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This seems like a pretty uncharitable read of Carl based on a lot of mistruths. The most negative reaction I've ever heard of him giving to Brian's music in the 60s and 70s might be an initial "Huh?" (understandably) before coming around and working hard to see it finished. Many of these attitudes he supposedly had were either nuanced human situations in reality or just not things that he even said or did at all.

Im open to being schooled on what I said that's untrue if you have the time, but I understand if its not something you wanna get bogged down in either. I acknowledge he was in a tough spot too, Carl, watching his bro that everyone relied on fall apart. But from what I can see, Brian had outgrown the guys and wanted to go solo--his friends could see it, and I think this is part of why they were pushed out. Also there was clearly a lot of hurt on both sides in the 80s and 90s and I dont think that came from nowhere; I also think blaming it solely on Landy is a convenient scapegoat, not that he doesn't deserve a mountain of blame and ridicule for his own actions. In a lot of Beach Boy retrospectives it feels like the band is divided into two camps--the Wilsons and the Squares, with Carl either on the "cool kids" side or playing mediator. I think some of that is understandable--Brian and Dennis were out of control by the late seventies--but I also think he played a not insignificant part in getting them to that point. If Brian had been allowed to branch out and Dennis' contributions more respected, actually included over Mike and Al's mediocre songs on albums--I'm willing to bet they wouldn't have spiraled as badly as they did.

Im not nearly as much an expert as others, so I'll admit I could be wrong. But this is where I stand now based on the evidence I've seen. That's probably the nicest way I can express my feelings on Carl's mixed legacy. (They ALL have mixed legacies, of course. Carl never offered his own kid drugs or had sex with his cousin's much younger daughter out of spite.)

Carl saying those words at random in the middle of a session doesn't suggest in any way that it was a thing he would re-record as part of the actual song. It's just, like... him muttering something between takes. All of them mutter a whole lot of things between takes.

I suppose. Im not gonna die on the hill that "that was for you, punk" is definitely a vintage spoken word insert, but I don't think it should be absolutely discounted either. It would be a weird thing for him to say unless "in character" as some kind of gunslinger even if it's improvised. Also, Brian says there'd be talking in the cuts and we only have one official instance of it as-is, which begs the question what else he had in mind. Well, here we have another spoken word bit, same amount of syllables, sounds like something a cowboy would say to a rival...it's definitely a big coincidence if they're not related. This is, at the very least, the most plausible candidate for another spoken word insert we've heard.

Fellas, I have 3000s words to say. Loosen up, syncopate it, Al you're flatting... "Rhonda you looks so FIIINE!"  

I think the poster(s) who said the new Worms melody was part of a "call and answer" thing are right--it's a backing vocal. That's why it doesn't fit the verse--it'd start later in the meter or something. Just speculation. But I don't like any of the reconstructions I've heard, AI or otherwise, that use this new melody as the main vocal. They always require Brian to do something that sounds off--either repeating the last word "Hawaii--Hawaii" or a weird scat "aa--uh-eeeh-aeh-ah-eah" and it sounds awkward and draws attention to itself. It isn't natural--does Help Me Rhonda "run out of words" and have Al sing a bunch of scat to fill out the meter? No. Yes, SMiLE was different but not THAT different.

I grant you there are scat verses in Heroes "doo bah doo waah" and Veggies (where he took out the cornucopia stuff--a big mistake in my opinion, probably Mike dissenting to the "tripped" pun) but then it's the ENTIRE VERSE not half of it. All these "restored DYLW" edits have me thinking "dude, just sing the words and stop being 'cute' with it, will ya?" Granted, Joshilyn's youtube link has gone dead so I can't comment on her interpretation--would love to hear a reupload if she or anyone who remembers what it was were to see this again.

I think some people were so excited by this new discovery they rushed it into production without thinking, so Im on Wirestone's side. I have misgivings about BWPS too, and I think the Worms verses there are weaker than what Brian was capable of, but that's because he'd have countermelodies not a different one altogether.

As for the posters speculating on how BWPS rediscovered the melody, what Brian said/did, it's actually kind of a perplexing story. In I believe Priore's 2005 book or some BWPS ancilary material, Darian describes how they played Worms as it existed on the boots, no lyrics, for awhile until finally he asked "hey Brian, was anything else originally supposed to go here?" And Brian said "yeah, there were lyrics" and supposedly dug out an old lyric sheet, couldn't make out the word "Indians" and called up VDP. But it begs the question, if Darian hadn't asked, would Brian have just not said anything and toured a half-instrumental Worms?? Apparently so, if this story is to be believed. And so, nobody asked him in the planning stages what was missing from SMiLE, if there were revelatory pieces unrecorded or lost, until partway into early rehearsals? Apparently so. Just makes you want to bang your head against the wall. I guess Darian didn't want to overwhelm Brian in the beginning with a bunch of questions which is understandable but it makes you wonder what else was never asked, what other secrets Brian was holding out on us...

Anyway, let that story serve as indication that just because we heard it a certain way in BWPS doesn't mean that's all there was to it. HOWEVER, Brian recalled the melody he did which means we shouldn't throw that out either. It seems a reasonable assumption he'd remember the main melody but not the 5 different counters and backings he'd have had the guys do at the top of his game in '66.


I wish it was easier to find restorations of the clarinet part from Look. It seems even a lot of these AI fanmixes where nothing is off the table forget about it for some reason. I even forgot about it until doing my deep dive these past two months because I don't listen to BWPS much at all.  

This seems like a pretty uncharitable read of Carl based on a lot of mistruths. The most negative reaction I've ever heard of him giving to Brian's music in the 60s and 70s might be an initial "Huh?" (understandably) before coming around and working hard to see it finished. Many of these attitudes he supposedly had were either nuanced human situations in reality or just not things that he even said or did at all.

Carl saying those words at random in the middle of a session doesn't suggest in any way that it was a thing he would re-record as part of the actual song. It's just, like... him muttering something between takes. All of them mutter a whole lot of things between takes.

I can't keep up with all 300 of these threads but I'm enjoying them and appreciating that discussion is still being generated! On the structure of Child, there's nothing from the 60s indicating that Brian ever conceived of it any differently to his rough assembly edit. That chorus/verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/half-chorus track mixdown put together at the original Western session is the only time he spliced it into the form of a song. Otherwise, there was a rough mix two days later with a single splice from the verse to the chorus to see what it would sound like, and that's all.

Nothing to add to BJL's take on why it didn't get finished, which I think is dead on the money.

Which track is this in on disc 2? I'm sure I remember it but I can't find it!

I believe its track 26, H&V part 4, about 1:10 in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fszNcysYdYM&list=PL4jIq7wqF8Qe9-mMfvmSCloXvhSw1l67S&index=26 It's not a "final draft" of the idea by any means, not said with the same dramatic flourish as YUA like in the Cantina edit. It's just Brian/Carl or one of the other guys saying it between takes, with an obvious put-on tough-guy drawl, but in a whisper. It sounds like he's rehearsing where it's gonna go. This would've been for Side 2 of the single I believe, and further credits the theory I saw on the forum back in the day that side1 would be the Hero while side2 would be the Villain.

Thanks! At some point years ago there was a fan mix that inserted it somewhere that I listened to a lot, the exact intonation is like burned into my mind. But I'd probably only listened to it in its original context a couple of times!

I think Van just resents the project and Brian to some extent and doesn't like talking about it--like Alec Guiness in Star Wars--he thinks it's somewhat beneath him.

In his heart he must know it's the best and most important thing he ever did. But I think I'd be a little resentful too in his shoes. Among other things, simply the fact that this incredible work he did got buried for so long would be a reason to be resentful. And then that as it came out over time it sort of continuously overshadowed the rest of his career would be another reason to be resentful, from the opposite direction...

I've never gotten this vibe from Carl. But I have long had the sense that Carl felt pretty burned by his relationship with Brian by the 80s and 90s. And I get it. To have a beloved brother you looked up to as a kid and young adult, who then struggles big time with drugs and mental illness and basically loses control of his life and checks out, is going to be really hard for anyone. On top of that, to have to live your entire professional life in that person's shadow (however extraordinary the life you got from it!) can't have been easy. I don't think you need Carl to not have liked the music to get this kind of ambivalent reaction, when Smile would have been tied up in so much complicated family, personal, and professional drama from his own life. Smile’s failure was a major turning point in Brian Wilson’s life. But it was also just as big a turning point in Carl Wilson’s life, except Carl had had no control over it and probably hadn’t even really understood what was happening while it was happening.

I may've been a little too harsh, but it seems to be my way where I over-emphasize a point if I feel it's been ignored for too long. I just think he's often put on a pedestal for dying young (not diminishing the tragedy of that) and for his public role as "the peacemaker." As a fan, I can't have been in his shoes during all the craziness, but sometimes it feels like he sold out his brothers' and the band's integrity to be commercial. I get it, it's his livelihood, but he had no right to essentially guilt/force Brian to stay in the band and do things he didn't want to do. It's understood by a lot of the non-band primary sources that Brian wanted to and should've gone solo, so I don't believe Carl was ignorant of these aspirations which he squashed time and again. With Carl, my reading of the material is he constantly pressured Brian to be productive again while simultaneously dumping on his output. That had to be straight up torturous for Brian, an unspoken reason he was so depressed and dysfunctional. There were absolutely hurt feelings on Brian's side,  even bluntly stated in interviews, but it gets dismissed as "oh that's just Landy's influence" when I think he was genuinely venting.

The Mt Vernon thing is a perfect example--it's like, Carl, he isn't into the hard rock vibe like you. You want him to make music, you take what he gives you and say "thank you" or leave him alone. As far as I recall, Carl was part of the Redwood incidents too, and wouldn't even record the Paley stuff out of some feigned concern trolling when really, I suspect, the reason is bitterness. (By then, Carl felt burned by things Brian said during the Landy years. I never got that far in WIBN but I've seen 80s interviews and I don't think Brian was being unfair there.) I just think Carl's hands aren't totally clean, he let Brian get bullied around, but unlike Mike he knows when to keep his mouth shut (and died tragically young, and had the best voice) so the fans give him a pass. That's the record I felt the need to correct when I wrote my comment.

Based on the surviving evidence that I've seen, I think it's possible Carl was ambivalent about the material all along, that he didn't get it in the 60s but came to appreciate it later, or that he loved it in the 60s and grew ambivalent over time. But frankly, and in stark contrast to the speculation on the first page of this thread, I think maybe the last version sounds the most plausible to me. That while Smile was happening, Carl was maybe worried a little about how they would do it live, and about Brian's mental state, but was also really excited about what Brian was doing musically. But as Smile became this complicated, painful part of the band's legacy, his opinion became more ambivalent.

I personally think he didn't particularly like it, not as overtly hostile as Mike (I think Mike, for all his faults, was at least man enough to say what the other guys were thinking to Brian's face) but then recognized its commercial potential soon after. Carl, I think, was the weakest songwriter of the Wilsons BY FAR but still had instincts enough to tell which way the wind was blowing by 1968. I think Carl realized they missed the boat, hence 20/20 and Surf's Up. But I don't think he really liked the material, just realized "hey it turns out having a weird psychedelic album was the thing to do in '67 after all!" He certainly didn't "love it" or there'd be quotes like Dennis', or primary sources saying "Carl was his biggest supporter/defended it" like they say for Dennis. We can't know for certain, that's just my impression.

I may be too harsh in my characterization but Im trying to swing the pendulum back a bit, I guess. What a lot of people call "playing the peacemaker" I call "playing politics" and "being two-faced." Like, right here, he's acting as if he were Brian's supporter all along when he was dumping on the Paley stuff at the exact time this interview was filmed. He didn't "learn his lesson" and was behaving in a manner contrary to the image he wants to present to the viewing audience. I call that disingenuous, and I see that behavior a lot with Carl. (People can say there were extenuating circumstances in the '90s but I say bull--Carl just never expected the Paley drama to go public.) Carl acted entitled to Brian's creative output while dissing it all through the 70s and that really rubs me the wrong way. If you're gonna shackle your bro to a failing band he's clearly outgrown, that wouldn't even exist if not for him, you should play his songs and be thankful for his effort. But I guess easier said than done.

Yea, I see what you're saying on all this. And I totally get what you mean about making your point in a strong way because you're trying to move the pendulum. You really do have to do that if you want to shift how people think about something!

If it sounded good, didn't significantly alter the track pool from 66-67 material (no time to get alone or country air for me, no Cant Wait Too Long as a replacement for WC, keep Heroes on even if it was already released, etc) and more or less followed Brian's wishes with his approval, I would. There'd probably be some "Carl-isms" and "Reilly-isms" that rub me the wrong way, like Im not the biggest fan of '71 Surf's Up especially the fade, but it wouldn't be a deal breaker if the "polishing" didn't call attention to itself.

The reason I don't hold BWPS in the same regard is because the production and vocals are SO different it just doesn't have the same vibe. It's the equivalent of a remake or reboot. Even by the same director with the same script and storyboards, it's gonna look and therefore feel different. It's not the same. I think 1973 or so was their last chance to do it right, so none but the uber-fans would even notice it'd been worked on in two different time frames. By 1988 it was already too late, much less anytime after that.

I've said it before, but I think the fact that they didn't assemble and sing Worms at any point before Carl died (I know they were considering it in the late 70s) is tragic, because that would be another Cabinessence. But no one but Brian could have finished the record as a whole, and Brian wasn't capable of finishing the record as a younger version of himself. So if he'd finished it in 1973, it would have been finished by 1973 Brian. It was finished in 2004, so it was finished by 2004 Brian. And even 1968 Brian wouldn't have done it the way he would have in 66. So much had changed in music and the world and his own mind and life even by then.

I agree with what you said in another thread, though. I think of Brian Wilson Presents Smile as a remake. I love it. But it's not the original. And it's not really trying to be, which is the great thing about it. They're not really trying to sound like the Beach Boys vocally. Even the art and title screams that this is something different, something new.