded at Western Recorders in June.

If you're contesting that the two songs share similarities - please relisten; the chord progressions are identical, the bass lines are identical - it's a reworking of the same basic musical material, with a shift in lyrical matter from babies to water. Counter melodies played by instruments in Love to Say Da Da are reprised by vocal parts in various editions of Cool Cool Water.

The chant where they all sing "water, water" over a drone is not a recording that was made for a song called Love to Say Da Da. As we said earlier, it is labeled as "Cool Cool Water - Fade" on the tape box, and was recorded in Brian's home studio using his Baldwin organ during either the Smiley Smile era or the Wild Honey era. It is a section of Cool Cool Water that was recorded under that name. So, no version of Cool Cool Water worked on by the Beach Boys "included Love to Say Da Da", unless of course, you refer to the musical material being based in that original song.

The idea that Love to Say Da Da was part of Brian's "Elements" song comes from the fact that it's a variation of the same music as Cool Cool Water, which obviously pulls from ideas Brian had about recording music about water, although that never happened during the proper Smile era. It was assumed then that LTSDD was part of Brian's elements idea. Again, this sounds logical, but we know things about Smile that weren't known in the 80s when people first got that notion. We know when things were recorded, how songs evolved, etc. That assumption has been repeated a lot, by several different authors who don't dive into the specifics of what songs Brian was working on in what stages of the project. There are absolutely zero sources that back this theory up, and there is plenty of evidence that suggests exactly when Brian was working on The Elements, what it consisted of at each stage, and when he left the idea behind. I sent a pretty thorough message on that a few pages back.

What is it if it's not a section of The Elements? ...It's a song called Love to Say Da Da. That's why we're able to refer to it as a song with a title. It had one. It is slated that way, that title is written on tape boxes by different engineers at different studios, and all the paperwork matches.

“Love to Say Da Da was first recorded, under that title, in December 1966. It was recorded again in May 1967.”  That’s what I said.  You disagreed with the dates and instruments given on the Smile Sessions CD so not to be contentious the next time I mentioned it I wasn't specific.

I am not saying the songs don’t share similarities - Brian thought they worked together and then changed his mind - who am I to quibble.  I’m saying they were written separately.  Da Da was intended for Smile.  Cool Cool Water wasn’t. 

Vegetables has a title and yet was Earth. 

I’m not asking you what is Da Da - I’m asking what song was Water for The Elements because it seems we don’t have one?    And rather weird that Da Da was reworked into Blue Hawaii - the water sequence for BWPS.

Liz, for the record, you did say that, because I copied it from your message and pasted it into my own without typing it.

Speculation is fun, but learning things that objectively happened is pretty cool too - I've posted some facts about the tapes and what they reveal about Brian's plans at the time, and I don't think some of that information was previously available. Isn't that exciting new info that reveals much more specifics about the project than vague quotes?

Sorry  I copied it from Joshilyn's post but included the upper case so this quote is out of context.  I was implying it was worked on but it wasn't official.  

If I could understand what you meant about the tapes I would probably be interested.  At the moment going to look for the various parts from various CD's when I'm fire fighting on here and dealing with my own daily life is too much trouble.

I was enjoying the thread and ideas of others and then it just gets into a fight which wears me down and reminds me why I gave up posting here.  In the end life will go on whatever you or I write and time will tell if Brian is the victor and has history written to his advantage or if Mike is.  Everyone has their own beliefs and what we know about the world now is that just because it is the accepted version doesn't make it true, so I'll stick to my own beliefs.  I remember someone saying there was 'incontrovertible  proof' of a historic event and I wondered  what proof could be incontrovertible - the scientists aren't even sure that we're not a video game.

We are not writing the definitive history.

Some of us are, actually....

 . Here?  Get a publisher - no one is going to read this except some fans.

Obviously history is an imperfect discipline.  The best we can do is follow time-tested methodologies.  

As I said, we are slowly uncovering more and more documentation from more and more sources.  And in many cases it is quite easy to determine if it's correct.  If an AFM turns up for a track called "Love to Say Dada," and the date matches a tape that is stored in a tape box that is labeled "Love to Say Dada," and then the contents of the tape involve the people listed on the AFM talking about a song called "Love to Say Dada" -- that's all really good evidence that a song called Love to Say Dada was recorded on that date.

Now, of course, it's not always that easy, but the point is, we are rebuilding the Beach Boys studio narrative by consulting as many resources as we can.  That includes contemporary comments by the band, of course, but also lots of other types of sources.  Have you seen all the tape boxes?  Have you seen the Capitol worksheets?  Do you know when a piece of tape was physically removed from the place it was originally recorded and spliced into a new tape?  Without that kind of information, the story is incomplete.

The nice thing about tape is it can't lie.  What is on the tape is on the tape.  What is in the tape box is in the tape box.  It doesn't matter what the AFM says, or the Capitol documentation says, or what Bruce or Al or even what Brian says -- what's on the tape is on the tape.

Not all of life is put on tapes in boxes. Did they tape all the conversations between the band members - no.  Do we have on tape what Brian intended to go on Smile and what sequence - no.  Do we have on tape Brian's feelings or his state of mind or documentary proof that he was despairing- no. We will never have these things and so they will always be a source for speculation especially when there is crucial information missing including why there was a press release saying it was scrapped.  We are clearly missing a dialogue, a thought, an intent and an arrangement to 'scrap' it (and that word was on a printed document so it must be right).  We are also missing the reasoning for recording using different pared down style and bringing out an album called Smiley Smile instead of Smile - if it had all been a progression then the name could have stood and Capitol would not have been discussing the cover of the associated second album being issued after Smiley.

"Love to Say Da Da is Water" was an assumption made due to the similarities between that track and a later track about water. This got repeated for decades, because, to be honest, it made a lot of sense. But there is no evidence that this was the case, and we should not be repeating that assumption. A quick glance at a timeline of Brian's productions shows that the 2 songs were miles away from each other, and never conceived as even part of the same project, let alone the same song.

My point exactly -
 
I Love to Say Da Da was being recorded in sessions with other Smile music before Cool Cool Water was written and resumed recording under the name of Love to Say Da Da  after Cool Cool Water had been written, as late as 19th May 1967
Cool Cool Water is recorded in June 1967 with other tracks destined for Smiley Smile but remained unused until Sunflower.  The version recorded for Sunflower included I Love to Say Da Da.
If I love to Say Da Da was not Water - what was since it clearly was never Cool Cool Water?

[suggested]

I also highly recommend we be more specific with our assertions, especially the big ones that are presented objectively. We can all say "Smile was OFFICIALLY not worked on after a fixed date" and anyone reading this might think, "Ok cool, so it's documented somewhere that each recording is for an album called Smile, until a certain date, and then all the documents said Smiley Smile."

But that isn't true. None of the documentation gives the name of the project, and there is no change in how tape boxes, AFM contracts, or anything else is written after a certain date, and certainly not in the post-Derek Taylor article time frame that people are giving here.

So, before we continue to spread more misinfo, let's be careful with what we're saying here, and know where things come from.

For the record I didn't ever say that.  And I suggested that Smile could have continued to be worked on even when Smiley Smile was being recorded and no one would know because of the lack of recorded detail.  But working on 2 projects simultaneously is possible without them being the same.

We are not writing the definitive history.  This is a message board where we can explore ideas.  Everything we discuss does not have to be set in stone.  And as Pilot once said "what is truth" and did not stay for an answer.  Or perhaps better for this forum 'to know is to know that to know is not to know'

I think a main block to mutual understanding in this matter is that there is a tendency to privilege the oral tradition, because it is much more accessible.  But there is a problem with doing history that way -- basically, everybody lies.  Or, more generously, everybody perceives the same events differently.  And there's also the telephone game effect; Brian says something to a journalist, who reports it using different verbiage, and then a book author uses the reporters words 40 years later and puts their own interpretation on that already once-removed context.

And I know it's a little unfair to keep saying that the documentation and physical evidence tell a different story, because it's just a lot harder to compile that stuff, and it's not something that can be easily consulted in a book or googled.  But it really is better history to base our analysis on what Brian and the Beach Boys actually did than what they said they did.  What they said they did is important, in its own way, and shouldn't be thrown away.  But what they actually did is, well, what they actually did.

Tracing what they actually did has been close to impossible because access to the original sources has been spotty.  But thanks to really persistent people, access is getting less and less spotty, and it has yielded some surprises.  Nobody has to give up their opinions on all this, but I do ask for some patience and a willingness to revisit the record -- a record which has been lost and is in the process of being found.

So I got up this morning and had a cup of coffee but it didn't happen because it was not documented?  If we limited history to official documents all you would know would be limited to birth and death certificates and what people bought in the supermarket.  Masses of history is testimony.  History is a list of differing records.  There are 2 famous records of the same person dying twice in totally different circumstances and at different times and that is documented.  And of course 'history is written by the victor'.  All you can tell from the documentation is what someone chose to document and there is no way of confirming if it is correct.  Just because it is on a piece of paper doesn't make it right and it limits the extent of knowledge to the minutiae.

Liz, with all due respect, you have been posting mounds and mounds of misinformation, accumulated from decades of incorrect assumptions made about Smile before the resources were available. It's required consistent correcting, and when Will and I give information that may be new to you about what sections were recorded when, it comes from AFM contracts, tape boxes, Capitol files, content of actual tapes, and careful scrutiny in comparing all of the above. It isn't "revisionist history" to say Love to Say Da Da wasn't recorded as a section for The Elements, when piles of documentation confirm that's the case, and when that was only ever an assumption made by researchers in an attempt to make the album easier to understand. If the facts do not fit a narrative, it is not the facts that are revisionist and must change.

With respect, you and WilJC need to prove that my information is misinformation.  I won't just take your word for it. What documentation proves that Da Da wasn't in The Elements? As I have said already I have a track list produced before BWPS where Da Da is listed as Water.   And there is nothing remotely simple or easy to understand about the concept of Blue Hawaii where the rebirth cries like a child in Hawaiian in a chant about a prolonged, intense ritual.

More and more mounds of misinfo.

The Da Da tracks were likely recorded during the Brian solo sessions on December 27 & 28 - they were done onto the 8-track Prayer reel, which Brian had just removed the DYLW verse onto.

Brian says he wrote CCW in March of 1967... great, but in May he was recording LTSDD, which is that song with different lyrics. It was recorded as CCW for the first time a few weeks later. I think we can trust the dates of what was actually recorded in favor of Brian remembering off hand when he wrote something. He also once said Smile was recorded in 1965, but I am trusting the actual dates on all of the documents over that memory.

Vega-Tables is the title of the track Brian was working with in 1966, which is mislabeled as a "demo" on the Smile Sessions box set. Vegetables is the title he was using from April-June, and that includes the "Smile version" I presume you are talking about, the Smiley version, and everything in between. To refuse to use the titles Brian himself was using across all documentation in favor of something more familiar is to create confusion and miscommunications.

Ah yes, that good old Priore book. Lots of "info", very few sources. Lots of what he's said in that book has been debunked by the documentation, which has slowly revealed itself to fans over the years, and some of what's said in that book, as has been determined by real data, was entirely invented by Domenic Priore. I'm surprised people are still going to that book for Smile information, but I guess that truly shows how big the need is for something actually backed up by the tapes and the music.

Where exactly did you date the date of the recording - mine came from the horses mouth.  But in any case it would be pretty difficult to record it before he'd written it and clearly Brian thought they were different compositions even if you don't.  Don't gaslight Brian.  I don't especially care what it was recorded on nor does it make any difference to the discussion.

The original Vega-tables had different more esoteric lyrics.  He was asked to change them I believe for Vegetables.

So we're down to making unproven assertions and ad hominem attacks on Priore now. But Dominic's book was not the only source and the other source had other additional information on the subject.  I will continue to research it.  What does "I guess that truly shows how big the need is for something actually backed up by the tapes and music mean"?  It makes no sense.  The tapes and music cannot prove if Brian didn't want GV included on Smiley Smile in the same way that they don't include today's weather forecast - its outside of the data contained within them.  

Craig, I'm dismissing your arguments on their merits because they are not very good arguments -- it's not personal, although I do think that you just enjoy being argumentative.  Which is OK.  I went to law school, there are lots of people like you that will subtly change a subject just to keep the joy of arguing going.  I understand the thrill of the adrenaline and all that.

There is the statement of the original post:

There was a "Smile" that was more or less close to being releasable in 1967.

That position was superseded by this assertion:

That there was one Smile and that it officially stopped being worked on at a fixed date.  After that date, there was a totally different project started from scratch.

Justification for this assertion has been put forward:

Smiley was started as a new project because the band had to be able to sound like their records onstage.
Smiley involved a totally different method of working
Smiley was less involved musically / had simpler production / had markedly different production techniques

But the historical record does not back any of that up.

The band did not perform any song from Smiley Smile regularly onstage, other than the two most complicated recordings, and never had any intention of doing so.
It was a gradual and subtle shift in working methods from the Pet Sounds style of music and production, easily traceable by looking at personnel, track use, and Brian's roughs.
Smiley was demonstrably not simpler musically, and in fact was in some ways more advanced in it's production techniques that earlier material, despite any perception of unusual simplicity.


Don, I appreciate your more subtle approach to the question.  I think you're probably right that there were circumstances that forced things along more urgently that was ideal.  And obviously, making the decision to do the home studio was a huge event.  But I don't think we can know for certain whether the home studio's limitations and the time pressure affected Brian's aesthetic sensibilities.  It's very possible that they did and that he made internal adjustments and concessions because of it.  But that's speculation, whereas the tape and contemporary materials are not, and the those things show pretty objectively that Smile and Smiley Smile are part of the same artistic impulse by any metric.

Just to single this out:

There is the statement of the original post:

There was a "Smile" that was more or less close to being releasable in 1967.

That position was superseded by this assertion:

That there was one Smile and that it officially stopped being worked on at a fixed date.  After that date, there was a totally different project started from scratch.

Justification for this assertion has been put forward:

Smiley was started as a new project because the band had to be able to sound like their records onstage.
Smiley involved a totally different method of working
Smiley was less involved musically / had simpler production / had markedly different production techniques

But the historical record does not back any of that up.

What historical record are you referring to, because it was Carl who said they started from scratch, various band members who said they went into the Smiley sessions with a different mindset, including Brian, and that it had simpler production, a definite choice that was made. The first one is my opinion, I've covered that already. The other two are found in quotes and comments coming from the band members themselves, and not just the October 1967 Carl interview I reposted earlier from the LA Times.

I was stating and reposting here what the band said, on the historical record, about Smiley Smile, and the quotes are available from many sources. So is the issue you have more with them and what they have said rather than my opinions, which compared to the band's own words are just one fan's opinions?

Why does the second statement supersede the first?

Smile was OFFICIALLY not worked on after a fixed date.

There was another project started after that date.  None of the recorded material for the first project was used on the second.  Capitol was still discussing the cover for a release AFTER Smiley Smile.

The band complained about the complexities of Smile.  Brian supplied a simpler album. We do not know the content of the discussions but likely the stage performances featured as justification to go back to something simpler to play and likely more approachable to their audience (who in my humble opinion they vastly under rated).

Christian Matijas-Mecca. The Words and Music of Brian Wilson p96

““Cool Cool Water” was back under Brian’s hands in January 1970 as a vocal chant that emerged from the May 1967 track “I Love to Say Dada.” When Brian returned to this for Sunflower, he combined the chant from “Da Da” with the core of his original version of “Cool, Cool Water” to create an entirely new work.  On the 1993 Good Vibrations boxed set we had the first official release of “I Love to Say Dada” and the original fragment of “…Water,” and I can hear the relationship of these two works.  The song, as it appears on Sunflower, is a lighthearted, finger-snapping vocal callisthenic.  Its inclusion on the album was the work of Warners A&R manager, Lenny Waronker, who referred to this as representative of the ‘kind’ of work he liked to hear from Brian.

That's just an old assumption that newer research into the tapes and sessions overturned. The "water, water, water, water" droning chant exists on tape in two places - on the reel with the Smiley Smile version of Vegetables where it's marked "FADE FOR COOL COOL WATER", and on a compilation reel of Wild Honey tracks including the main CCW verses from those sessions where it's marked "ENDING". It's not clear which is the second generation copy and which is the original, but either way, the evidence suggests that it was always intended for Cool Water and recorded either at the home studio or Wally Heider's in June or October '67. The opening verses of the Sunflower edit (based on the Da Da progression) were recorded in October '67 during the sessions for Wild Honey, and the last portion was recorded in July 1970.

Brian did say this in 1970: "In 'Cool, Cool Water' there's a chant I wish we hadn't used. It fits all right, but there's just something I don't think is quite right with it."

Vegetables differs from Vega-tables. Vegetables has different lyrics and was completely re-recorded for Smiley Smile.

'Vega-Tables' had already been renamed 'Vegetables' by the time of the April '67 version recorded as a single, which is usually what people mean when they're talking about the 'Smile version'. The original Vega-Tables through most of the lifespan of the project from 1966 is the one that's labelled 'demo' on the Smile Sessions box. Van Dyke's still asserted that all of those revised lyrics were by him.

Good Vibrations was released on 10th October 1966 at a time Smile was being made. Brian did not want Good Vibrations to be included on Smiley Smile.

The only source of that is something David Anderle said in the Crawdaddy piece with Paul Williams, where he was talking about Brian never wanting to put singles on albums but always being obligated to for business reasons. He assumed Good Vibrations appearing on Smiley must've been against Brian's wishes, but he wasn't actually around to know the ins and outs of what happened there. The Good Vibrations and Heroes and Villains single masters were sent from the Capitol vault back to the Beach Boys on July 13, a couple of days before the album was finished.

From The Smile Sessions booklet - On December 22, 1966, Wilson recorded two versions of the track, titled "Da Da", at Columbia Studio. One version featured him playing a piano with the strings taped, while the other featured him playing a Fender Rhodes electric piano. No master number was assigned to the tape. 

Brian Wilson says that he wrote Cool Cool Water in March 1967 see my previous post and reference.

Vegetables - so?  It is not Vega-tables.

I got the information from Dominic Priore’s The Story of Brian Wilson’s Masterpiece Smile.  “Brian didn’t want Good Vibrations to appear on Smiley Smile but for the first time he was out voted by the other members of the Beach Boys.  Had this recording been available for Capitol ST-002, the original Smile could have been released on Brother records.”

And from the Beach Boys Post Sounds site (I can’f find the origin of the information but I have read it elsewhere too and will continue to look - it’s nothing to do with Crawdaddy).

“With unrest surrounding their latest as-yet unreleased SMiLE recordings, The Beach Boys’ new LP, Smiley Smile, is released in the U.S. on September 18th, 1967 and worldwide by November 1967. Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson tells the US press: “It was not as ambitious an album as Pet Sounds was. But [Smiley Smile is] the most fun thing we ever did. I listened to it in a jungle in Africa and it sounded great. Cut largely at Brian Wilson’s new home studio, Smiley Smile cobbles together inferior-quality versions of songs originally intended for SMiLE and hastily recorded new material. Only “Good Vibrations” and “Heroes & Villains” appear in their original versions. “Good Vibrations” is here to help bolster sales, even though Brian is strongly against it’s inclusion. But he is outvoted by the other Beach Boys, the first time that the entire group has overruled him. Clearly, as he had feared, it is the end of an era.”

do you think I'm that naive about this as to discuss imaginary things instead of what I've been listening to for decades?

I think you like to argue for the sake of arguing so much that you end up arguing about nothing!

I don't try to state as fact what I think Brian would have done, so no I don't know and I never said I did.

What is your point then?  That Smiley's vocals had more reverb than Pet Sounds and thus Smile had a fixed end date?

Thanks for the clips.  It seems to me that at least Bruce wasn't too bothered by the criticism -- he seems to understand that they needed to expand the stage act a little bit, and regrets their first attempts to do so didn't work out.  They learned from this and did work up a better stage show.  It seems to me that the bands reaction to the criticism was less to give Smile a fixed end date so they could make an album of hypothetically stage-reproducible songs, and more to develop a touring band by gradually hiring sidemen.

That first point is unfair and uncalled for, but I'll take it. I've laid out my opinions and examples here and from the first post I made on the May/June 67 time frame, I said the studio versus live sound issue was a factor to consider. Not that it was the main factor, but one to consider alongside everything else. The examples and quotes are listed on these pages, along with my own opinions. If people read them and agree, fine, if they read them and disagree, fine. But to say I'm arguing about nothing is really uncalled for and not cool. Ok?

My point is having a discussion about topics which are still open and unresolved. To try to suggest it comes down to reverb on Smiley's vocals is again ridiculous and uncalled for. But I'll take it in stride and reply accordingly. No, that's not my point...thanks for dismissing everything else I've contributed to the discussion in one comment.

When examples were asked for, they were given. If your opinion is "right" in your own mind, that won't change. But you're not the only person reading, and there have been cases where someone has said "this is fact" when it is not. That includes Keith Badman's book and the dodgy dates too, I suppose. 

Just to say GF, when I posted this thread I had hoped that you would contribute. I value your opinion and your wealth of knowledge very highly as many do here and will continue to read whatever you write with interest.  Not so Joshilyn who along with some others seem to be trying to create a revisionist history, ignoring all the contemporary information by the band, historians, people involved in the production and by Brian himself.

Unfinished Smile is much more similar to Smiley Smile than it is to Pet Sounds.  If Pet Sounds is the culmination of the impulse of Today and SDSN, Smiley is the culmination of the Dumb Angel and Smile material.

Culmination is not the word I would use.  I wouldn't even use resulted since I don't think Smiley Smile was the same 'impulse' as Smile.  Some of the tracks were much reduced in quality and just ended up there.