Actually, let's stop using "scrapped."  It's too connotative of too many things.

I am actually much more willing to consider the start of Smiley as its own project being an outgrowth of the last gasps of Smile, a sort of half-baked Athena out of the head of Jove/Smile, than to ever consider Smile to have a fixed end date.

End dates in the world of The Beach Boys are never fixed or set… we all learned that one in 2012 ! 🤪

All joking aside, I agree it was never scrapped. “Changed” would be a better word. Even after SS, the songs kept being tinkered with for years. Hell, even as late as 1980 we supposedly almost got Worms and Can’t Wait Too Long. So many of the songs ended up as other things or reused. Basically TLOS in reverse.  When did SMiLE die? Whenever they decided to use the name Smiley Smile . At that point there was no going back. Once SS was released, and certainly by Wild Honey, Smile couldn’t have come out as a “new” album. It would have been massively out of date when taken as a whole.  BUT… the music of Smile lived on and would come out as songs of their own, or cannibalized to make different songs. So the concept died, but the music didn’t.

Any time! Alright, I'll happily keep going.

The most obvious suggestion of what those Jan 23 sessions were for are the AFM contracts. The first from 3pm-6pm is titled 'SURF'S UP', and the second (a sweetening session following immediately) from 6.30pm-11.30pm was given the title 'PART ONE'. Considering Brian's working habits at the time of re-doing everything that didn't need to be re-done, and the December 15 piano/vocal recording probably supplanting the November 4 track, that just seems like the most believable thing he'd be doing.

There are some curious things about the personnel that'd support this, too. The first session would in theory be a pretty similar instrumental lineup to the November session - Hal on percussion, Carl and Bill Pitman on guitar/bass, Lyle Ritz on bass, Roy Caton on trumpet, presumably Brian on piano - but really intriguingly, there are three woodwind players. Now, Carl recorded a remake of the 1st Movement track in 1971, mostly mimicking Brian's arrangement from the November track down to the note... but for some reason, he's got three baritone saxes on there, all holding a droning bassline. Where else would he have gotten that musical idea while otherwise rote copying Brian's work on the other track? That, for me, is the strongest suggestion of what they recorded that day. It's only a little thing, but I really can't let go of it.

The sweetening session and missing status of the tape is all pretty fishy. Ten string players are compensated normally, while the AFM sheet indicates a whole horn section and harpist were paid for their services but sent home without being used, which is a total one-off. If Siegel's anecdote about a studio full of violinists being sent home because the vibrations weren't right has a ring of truth, this is the only session that'd remotely fit the bill.

This is really, really interesting, thanks for posting. I totally buy it, at least til better evidence emerges!

And if it is true, it really is just more evidence for what is, for me, an increasingly inescapable conclusion...which is that the Smile project fundamentally fell apart because Brian lost the thread of it. Yea, you can still argue about *why* he lost the thread, how much of it was external factors and how much internal, whatever. But, again, if this is true, for me, there's just no way around the fact that anyone who would re-record Part 1 of Surf's Up has lost the thread of what they're doing. That original recording is one of the greatest things recorded in the 20th century. If you can't tell it's fine as it is....

That’s always been my personal feeling. Again, for me realizing when the Fire incident actually  happened , well I can kind of understand more the rest of the band’s position , Mike included. I think the way Brian was acting kind of put the music in a poor light to them back in 1966. We look at the brilliance of what he was doing but put yourself in their shoes back then…and knowing how Brian changes his mind so much , and everything else that was starting to happen with him, I doubt he could explain his plans well, especially if they changed from day to day. All those brilliant parts being thrown out …that must’ve looked worrying, especially if they had no idea how it was going to sound all put together. And the fact that Brian himself didn’t know…during the album sessions… it’s one thing to have mostly finished songs and having trouble deciding which should make the cut. It’s another thing when sections of songs are being swapped in and out seemingly on a whim. Brian’s indecision didn’t kill Smile, because there was nothing to kill. Even from the beginning it seemed the concept kept changing. The fact that “Rock with me Henry” happened like that (I have the 2 cd set of TSS

Here’s my theory… Smiley Smile was a case of “we got the songs. Let’s do it as a band and structure them like regular songs, like we should have been doing in the first place “. That’s what was simplified . Not the production…the *structure*. I don’t think the “style” was as big of a sticking point as we all thought; I think that was more of a post Endless Summer thing. Brian was trying to capture lightning in a bottle ; it worked with Good Vibrations, but that was a once in a lifetime deal. Brian bit off more than he could chew trying to go that route for a whole album. If he’d had todays technology, it’d be easier to A/B comparison tracks without cutting tape, but that still misses the point of the issue. Brian could not finish Smile because he could not decide what it truly was, made worse because the same was true for many of the songs. The true tragedy of SMiLE is that some point during it, Brian realized it, and that’s what did him in.

The case is more that Brian's musical development can be traced organically from Pet Sounds to Smiley Smile without the shift being quite such an inexplicable or inorganic change in his methods.

One myth that has definitely been shattered is the one where Smiley was “just” recorded .,. The methods may have changed but a lot of care did go into the making of it. I think the fact that how much of it was recorded at Brian’s house by The Beach Boys vs in a “professional “ studio gives people the impression that it was slapdash. I think when Brian said over the years that Smile “wasn’t the right kind of music for us “ the manner of recording may have been a good part of what he was actually saying.  So yeah I do think it being able to be played by the rest of the band WAS a big part of it (and the In Concert book has some anecdotes) but it wasn’t due to it being “stripped down “, it was the fact that they were actually playing the parts vs studio musicians. Bluntly put, I think they got tired of being treated like session singers.::or maybe they felt like hired help. Maybe Brian tired of that too, not realizing there would be pushback working for others

Whew... What a whirlwind. I'd like to wheel this back to something fun/informative/interesting and run down the state of each song recorded during the Smile period and where they were left before the home studio, to the best available evidence, which BJL already excellently compiled back in the innocent days of page 1, but I have some amendments and additions to throw into the pool. That should be a relatively harmless way to set a few things on the record straight!

Wind Chimes - Original track recorded and edited August 3, most of a new track recorded October 5, vocals recorded October 10. Brian dubbed the new sections down prior to vocals and assembled the edit on the 4-track reel from August itself, throwing away most of the assembled master from the earlier session in the process (leaving the opening verses intact, using the first chorus, discarding the rest). According to Vosse, this was mixed and considered a tentatively finished product, although that's now missing (as are most of the original 1/4" mixdowns from the era).

Look - Track recorded August 12 (untitled on the AFM/Capitol worksheet but titled 'Look' on the tape box), with a Capitol worksheet indicating a vocal session took place on Oct 13 under the title 'I Ran' utilising the same master number, but no tape of that description has been located. There are discrepancies between the documented titles and known recorded evidence on tape for a few of the October sessions, and a Child is Father of the Man mono mix has the same date, so it's possible that Look might not have actually been worked on that day.

Wonderful - Track for first version recorded Aug 25, transferred to 8-track with group vocals likely overdubbed Oct 4, Brian's lead vocal added and mixed to mono Oct 6, at which time it was considered a finished master. The 'yodellehoo' vocals were added Dec 15 with a Capitol worksheet indicating it was also worked on in some unknown capacity by Brian on Dec 27. Brian scrapped it, recorded a new basic track Jan 5 (probably as a Heroes B-side), overdubbed additional instruments and the "rock with me Henry" vocals with an a capella tag on Jan 9, left it unfinished (wisely?) and recorded a third version in April as a B-side to Vegetables, incorporating a reworked Child is Father of the Man section as a bridge. This didn't get any further than a piano track and some scratch vocals, scrapped again.

He Gives Speeches - Track recorded Aug 25, vocals possibly following at an undated session in September, never touched again.

Holidays - Track recorded Sep 8, never touched again.

Our Prayer - Recorded Sep 19 (BOTH versions - the 'dialogue' early takes in the lower key and the final), mixed and edited Oct 4, with Brian splicing out and throwing away the penultimate section. Brian described it on tape as an unlisted intro to the album during the original session, but in 1969 Vosse recounted Brian's plan to have a 'choral amen' following Surf's Up as the closer, so he might've later changed his mind about where he wanted to use it.

Cabin Essence - Easier to do this one in a list.
Oct 3 - Track recorded (structured in the same form it came out on 20/20, titled 'Home on the Range' on the AFM and Frank Holmes' artwork, but always 'Cabin Essence' on the tape box).
Oct 11 - Transferred to 8-track, chorus and tag backing vocals, first go at the 'iron horse' chant, Mike & Brian's 'crow' lead vocals (yes, it's both of them), rough mixed to mono and edited Verse/Chorus/Tag.
Oct 12 - Revised 'iron horse' vocals, 'grand coulee' vocals, rough mixed to mono and edited Chorus/Tag.
Dec 6 - Unknown, possibly the verse 'doings', maybe more.
Dec 15 - Re-revised 'iron horse' vocals.
Dec 27 - Chorus mixed to mono, with compelling evidence that Brian was stealing it for Heroes and Villains concurrently with Bicycle Rider, which he mixed onto the same reel.
Probably on Dec 28 (by elimination on the timeline), Brian recorded a rearranged version of the music as 'Heroes and Villains Part 3'. This, some muddled comments from Vosse, and Carl's 1972 Smile lineup printed in Melody Maker give a strong impression that Brian was considering a chorus-less Cabin Essence for a stretch after making a sacrifice to the all-consuming Heroes and Villains monster. There was enough cognitive separation for Carl to years later list 'Cabin Essence (incorporating Iron Horse)'.
Lead vocals were probably not recorded until November 1968 for 20/20, although hard evidence hasn't confirmed that.

Child is Father of the Man - First go at a track recorded Oct 7, revised track recorded Oct 11, at which time Brian likely made his full mono track edit. The parts were then individually transferred to 8-track at Columbia, with a vocal session on Oct 12, and a mono mix made on Oct 13 (the supposed 'I Ran' session), edited Bridge/Verse/Chorus. More vocal sessions took place Dec 2 and 6, seemingly to re-record the chorus arrangement from scratch each time. It seems unlikely that lyrics beyond the chorus were actually written in 1966. Van Dyke claimed his only involvement was steering Brian to the Wordsworth poem that originated the phrase, as Brian thought it was something Karl Menninger had written. In April, Brian repurposed the material as a bridge to Wonderful (that's the song dead in the water), then lifted the major key 'whoa child' variant again to Love to Say Da Da, and again to an attempt at Cool Cool Water.

Vega-Tables - Original version recorded in late 1966, possibly at the Oct 17 session with 'I'm in Great Shape' as the title on Capitol documentation. 'Do a Lot' might have been recorded as a tag circa Jan 3, although the tape box notates it 'Heroes and Villains insert Do A Lot'. It is however evident that engineer Jerry Hochman wrote all the titles on the side of that particular box together at a later date than the recording itself, with at least one contradicting the slates Ralph Valentin was calling out, so its Heroes designation might not be accurate. Newly recorded in expanded and revised form as 'Vegetables' for a single in April - Brian completed and mixed all the sections to mono, then didn't edit it together.

Do You Like Worms - Track sections recorded Oct 18, dubbed down to a second generation 4-track and edited together, taken to Columbia for Brian and Carl to add the 'rock rock roll' vocals and an early unison lead on the Hawaiian bridge, after which it was mixed to mono. Group vocals in the Hawaiian bridge were recorded Dec 2 per a contemporary article. Bicycle Rider backing vocals could've been at the same session or later. Transferred to 8-track at Columbia on Dec 21 with the group overdubbing verse backing vocals. On Dec 27, Brian spliced Bicycle Rider right out of the 8-track tape and placed it in the middle of the Heroes verses, after which he added a drum, lead vocals, and mixed it to mono at the same time as the Cabin Essence chorus and Heroes opening verses alternately under the titles 'PORTION OF HEROES AND VILLAINS (BICYCLE RIDERS)' and 'PORTION OF HEROES AND VILLAINS (INDIANS)' - it received extra overdubs on Jan 5 as 'Heroes and Villains Part 2'. Likely at around the same time, a Worms verse was spliced out of the 8-track and placed on the Prayer reel, onto which Brian also recorded the early versions of Da Da, possibly intending to use them together as a new song to salvage the material in the wake of the Heroes massacre. After all, aspects of May's Da Da Part 1 are sort of a reimagining of Worms Part 1.

Heroes and Villains - Finished at least once, nearly finished in many, many forms. Exhausting. The most indecisive serial killer of a song in history.

I'm in Great Shape - There are compelling reasons to think that the twelve-song list including I'm in Great Shape may have been written as early as October before this piece's absorption into Heroes and Villains, rather than after, but either way, on Oct 27 a few track variants were recorded and it was living life as a bridge in Heroes. On Dec 19, Brian recorded a (now lost, save for acetate) new version adapting the Iron Horse cello figure, before it was seemingly replaced by Bicycle Rider and Iron Horse (and swiftly Heroes Part 3) a week later. Brian's vague mention of a 'Barnyard Suite' in four parts to Byron Preiss in the 70s could've been some concept to preserve Great Shape and Barnyard as a track after they were axed from Heroes, but it never ended up happening. The Oct 17 worksheet with 'I'm in Great Shape' as the title and the Nov 29 'Friday Night (I'm in great shape)' AFM contract don't make this any less confusing.

Surf's Up - Track for the first half recorded early November, re-recorded as a whole in a simple piano + doubled vocal form on December 15 (which, weighing everything written and said about it up, was probably not considered a demo). Mysterious session on Jan 23 is lost to time, but a number of things point to it more likely being a remake of the first half than anything else. I'd explain those things if I hadn't already gone on for way too long.

My Only Sunshine - Track recorded Nov 14, vocals recorded Nov 30, mixed to mono and probably considered finished. Then, Brian cribbed Part 2 for Heroes on Feb 10, and recorded a new arrangement on Feb 28, potentially scooping the entire thing away from the land of the living.

The Elements - See John's posts. Although, as a minor correction, the 'My vega-tables - The Elements' illustration by Frank Holmes came out of a discussion over the phone with Van Dyke about what they were trying to achieve conceptually rather than a lyric sheet. Shortly after, Vega-Tables was Vega-Tables, The Elements was The Elements (a self-contained track in four parts), and The Elements wasn't completed. Wind Chimes is Wind Chimes and Love to Say Da Da is Love to Say Da Da.

You're Welcome - Recorded and mixed December 15. And... that's it? Wow, I wish they were all like this.

Love to Say Da Da & Cool Cool Water - See John's posts 2.0.

You're With Me Tonight - First version was recorded at Sound Recorders most likely on June 3, only as a short fragment spawned out of the Vegetables bassline. Second version (fast harpsichord arrangement) recorded June 5 at United as a full-length song. Third version (slow harpsichord arrangement) recorded June 6 and 7 at Western.

Thank you ! I’d been wanting this info for years !

When was the title Mrs O’Leary’s cow given?

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!

Still getting caught up, but

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.

Yeah that was my point a few pages back. Remember how long it took before the truth about The Beach Boys playing on their albums to come out? The labor day story? Same with the “Brian stayed in his room for years “. We take for granted how easy it is to fact check these days , but a lot of misconceptions arose due to the lack of fact checking , lazy research, hyperbole, or even outright lies/half truths. Not limited to The Beach Boys either by any means!

Damn it’s like I miss so much of the action when I’m offline!

Trying to get caught back up

By the way, how much interest is there in the actual facts regarding dates and documents and when splices were made, etc? I would think that would be right up the alley of every Smile fan on earth, but I've been surprised to see a lot of the info, which has been revealed here for the first time, completely ignored!

I’m definitely interested!  Hell, I’ve already stated several times here that I didn’t quite buy what the myth stated about Smile , because of the contradictions and some of the dubious “journalism “ of the time. A lot of people don’t know that there’s new information; if it hadn’t  been discussed here during the release of TSS, I wouldn’t know it. I actually thought we knew everything there was to know , and I suspect a lot of others did too

Expanding on the question I asked earlier…  for whatever reason , in Jan 67 at some point it became all about getting a single out, right? Out of the songs that never got touched again from then until after May 1967 (in other words , before the scrapped announcement)… which of those songs were complete? Not something where the lead vocal was recorded two years later, or was stitched together five or more years later. Like, as of Dec 1966.

I admit, when it comes to the Smile era, I’ve never been that well versed in the ins and outs of the timeline . I love the music but I never dug that deep into the timeline past whatever info was available in the 90s and 2000s. Hell, until recently I was under the impression that the Fire incident was in 67 and was one of the things that killed Smile! sh*t, November? That’s not that far from Jan 67 . I’m not being sarcastic when I say that. But to me, being completely objective and embarrassingly admitting to being a putz in regards to this era ,  it seems like it pretty much died once Heroes became the focus. Parks leaving for good when he did wouldn’t be an issue if the songs were done…but if there was still more writing to be done, then there is no way in hell it was ever going to come out. So , truthfully , either Dec 66 is the cutoff, or when Parks left the second time.

Cause that was his “real” voice without putting on for whatever reason, nor laryngitis,

I do wonder, and I hope this doesn’t come off wrong… I wonder if whatever Landy had him on during the first go-round was affecting him vocally , much like he was singing differently in the second period too

Speaking of which, Is it just me, or was Brian not talking out of the side of his mouth nearly as much or as bad prior to 1976-ish?

There’s a 1964 interview in the LPR doc where he actually talks more like Imagination era Brian. Same with 1968. In 76 there was a lisp that wasn’t there previously.

Cause that was his “real” voice without putting on for whatever reason, nor laryngitis,

I do wonder, and I hope this doesn’t come off wrong… I wonder if whatever Landy had him on during the first go-round was affecting him vocally , much like he was singing differently in the second period too

There is/was a distinct change again somewhere between 1983-85. Listen to Brian sing "I'm Lost Without You" pre "BB 85", and then compare the album version.

Do you mean “It’s Just a Matter of Time”?

Cause that was his “real” voice without putting on for whatever reason, nor laryngitis,

I do wonder, and I hope this doesn’t come off wrong… I wonder if whatever Landy had him on during the first go-round was affecting him vocally , much like he was singing differently in the second period too

Well, by "Smile", what exactly do you mean? What exact sequence of songs are you referring to, and what exact structure of each song?

The next album by the Beach Boys was never scrapped. It was continually changing. If you're asking if the exact moment Brian scrapped that list of 12 songs in favor of the 11 songs on Smiley Smile is known, well, that moment simply doesn't exist. We can know when lots of little changes were made, though. For example, Do You Like Worms was no longer a song by December 27, at the latest. The tape evidence suggests that the song had been chopped up on or before that date, with the chorus being removed to after the opening Heroes verse (where it would be "Heroes and Villains part 2" for the next month), and the verse was removed to the Prayer reel, where Da Da would immediately be recorded onto (it was possibly going to be used as an intro here). For another example, My Only Sunshine was no longer on the album by February 10, when Brian replaced the group vocals with his own voice, and used it as the fadeout to Heroes and Villains. Small little changes like these are traceable, as Smile turns from one thing into another. The album is a completely different entity in Brian's mind with each week, and to refuse to see it that way is to intentionally misunderstand Brian's working methods of the time.

And that may be as good of an explanation as any as to why SMiLE didn’t come out. It kept changing. Truthfully most albums are like that. Brian started these sessions off with multiple different ideas, not just for one album. We have a tendency to take everyone of his ideas that were mentioned in interviews and applied them all to the project, forgetting the fact that he was changing his mind constantly. We talk about the damage the acid , the cocaine, and what Landy did, when we forget he was popping speed pills like candy.  That’s gonna play with anybody’s ability to keep things in check (unless they’re prescribed for ADHD) , but especially someone with underlying mental illness. The other thing is…and I’m going to put this as delicately as possible, but… I absolutely despise the rock journalism of this era. Very sensationalistic, borderline tabloid, and mostly hype with very little fact checking. How many times in the internet age (especially in the past ten years) have we as a society discovers that much of what we know as accepted history in rock (overall not just with The Beach Boys)isn’t true, *especially* in this era? Yet we take a lot of the legend of SMiLE at face value , when really we should be taking it with several metric tons of salt grains.

It could’ve been a case where it was mild enough for him to still record. If that was indeed the case , continuing to smoke like a chimney along with intentionally trying to sound a certain way would make it last a lot longer before recovery than if he had taken care of himself at least to the extent of an average person. In 78 he had it again (very noticeable in one interview up on YouTube) . After that period there was no going back.

Still, it trips me out how his voice changes halfway through ITBOMM…like it went from California Feeling 74 Brian to California Feeling 1978 Brian and completely skipped the 76 and 77 years

I’m trying to get caught up so this may have been addressed already..

The whole thing with Derek Taylor’s words, and what the band said later… honestly? If I’m being completely and honestly objective, the whole thing sounds like spin. “It’s not destroyed , it’s scrapped! Cause Brian scraps what he destroys and throws away”. That’s what Taylor was saying if you take out the pretentious flowery talk. What the f*** does that even mean?  Why put out a purposely vague statement like that, full of doublespeak?  

The band not knowing the album was canceled…ehh… one would think it would become patently obvious once some of the songs were re-recorded and released, or were cannibalized to make new songs (Dada -> Cool Cool Water, Wind Chimes-> Can’t Wait Too Long). Just cause it worked once with R(H)onda doesn’t mean it would work again. Logically speaking, there is no way Smile could’ve ever come out once Smiley Smile was released , and certainly not after Wild Honey, regardless of memos. I personally believe all the post -Smiley talk about Smile was using the hype in a desperate attempt to stay relevant.

As for the original question posed in the thread, I have one of my own…

How much of what we’ve heard of Smile was vintage 1966 and 1967 work, and not compiled together after the fact?  I mean, Cabinessence didn’t have a lead recorded til 68. The bootlegs..:weren’t they based on edits made in vain attempts to release it over the years?

This thread is proof that as famous as the legend is about SMiLE, the hidden truth (which we likely will never know the full story of) is even more fascinating

Same…

Any idea of when in 75 his back up vocals on Boat to Sail or Johnny Rivers’ cover of Help Me Rhonda were recorded?

Didn’t BW’s book say he had laryngitis during that era?

Yes… and continuing his vices while that’s going on certainly led to permanent damage , in addition to intentionally trying to sound different while that’s going on.

Gotcha…yeah the layout made it look like it was part of the December sessions that didn’t have a date!

For what it’s worth,  I’d been told years ago it was likely March 1975.

Back Home had an “8” by it ; appendix said it was the version that appeared on the album. That said…Brian’s vocal line from the “live” version that was actually a studio recording…could that be from Sept 1975?

Notice the quality of his voice, too. He’s pitchy af but it’s relatively  smooth and quite similar to how he sounded in 1975 minus a lisp

[December]

So one of the most talked about discussions in Beach Boys history stems from Brian’s “sudden” change in voice and when it actually happened. Well, it’s about to get weirder….

According to Bellagio, “Back Home” was recorded in Sept 1975, which would mean that’s the debut of his “new” voice, minus some 1972 vocals. There’s one small problem… you know the “In the Back of my Mind” demo that had the latest bit of “classic” Brian , only for his voice to change halfway through (and strangely sound like Carl on one line )?
It’s December 1975, meaning it was AFTER his lead on Back Home…

That’s a headfucker

I don't think that Smiley Smile is that dark.  They say it is the ideal chill out album for those coming down from LSD and has been used to help people in this regard.  It's supposed to be the good humour album.  I think Smile is darker or at least more serious.  Of course the other band members hated Smile presumably they hated Smiley Smile less.  VDP's lyrics were dropped from Vegetables and Fire converted to the Woody Woodpecker Symphony which is a little more cheerful than Brian dying in flames and presumably the band preferred removing VDPs lyrics which were known to be a point of contention.
I'd say that the dramatic change was down to Brian wanting to progress (rather than die which is how he sees the alternative) and his collaboration with VDP who brought other aspects to Brian's work and a whole net work of other meanings.

I completely respect your viewpoint (and your explanation makes sense to me), but I have such a drastically different opinion about the Smiley tracks.

While the original Fire song is rather out there, the creepy deep "whomp whomp" (really for lack of a better way to describe it ) that start the Woody Woodpecker track (and is repeated throughout) is so darn haunting. And 'She's Goin Bald' gives me the most disturbing mental image of some poor woman suffering from a severe case of alopecia. That and the organ playing in many of the songs just puts me in a weird mood. Never done LSD, will never do LSD, but for the life of me I don't see how this isn't a one way ticket to a bad trip! But then again, I have no experience with it, and am completely ignorant about such matters.
_______

I can see why Brian would want to progress in his style/sound - he really brought about this stripped down style that bands started adopting post-67. But it is such a crazy shift - I just can't believe the guys were okay with it, especially after the wild success of Good Vibrations.

Truth be told, the first time I heard "Fall Breaks..." is scared the hell out of me. It still creeps me out a bit. But you know what really creeps me out? Believe it or not, it's "With Me Tonight". I have no idea why. It just gives me an unsettled feeling. Same with "Wonderful", "Wind Chimes", and "She's Goin' Bald". The thing about the whole Smile saga that confuses me the most is, if everybody was so worried about Brian getting so freaked out with making weird music that would alienate their fans, why on earth would the group instead release an album that is approximately 1000% percent weirder(not to mention commercially polarizing)?

Exactly! If  anything , it was *further* from The Beach Boys’s “formula”. If the issue was time…why instead start a new album and re-record most everything? And…why in the hell would you choose the name “Smiley Smile” and risk confusing the public , especially if the goal was to allegedly release Smile later?

Smiley Smile was the album that made me a Beach Boys fan… 26 years ago. Doesn’t even feel that long

Yup…and the converse as well