My Last (?) Crack at the SMiLE Jigsaw

[doinnothin]

15. Brian's Short Story at KRLA

Something really cool I learned from the GHS is that Brian actually wrote a short story during the SMiLE sessions that was published in KRLA Beat, apparently a newspaper aimed at teens, at least mostly about musical acts. I may have tangentially heard of it before, but this is the first time I actually read it, "Vibrations--Brian Wilson Style" with Mike Spinach (nee Vosse), David Carrot (nee Anderle), Brian Gemini (nee Wilson) and "Brian's cousin Barry." Right from the get-go, it reads like a greatest hits of the Psychedelic Sounds, with a goofball stoner wandering through "the vegetable forest," choking breaths inhibiting his ability to enjoy nature and then falling into an object (a tomato instead of an instrument).

Beyond that this story is more interesting for the fact that it actually exists than having any real merit as a story. It reads like some happy stoner guy writing the first things that come to mind when thinking about personified vegetables. You see the confluence of some of Brian's other favorite subjects like astrology (hence his name) and nature (hence the setting), as well as his really goofy, borderline autistic sense of humor. It feels like a mad libs of the Psychedelic Sounds topics, which lends further credence to their importance and possibly offers insight into what kind of "humorous talking" may've been used on SMiLE. (Or, if you insist, perhaps on the "separate" humor album.) It's very unlikely to me that there's any kind of deeper hidden meaning here than that. Also, since random things just sort of happen and then it putters out with an unwritten "Part III," there's nothing to judge as a story. I'm glad I read it though--it's cute and very much of Brian's mind, for better and worse.

Interesting to see the phrase "in the pink" in the story, as that was later used in BWPS's "Blue Hawaii" lyrics.

[Julia]

This is me checking in with an update on my longterm plans for the thread/my second "SMiLE Thesis."

1. My Plans to Get All the SMiLE Out of My System

In the near-ish future I want to reread LLVS, Priore's 2005 book, the new David Leaf book as well as the 2011 booklet and relevant sections of the Byron Preiss book. Then, unless anyone can fill me in on anything substantial I'm missing, I can say I've read all the major sources covering this topic and my fandom level will be over 9000. I might even try to make a "Gospel Harmony" of the story pieced from these sources, giving priority to the details that show up most frequently or something, but this isn't a top priority for me. I'd also like to maybe assemble a "SMiLE BiBLE" of the best 66-67 contemporary articles/accounts, the best Smile Shop essays, etc along with the best comprehensive secondary sources and/or my "Harmonized narrative" to make an unofficial reference book for people in the future. This would be that "Deaf Genius/Dumb Angel" thing I mentioned in a previous post. We'll see how far I get.

In addition to the Dumb Angel, Sandalphon & Dumb Angel, Metatron mix outlines I've mentioned earlier, last night I got another cool idea idea for at least part of a new sequence. Has anybody every done a version of SMiLE where Fire ends Side 1 and Side 2 begins with Workshop? That just struck me as such an awesome idea but I'm not sure what other new sequence ideas I like enough to justify a third simultaneous crack at it. Maybe this could be the "everything is H&V" framework I've always wanted to try but never got inspiration for, and we could call it "Smile/Frown" in the tradition of opposites like H&V itself or Adult/Child. We'll see...

2. Fourth Axis of Fan Classification

It occurred to me upon further reflection that there is one other axis of "SMiLE theory" I overlooked. I mentioned Grand Plan/Disjointed Burnout, BWPS/"Original Vision," and "Oral Tradition"/"Hard Evidence." I think also, you might group us into the "regular banded album" camp who sees a 66-67 SMiLE as more similar to Pet Sounds and Sgt Pepper, with straightforward, separate tracks versus the "experimental song cycle" camp who gives more credence to quotes like "talking between cuts and verses" and thinks it would've been more similar to Smiley Smile & We're Only In It For The Money. (Less definitive breaks between tracks, audio collages, spoken word humor bits, "mistakes" or jarring cuts left it, things like that.) I personally think SMiLE started off more as the former but gradually became more of the latter, hence its final form being Smiley. I think come October or even September that's what Brian's ambition wanted to do, but he just couldn't get there for all the reasons we already know. I think, where Pet Sounds abandoned the spoken word "filler" of previous albums, SMiLE was an attempt to integrate it into the good stuff, make it an inseparable part of the message rather than something you skip like in Today!.

Ive been lurking in the forbidden zone lately to see how the SMiLE conversation has developed over there and one talking point I've been seeing more of is this need to knock SMiLE down a peg by telling people that Pet Sounds was actually far more advanced in its arrangements and chord progressions. Im not a trained musician so I can't comment on that, but I recall it being a thesis of the "Smiley Smile IS Smile" essay that was floating around 10-15 odd years ago as well, that the sessions were gradually getting simpler anyway rather than a clean, dramatic break. I say if this is true, and I have no reason to doubt it or care (doesn't change my high opinion of the music) perhaps Brian realized Pet Sounds was the peak of Wall of Sound and the next step in innovation was the modular editing and possible Zappa-esque "sound collage" idea. So the "wow, he went to the next level" factor here isn't "he used more instruments" so much as "he took all these disparate pieces of totally different songs, audio verite recordings, spoken word snippets and tied them together in a way that lifts them all above the sum of their parts." I think that was the goal, that's what was supposed to make SMiLE groundbreaking even if the individual pieces arent any more complex than "God Only Knows" and "Good Vibrations." Honestly, that the arrangements are supposedly sparser yet few people noticed without being told implies Brian was after-all still developing as a producer, learning how to get more out of less. (That's far more impressive than, say BW88, where he throws a cacophony's worth of instrumental layers at each track just to prove he can.)

One of my favorite comments I saw there was to the effect of "Pet Sounds is the same idea told 13 different ways, it all fits together implicitly. SMiLE isn't a step up from that so much as a right turn. It's more far reaching in subject matter and so picturesque in execution you can practically smell the lamp oil in CE and feel the train thundering by. Its priority isn't in its deeply layered sound but rather how each instrument is carefully chosen to evoke a sound and its resultant visual association." (I'm highly paraphrasing but then they went on to quote the same bits of studio chatter I often do, where Brian wanted an instrument to sound like something else: jewelry, a fire engine siren, vocals imitating a banjo twang in CE, actual veggie crunching in VT, or a baby crying for example. I've also always felt Wonderful Version 1's backing track sounds just like a music box & at least some versions of Bicycle Rider sound like spokes of a bike wheel turning, but I don't know if I've ever mentioned that before.) Where Pet Sounds songs' arrangements are mostly interchangeable in their "sound texture" (part of what makes them all work together so perfectly), SMiLE was pushing boundaries by even attempting to put VT, GV, CIFOTM and Workshop together on the same LP, these wildly different tracks with their own unique sonic identity.

This coincides with Koestler's The Art of Creation and its influence on Brian's creative process. Specifically, the theory of pictorial thinking as a more accessible thought process as well as the use "bisociation:" how Brian might've been matching subconscious scenes in his mind with conscious instrumentation choices. SMiLE's strength was supposed to be its ability to take you to so many different places and do it seamlessly, just with some short fragments of music as well as non-literal puns and references. The humor and impressionist style was meant to open the listener's subconscious mind, while the modular pieces (accentuated by VDP's non-linear lyrics and Frank Holmes' jigsaw puzzle style of illustration) walked us towards enlightenment, one small step at a time. Of course, this defense of SMiLE's would-be grandiosity is undercut by the fact that Brian couldn't ultimately finish it, but I'm saying I think that was his magnificent intent, that's what was supposed to be impressive about it, if the chords aren't as unexpected. (And even if the endeavor failed, like Gatsby, the beautiful dream and its naive pursuit against impossible odds is worth admiration in its own right.)

3. How Much of the '66-'67 Material was BWPS-Era Brian Exposed To?

Interesting to see the phrase "in the pink" in the story, as that was later used in BWPS's "Blue Hawaii" lyrics.

I've often wondered if Darian and the others showed Brian any of the ancillary SMiLE material during the planning stages for the '03 shows. Was he re-exposed to this, Psychedelic Sounds, old interviews/articles or the same book sources I've been reading? Did they comb through what was in the vaults or just stick to Darian's collection of boots and the GV boxset?

[BJL]

Ive been lurking in the forbidden zone lately to see how the SMiLE conversation has developed over there and one talking point I've been seeing more of is this need to knock SMiLE down a peg by telling people that Pet Sounds was actually far more advanced in its arrangements and chord progressions. Im not a trained musician so I can't comment on that, but I recall it being a thesis of the "Smiley Smile IS Smile" essay that was floating around 10-15 odd years ago as well, that the sessions were gradually getting simpler anyway rather than a clean, dramatic break. I say if this is true, and I have no reason to doubt it or care (doesn't change my high opinion of the music) perhaps Brian realized Pet Sounds was the peak of Wall of Sound and the next step in innovation was the modular editing and possible Zappa-esque "sound collage" idea. So the "wow, he went to the next level" factor here isn't "he used more instruments" so much as "he took all these disparate pieces of totally different songs, audio verite recordings, spoken word snippets and tied them together in a way that lifts them all above the sum of their parts." I think that was the goal, that's what was supposed to make SMiLE groundbreaking even if the individual pieces arent any more complex than "God Only Knows" and "Good Vibrations." Honestly, that the arrangements are supposedly sparser yet few people noticed without being told implies Brian was after-all still developing as a producer, learning how to get more out of less. (That's far more impressive than, say BW88, where he throws a cacophony's worth of instrumental layers at each track just to prove he can.)

One of my favorite comments I saw there was to the effect of "Pet Sounds is the same idea told 13 different ways, it all fits together implicitly. SMiLE isn't a step up from that so much as a right turn. It's more far reaching in subject matter and so picturesque in execution you can practically smell the lamp oil in CE and feel the train thundering by. Its priority isn't in its deeply layered sound but rather how each instrument is carefully chosen to evoke a sound and its resultant visual association." (I'm highly paraphrasing but then they went on to quote the same bits of studio chatter I often do, where Brian wanted an instrument to sound like something else: jewelry, a fire engine siren, vocals imitating a banjo twang in CE, actual veggie crunching in VT, or a baby crying for example. I've also always felt Wonderful Version 1's backing track sounds just like a music box & at least some versions of Bicycle Rider sound like spokes of a bike wheel turning, but I don't know if I've ever mentioned that before.) Where Pet Sounds songs' arrangements are mostly interchangeable in their "sound texture" (part of what makes them all work together so perfectly), SMiLE was pushing boundaries by even attempting to put VT, GV, CIFOTM and Workshop together on the same LP, these wildly different tracks with their own unique sonic identity.

I wish I had the time this week to respond to your comments at more length, because I always have all kinds of thoughts when I read them! But I want to jump in here to say: I really think the idea that greater complexity is a hallmark of development is really a huge misunderstanding of how art and music work. *Ambition*, I think, is a hallmark of a lot of great art. But complexity for complexities sake tends to go with the territory of mediocrity, if anything. That said, I think asking whether Smile or Pet Sounds is more "advanced" is kind of silly... Smile represents the next step in Brian's evolution as an artist. Just as Smiley Smile represents a further step, and then Wild Honey, and then Friends. (Artists can only go one direction, just like all the rest of us. Try to live your life from three years ago tomorrow and see how that goes for you!) Brian's greatest magic trick was always to make the dizzingly complex sound simple. Just pointing out the complexity of Wouldn't it Be Nice to casual fans makes a fun parlor game (The fact that the song is entirely driven by accordions and yet no one ever notices them really sums things up).

But all that said, this does sort of fit with a longtime pet theory of mine, which I've said before, I'm sure, which is that Pet Sounds evolved out of Today, but Smile evolved out of Summer Days. It wasn't a neat line forward, but rather an album that was more intimate, personal, and orchestral, followed by an album that was brighter, with arrangements that sound simpler but actually aren't, conceptual lyrics (Salt Lake City!), less unified but with greater range. Then another album of personal, intimate, orchestral music. And then another album of conceptual lyrics paired with brighter, bouncier arrangements, simpler in one sense, but more complex in another, again with less cohesion and more range.

[Julia]

I wish I had the time this week to respond to your comments at more length, because I always have all kinds of thoughts when I read them! But I want to jump in here to say: I really think the idea that greater complexity is a hallmark of development is really a huge misunderstanding of how art and music work. *Ambition*, I think, is a hallmark of a lot of great art. But complexity for complexities sake tends to go with the territory of mediocrity, if anything. That said, I think asking whether Smile or Pet Sounds is more "advanced" is kind of silly... Smile represents the next step in Brian's evolution as an artist. Just as Smiley Smile represents a further step, and then Wild Honey, and then Friends. (Artists can only go one direction, just like all the rest of us. Try to live your life from three years ago tomorrow and see how that goes for you!) Brian's greatest magic trick was always to make the dizzingly complex sound simple. Just pointing out the complexity of Wouldn't it Be Nice to casual fans makes a fun parlor game (The fact that the song is entirely driven by accordions and yet no one ever notices them really sums things up).

But all that said, this does sort of fit with a longtime pet theory of mine, which I've said before, I'm sure, which is that Pet Sounds evolved out of Today, but Smile evolved out of Summer Days. It wasn't a neat line forward, but rather an album that was more intimate, personal, and orchestral, followed by an album that was brighter, with arrangements that sound simpler but actually aren't, conceptual lyrics (Salt Lake City!), less unified but with greater range. Then another album of personal, intimate, orchestral music. And then another album of conceptual lyrics paired with brighter, bouncier arrangements, simpler in one sense, but more complex in another, again with less cohesion and more range.

I think with Pet Sounds Brian's goal was "an album of all good stuff" and that was it--Im gonna put 13 single-worthy tracks on one LP. It's a concept album in the sense they're all about young angst, but that wasn't an explicit goal, just where Brian's head was at. With SMiLE it became more "but what else can you put on vinyl beyond good songs--can you put chanting, can you put subliminal messaging? What if the album was a unified piece of art that communicated a deep spiritual message?" It was intended as a concept LP from the beginning, about making the listener a better person for having heard it, getting important lessons in their head with the effectiveness of a good melodic hook or earworm jingle. That's the evolution of the artist there, Brian was thinking beyond songs and was becoming an "album artist" in the truest sense of the word. (He'd never really think in terms of albums again in my estimation, though obviously some great LPs still came from his music, like Love You.)

What elevates SMiLE above its chief immediate competition (Revolver and Pepper) is that same thematic mission--enlightenment etched in vinyl, weaving non-musical audio into songs which straddle the line between pop/rock and classical/baroque, using Koestler's method of embedding complex lessons into the beholder's subconscious mind through careful use of humor and bisociation. Ultimately it was too much to juggle for one troubled young man whose vision pushed analog editing tech to its limits, and is maybe just a lot of high-minded hippie bullshit anyway. (The SMiLE naysayers think so; even VDP and Asher seem to have thought a lot of Brian's neo-spiritual ideas were "dopey.") But so help me God, I think that sounds fucking awesome, I've heard roughly contemporary albums* that prove something at least of similar ambition was possible and I can only say for myself SMiLE brought me back from atheism. (Now Im a pseudo-pantheist, trending Daoist-Gnostic.) Like Anderle and Vosse, I believe in what Brian was trying to do. I feel strongly that this album could've made the world a better place had it been exposed to the wider public all at once in '67 rather than a small group of elite disciples slowly over decades. The world was primed and willing to hear that message in '67, when the Beach Boys were popular enough to be heard by all and the Summer of Love was right around the corner. By '03, much less '11, the moment had long-since passed, people are more divided and cynical than they were in the Free Love Era, plus the only Beach Boy listeners left are comparatively few and already-converted.  

Anyway, I also think it's significant that all three "successor" albums to SMiLE* followed the "experimental song cycle" formula, VDP with Song Cycle and Brian's two attempts to adapt the music, Smiley and BWPS. With SC and SS especially, I believe both artists made the album they wanted the original SMiLE to be: VDP with the American Gothic journey and "more sophisticated" arrangements (Anderle says in Crawdaddy that a big sticking point between them was VDP wanting "more sophisticated" arrangements and Brian wanting to simplify). Meanwhile, Brian added more overt humor, chanting, plus audio verite like the cork popping, "Good!" and water pouring. SS was Brian giving up on modular editing, the burden of using professional studios with their schedules and union rules and VDP's manifest destiny framing device. But he stayed true to the original conception of the project: a lighthearted humor album (eeriness aside, I think that's just his depression and bitterness seeping in) with non-musical flourishes. It's just a much less grandiose, almost intentionally half-assed execution of it, done in a pinch with less precision and no Wrecking Crew. Smiley may also still be considered "bisociative" by trying to incorporate a "happier," more unified group effort vibe into the art. ("If we're having fun on tape, it will rub off on the audience!") Then BWPS/TSS abandoned the fades, bisociative programming, audio verite, modular studio editing, overt humor (minus the then-iconic "you're under arrest" and the baked-in silliness of VT) as well as any sense of pacing or momentum, but they got those songs to flow together in a "three movement" rock opera.

I say SMiLE was always supposed to be more than just another collection of 12 banded tracks, but it was evolving the formula in too many incompatible directions at once, so the resulting "animal" had too much fat, or some awkward third arm that made it unviable. In order to keep the project alive something had to give, but its creators disagreed on what was expendable or essential, until BWPS, when the priority shifted from "artistic vision" to "just get this material out to the fans already." As I alluded to previously, you can have a funny album with offbeat "talking/laughing between cuts" or you can have music about the tragedy of American expansionism, but you can't have both simultaneously unless you want a mess. BWPS preserved the recorded musical pieces over the integrity of Brian's original concept, where Smiley did the opposite. I think part of what separates the "BWPS is SMiLE" vs the "Smiley is SMiLE" camps is in what they prioritize--the music/tracks or the message/album. Either way, what's undeniable is they're both conceptually innovative song cycles in their own right. I think the conservatives arguing against any kind of structural inventiveness in SMiLE are using faulty logic ("nobody had really done a medley in rock 'n' roll before" > Brian innovated so much else in his career up to that point, why not this?) or not putting two and two together ("Brian never tried a flowing concept album before or after" > Because he didn't think of it before '66 and after SMiLE failed, he was scared of ever trying again--except the two times he "completed" that particular album, then when he finally felt he could move beyond it, w/ TLOS).

*[ASIDE:] This is NOT viable evidence, but I also can't help but find additional "assurance" in the fact that the other artist-producers whom I consider to be on Brian's level at this time were going in a similar direction, almost like "great minds think alike" and every composer worth their salt was taking the album to its creative limit: 1) Frank Zappa's WOIIFTM represents the very extreme of the concepts Brian was toying with. Would SMiLE have been so "involved" as this, probably not, but the interconnected themes/melodies between tracks, audio verite and spoken word comedy ingredients were there in the SMiLE a year prior and that's impressive. 2) Joseph Byrd of the USA would also take the same modular editing technique, copy+pasted sections repeating in different tracks and repurposing old standards in a psychedelic context like SMiLE in the group's self-titled masterpiece. 3) The Beatles, first with Pepper, intended to make a full-fledged concept album where each song would flow into the next as the titular track does to WALHFMF, carrying on the "fake band playing a live concert" framing device until that got too obnoxious and they abandoned it. (Even Paul admits "it worked [the concept] because we said it did.") With the White Album they kind of did an anti-concept album where the tracks flow into each other despite having no thematic or musical connection. Then they finally perfected the execution with the second half of Abbey Road.[/ASIDE]

[BJL]

I think with Pet Sounds Brian's goal was "an album of all good stuff" and that was it--Im gonna put 13 single-worthy tracks on one LP. It's a concept album in the sense they're all about young angst, but that wasn't an explicit goal, just where Brian's head was at. With SMiLE it became more "but what else can you put on an album beyond good songs--can you put chanting, can you put subliminal messaging? What if the album was a unified piece of art that communicated a deep spiritual message?" It was intended as a concept album from the beginning, about making the listener a better person for having heard it, getting important lessons in their head with the effectiveness of a good melodic hook or earworm jingle. That's the evolution of the artist there, Brian was thinking beyond songs and was becoming an "album artist" in the truest sense of the word. (He'd never really think in terms of albums again in my estimation, though obviously some great LPs still came from his music, like Love You.)

I think Brian intended Pet Sounds to have a certain unity of tone or theme. Not a concept album, but very much the album as a single coherent work of art. But I agree totally with what you say about Smile, here. I guess I think it may have been something like: Okay, if an album can function as a single coherent expression... what can you do with that? What possibilities does that open up? I do agree that Brian never really tried to think in terms of albums in that sense again.

What elevates SMiLE above its chief immediate competition (Revolver and Pepper) is that same thematic mission--enlightenment etched in vinyl, weaving non-musical audio into songs that straddle the line between pop/rock and classical/baroque, using Koestler's method of embedding complex lessons into the beholder's subconscious mind through careful use of humor and bisociation. Ultimately it was too much to juggle at once for one troubled young man whose vision had borderline outpaced what audio-editing tech was even capable of, and maybe a lot of this is just high-minded hippie bullshit. (The SMiLE naysayers think so, and even VDP and Asher seem to have thought a lot of Brian's neo-spiritual ideas were "dopey.") But so help me God, I think that sounds fucking awesome, I've heard roughly contemporary albums* that show something at least like it was possible and I can only say for myself SMiLE brought me back from atheism. (Now Im a pseudo-pantheistic Daoist-Gnostic you might say.) Like Anderle and Vosse, I believe in what Brian was trying to do. I feel strongly that this album could've made the world a better place had it been exposed to the wider public all at once in '67 rather than a small group of elite disciples slowly over decades. The world was primed and willing to hear that message in '67, with the Summer of Love & LSD right around the corner, while in '03 the moment had passed and the only listeners were the already-converted.  

Completely agree (except that I think Brian was working well within the limits of the tech he had available). I absolutely think the spiritual / humor aspect of Smile you point to was not a lark or hippy bullshit but a serious objective - and very much within reach.

It's almost like SMiLE was always supposed to be more than just another collection of 12 distinct, banded tracks but it was trying to evolve the formula in several directions at once, so the resulting "animal" had too much fat, or some awkward expendable limbs let's say. In order to survive as a viable entity then, it needed to shed at least one of the concepts that were pulling it apart, but its creators disagreed on what to amputate (and changed their mind over time). As I alluded to previously, you can have a funny album with offbeat "talking/laughing between cuts" or you can have music about the tragedy of American expansionism, but you can't have both simultaneously unless you want a mess. BWPS preserved the recorded musical pieces over the integrity of Brian's original concept, where Smiley did the opposite. I think part of what separates the "BWPS is SMiLE" vs the "Smiley is SMiLE" (& "'66 SMiLE was a separate beast") camps is in what they prioritize. Personally, I'm in that last group, where I seek to preserve that initial inventive spirit, dumb humor and all, but still use the somber/serious music too even if it's a bit disjointed conceptually. (Hey, Revolver & Pepper are messy too if you take off the rose-tinted glasses for a second--the Beatles were the first to admit it.) I think the people arguing against any kind of structural inventiveness in SMiLE are using faulty logic ("nobody had really done that before" > Brian innovated so much else in his career up to that point, why not this?) or not putting two and two together ("Brian never tried anything like that before or after" > Because he didn't think of it before '66 and after SMiLE he got scared from trying again).

This is really helpful for me in terms of my own thinking, because I've always struggled a little to explain what I believe Smile would have been. Personally, (and this is sort of just my own instincts, I guess, based on years of reading and listening), I believe that Smile would have been 12 distinct songs following the track list printed on the jackets, many of which (but probably not all) would have had fades. But I *also* think it would have had spoken exclamations, jokes, unlisted hidden songs (some silly and some serious!) and even linking tracks! But that none of that implies it would have had *movements* or been like a rock opera type of thing (other than in the sense, maybe, of thematically connected songs being clustered together, but that's not really the same thing!)

However, I think I disagree with this statement: "As I alluded to previously, you can have a funny album with offbeat "talking/laughing between cuts" or you can have music about the tragedy of American expansionism, but you can't have both simultaneously unless you want a mess."

I believe enough of the album Brian was recording in 1966-7 was finished to make sense of what he was doing, and I've never believed that the music contains the seeds of the albums demise in this way. Of course it wouldn't have been a unified statement, but it was an album that was *conceived from the beginning* to be both an Americana trip about the history of the West, a coming of age story, and a paen to, for lack of a better term, hippie spirituality (I don't mean to be disparaging by calling it that!). But the humor and the seriousness runs through all of it, and neither was ever segregated out into one part of the project. Barnyard and Heroes and Villains are silly, Cabinessence is somehow extremely silly (boing, boing boing!), very ominous, and not particularly poignant. Bicycle Rider is ominous, the Hawaiian chants are light, and the versus and title of Do You Like Worms are funny. Wonderful is beautiful but also very light. The tonal range within 75% of the songs worked on in 1966 is wider than the tonal range on all of Pet Sounds! That was a huge part of the point. (Also Song Cycle is not exactly a somber record, it's very light in its way, and full of musical humor from Vine Street on, something Van Dyke Parks very much appreciated in his work and Brian's, in my opinion, whatever frustrations he might have had with Brian's working methods at the time Smile was being recorded).

[Julia]

I think Brian intended Pet Sounds to have a certain unity of tone or theme. Not a concept album, but very much the album as a single coherent work of art. But I agree totally with what you say about Smile, here. I guess I think it may have been something like: Okay, if an album can function as a single coherent expression... what can you do with that? What possibilities does that open up? I do agree that Brian never really tried to think in terms of albums in that sense again.

Yes, and I want to make it clear none of this is a knock against Pet Sounds--in fact, as an older person out of my 20s now, I more often wonder if PS isn't the superior work these days. There's just something nice about its simplicity, where I can pull up the record on any device in a pinch and the songs are all accessible in their best possible version, no assembly required, no finagling my non-offical digital copy to get it to play on a new device (or the different speakers suddenly revealing noticeable changes in quality from where I had to sample outside TSS sources). If I'm listening with someone, there's no worry if they'll "get" something like Fire/Workshop, or find it strange listening to songs with chorus vocals but not verses, or if they're looking to dance and "who ran the iron horse" is both too unmelodic... SMiLE is more "fun" in how it invites active participation, the mysteries make it infinitely open to discussion, but it's still totally exhausting sometimes. Forget when your fanmix audio file won't work because the stereo doesn't recognize the specific codec and you're stuck listening to a low quality boot or that janky TSS Disc 1 assembly (which I find more frustrating to sit through than ethereal as SMiLE should be).

I'll always respect what SMiLE was trying to do and wish more people saw the beauty of Brian's madcap vision, but it feels like such a niche topic to anyone outside BB circles and even within them, there are detractors of the SMiLE Era. The seemingly disjointed nature is a put-off for some, the optimistic "LSD will change the world" philosophy drives away others. It seems like 1967, what was once considered the peak of pop music, is slowly being reevaluated by a more jaded public as we move away from that "sunshine utopia, make love not war, wear flowers in your hair" cultural moment. I submit as additional evidence the growing sentiment that Pepper is overrated (from #1 to #24 in Rolling Stone, plus more lists and average joes would tell you Revolver or Abbey Road are superior now) which, even suggesting that would've gotten you lynched ten years ago in most music spaces. You're also not gonna meet too many Jefferson Airplane diehards like you will for Elvis, Billy Joel, MJ, or even Jimmy Buffet in my experience. Outside some of the Doors, none of the 27 Club seem to get airplay on the radio outside "All Along the Watchtower." Even as a psychonaut myself, whose top 3 time travel bucket list items includes a trip to the Monterey Pop Festival, it feels like the tie-die aesthetic is as dated and silly to people now as Disco (visiting Studio 54 is on that list too, just saying).

Sorry for the tangent, more to come in the rest of the reply, I was high when I responded and couldn't help myself  

Completely agree (except that I think Brian was working well within the limits of the tech he had available). I absolutely think the spiritual / humor aspect of Smile you point to was not a lark or hippy bullshit but a serious objective - and very much within reach.

Glad to meet a fellow believer. I'm not sure why so many opt for a conservative interpretation of probably the least conservative project ever,* or assume anything coming on the heels of GV and the NME poll would "flop" (and, even if true, somehow that justifies SMiLE's abandonment) but those are opinions I see a lot of, even in fan circles. I consider this something of a lack of imagination or "willingness to upset the established pantheon" perhaps. The Beatles won, they survived the '66 transition from oldies soft rock to psychedelic prog rock--so, their legacy as #1 is set in stone in the popular imagination. The Beach Boys failed to clear that hurdle, which only Brian saw coming, and have been uncool pretty much ever since. These fans let their knowledge of the band's fortunes in our SMiLE-less future muddy the waters of that album's prospects in its moment, one of much-hyped anticipation and maximum cultural relevance, mind you. So, because that's the score now in our timeline, it somehow proves the public would've favored Sgt Pepper no matter what but never SMiLE--even if it came first and hot on the heels of their biggest hit EVER, which was giving them hip cred as well as glowing coverage in TV documentaries.

It's like how the myth of PS flopping refuses to die even though it hit the top 10 and it's been proven Capitol under-reported sales--BB fans are just weird, pessimistic masochists or something if you ask me. The Beatles were publicly praising their rivals' newest album and rival producers were taking out ad space to celebrate it. I don't buy this "it'd flop" theory, which seems based solely on Smiley's performance despite the obvious details separating it from what SMiLE's impact pre-June would've almost certainly been. Whether later albums, like a post-SMiLE Wild Honey would've still underperformed, is irrelevant--though for the record I think it was the reputational damage of not living up to Derek Taylor's hype and the cowardly no-show at Monterey that music buyers were punishing them for in our timeline, not a disinterest in the music of WH & Friends necessarily. Before all that happened, before Pepper could swoop in to steal the thunder, I think SMiLE had as much of a shot at #1 as any album ever would in the history of pop music, and a top ten spot was all but guaranteed even post-Pepper if the hipsters and critics praised it. What makes the whole thing so tragic, such an obsessive "what if" for believers, that it was so close to happening in theory, all it would've taken was a month or two of dedicated work, willingness to just release an "imperfect" single (just say "good enough" to any version of H&V or pick another song for God's sake) and then we'd have world peace...

*[ASIDE:]Are you the one who said to me "just because Brian didn't doesn't mean he couldn't" or words to that effect? I'd agree and add "just because he didn't OR couldn't, doesn't mean he wasn't thinking about it." Somehow, it's not enough that this would-be revolutionary album wasn't completed, people seem want to pretend it wouldn't have been so great, or wasn't even envisioned as a ground-breaking innovation for the medium, in spite of all the evidence. It's like there's this need to retroactively justify the band's reputation as squares, eternally playing catch-up to the Beatles, only doing simple lo-fi straight-forwards albums, for reasons I don't understand. Does Brian's inability to deliver mean he wasn't at least shooting for the stars--if so, then why couldn't the album just come out sans Fire or with CIFOTM as an instrumental then? Why couldn't Brian put that out as Smiley, to salvage some of the band's reputation, if the goal was only 12 tracks, nothing more ambitious than "another Pet Sounds"? As even these fans like to admit, Smiley is far more "out there" than SMiLE, and inarguably killed their public standing at least until they got a second chance in '74, if not forever, so why would Brian allow that if not for the fact that the only way his vision could be saved was by rebuilding from scratch?

The obvious explanation is SMiLE was indeed supposed to be a "next level" endeavor: a unified statement whose message of love was so important he'd never compromise it, a musical house of cards so delicate one lost piece, or poor editing choice, could destroy its intricate beauty. To do it justice was such an arduous task Brian couldn't even begin to start, lest he make the tiniest mistake and betray his perfect vision, much less mentally commit to the months of fine-point splicing across hours of analog tape recordings. But at the same time, he didn't want to let go of that dream, didn't want his world-shattering magnum opus released in a "compromised" state and erroneously remembered as "just another pop album" forever. This seems like such a fair reading of what went down, but people want to deny Brian even the sanctity of his own vision, for no reason beyond their own dislike of the music or skepticism of its message, which is just bad historical analysis whether you like the project or not. These are the kind of people who let everything influence their opinion--namely, the group's comparatively rudimentary pre and post SMiLE output--except the primary sources themselves. There's a reason Brian is so proud to be able to call BWPS "a rock opera" as if that justifies it as something more than an average album. There's a reason he was upset at Surf's Up being recycled outside its intended context.[/ASIDE]

This is really helpful for me in terms of my own thinking, because I've always struggled a little to explain what I believe Smile would have been. Personally, (and this is sort of just my own instincts, I guess, based on years of reading and listening), I believe that Smile would have been 12 distinct songs following the track list printed on the jackets, many of which (but probably not all) would have had fades. But I *also* think it would have had spoken exclamations, jokes, unlisted hidden songs (some silly and some serious!) and even linking tracks! But that none of that implies it would have had *movements* or been like a rock opera type of thing (other than in the sense, maybe, of thematically connected songs being clustered together, but that's not really the same thing!)

Debating SMiLE's structure is a very complex topic with a trove of contradictions: some in the legit sources, most invented by haphazard bootleg releases and their effect on subsequent, flawed guesswork. Over decades of parroting online, with warm nostalgic memories of those surely-pleasant conversations, that all morphed into a zealously upheld oral tradition that makes it hard for real archivalist scholarship to break through. It doesn't help that a lot of people have serious emotional attachments to their fave theory, plus there are those who just like to shut down SMiLE conversations either to troll, uphold BWPS as the sacred final word, or even get a kick out of obfuscating the narrative because they find the "impossible mystery we'll never solve / endless Zen koan where the confusion is the point" thing compelling in its own right. So there are a lot of people online not actually invested in a productive investigation, or at least there used to be, and they don't make it any easier when you don't phrase things 100% perfectly 100% of the time. I'm gonna rant about some examples of this, if you'll pardon me...  

It's indeed hard to claim "I don't like how BWPS excised the fades" while also saying "I take vintage '66 Brian at his word with the laughing/talking between cuts." I think a lot of "traditionalists" rightly consider PS' excision of the spoken word bits from other BB albums as a step in the right direction, and don't see too many other bands incorporating such weirdness in their own successful albums. With that in mind, it's fair for them to be dubious when I "pollute" the beauty of SU with Talking Horns, or undercut the ambiance of Worms with Taxi Cabber fly-ins. (I can't necessarily blame them, I sometimes think there's a reason Brian dropped these ideas and recreating his every passing whim of "what if?" / "why not?" / "this could even be on the album!" is a fool's errand.) But what can I say? I think Brian's quotes from '66, the very existence of audio verite and comedy skits in the tape vaults, as well as his finished output (Smiley) in '67, prove this kind of modular audio collage was a vintage, seriously considered idea in the halcyon Oct-Dec period, and therefore worth at least trying out. Some results are better than others, and I can't help but notice at least a few of these ideas have been getting popular in other mixes. It bugs me how Brian being this forward thinking prodigy who beat almost everyone to the punch in the production race, invented new chord progressions in pop music and heard impossibly complex harmonies in his head is taken as a given...until it comes to using audio verite collages a year before anyone else. Apparently Brian would've been incapable of song-mashups or something like Revolution 9 without seeing another group do it first ("Row row row your boat," what's that?)

I find the whole "movements" verbiage of BWPS very pretentious and unhelpful...but how can I say that when I subscribe to the "teenage symphony to God" that'd change the world with its sheer awesomeness? How can I champion the "it was originally two movements" quote if I still want at least semi-distinct tracks that fade? I mostly look to even Brian's prior work like Today! with the rockers on Side 1, ballads on Side 2 for a guide, with what I consider obvious context clues like shared "sound texture," emotional vibe and thematic overlap to determine the groupings on each side of vinyl. So, not "movements" like in Beethoven's Fifth so much as "playlists" of interrelated but distinct songs, like most concept albums--especially early ones. Wonderful by itself is about a girl losing her innocence, Surf's Up is about finding meaning in the madness because of children. CIFOTM is presumably about the way our childhood experiences (probably focusing on traumas and parental mistakes) ripple across our lives into recursive adult patterns or outright dysfunction, depending on how positive or negative they would've interpreted the concept. Each expresses a complete, independent thought but combined they become a song cycle built around a shared theme of life's minor tragedies compounding into a bittersweet human experience. As if that's not compelling enough, they have congruent arrangements (particularly the prominent keyboard and horn instrumental parts in each) with consistent emotional vibe (somber, reflective, evoking regret for past mistakes perhaps) and even shared numerology values. I think, as far as it goes, the first two "movements" of BWPS are vintage like the man said, with the multi-song Elements suite an ad-hoc invention borne out of bootleg-Smile Shop tradition retroactively justified by BWPS (despite Brian's explicit admission to its newness). Most songs in each "playlist/suite" would fade, some would carry right into something else (as Version 1 Wonderful seems want to do, or some versions of OMP and IIGS/BY) and some would have intros or outros of very brief comedy skits, particularly the Veggie Fight and SU Talking Horns. I say a Sixties SMiLE would've been roughly 33% Pet Sounds (in terms of arrangement), 33% Smiley (in terms of vibe & inventiveness), 1/6 Zappa's WOIIFTM (spliced audio collage w/ comedy bits), 1/6 Sweet Smoke's Just a Poke (distinct sides of interrelated music).

It's also not that I enjoy killing Elements speculation by reminding people of the (admittedly far less exciting) Psychedelic Sounds demos that all but prove what was in '66 Brian's head on the matter.* Just because accepting where the tapes lead us isn't as much fun as reiterating the "airy piano piece" quote from a decade later, or rediscovering and re-rejecting Veggies and Dada's claims for the umpteenth time, that doesn't stop the "higher order pramana" from taking precedence. Just because it sucks that the best we have for unambiguously vintage water and air are rough demos by not-BB vocalists, that doesn't mean some brilliant Wrecking Crew melody no one ever documented is going to appear in the vaults. Just because the dream of a symphonic elements that knocks everyone away and converts us to subud on the spot is more enticing, doesn't make it real. I'm not arguing all this from a place of aesthetic preference (I wish we had a Vosse water sounds based track too, believe me). I'm arguing from a sense of academic integrity, because respecting a consistently applied method is how we keep "fun" speculation from clouding the truth. Without a logical, common sense hierarchy of evidence, which we follow even if we don't always like the answers it leads to, there's no standards. That means efforts at further research get distorted, with the same tired, baseless fan-theories dominating the conversation ad nauseum because there's no agreed upon, objective means to come to a conclusion. But people making flippant jokes about "oh so you'd rather hear wheezing in a mic than Holidays" don't seem to get that. You can still opt to make an "element suite" on your fanmix with WC/Barnyard/CCW or Country Air/Workshop/Dada, especially since SMiLE changed so much. It's totally possible there was a cooler "4-song '67 Elements" in Brian's head soon after, but we don't have explicit proof of that on tape the way we do the PS' vintage-'66 rough cut demos*, which is why they must take precedent or at least be included in the conversation when it comes to the Elements "mystery."  

And that leads to another possible contradiction that makes it hard for me to explain the intricacies of my opinion. If I say SMiLE is so great, how can it have flaws like a comparatively unimpressive Elements? The answer might be that Brian changed his mind, which he did often, so a surely cacophonous 4-part medley was quickly scrapped in favor of "spiritual successors" like a standalone Veggies, CCW & Second Day (which I believe by '67 was Air if it was anything, though I maintain in '66 it was just another uncertain "feel"). But then someone deliberately misses the nuance and asks how I can say that if I just claimed the PS elements were Brian's (original) plan and we go 'round again. Or they want to die on the hill that Wind Chimes and Surf's Up were specifically intended air and water from the start, I guess since they have one word in their respective titles vaguely element-adjacent if you squint. If not that, then they cite how it was said on a forum 30 years ago, after being labeled as such on a bootleg in the '80s, and plus it was good enough for BWPS... So, they think that's all a solid argument because it's backed up by "3 sources" that were actually built on a shared foundation of baseless, inbred-ouroboros conjecture. (Like, it may be your aesthetic preference, more power to ya, but it's not historically accurate in any way we can prove which is my whole point.)

Another answer to the naysayers might be "youre right, the PS Element demos* suck, maybe Talking Horns as part of SU proper IS a bad idea, perhaps that's why Brian started second-guessing his muse and the album was scrapped?" but then how can I sing the praises of an album so apparently flawed? Or, they hate PsychSounds so much they don't want to concede those recordings have any connection to SMiLE whatsoever even as the poison pill that started its unraveling. To even suggest that the man over here constantly bringing up humor and "talking in the pauses" might've sourced something from his many contemporaneous recordings of humorous talking is somehow an insult to SMiLE's majesty. It's weird to me how hostile a lot of people were (are?) to acknowledging these ~6 particular sessions (Oct 25 Lifeboat, Nov 4 PS, Nov 7 George, Nov 16 Argument, plus whenever Taxi Cabber, Smog and the rest of PS Disc 2 were done), more than was held for any non-single track, are actually part of the project, even as proof of how disjointed things were getting before the collapse. Every attempt to navigate this straight of Messina leads to a genuine contradiction and convenient "gotcha!" for those allergic to nuance (or just intolerant of the non-melodic, "weird" aspects of SMiLE). Deliberately obtuse yoyos pretend not to understand the concept of a rough demo* when they say "durr, so you think Brian would've used these janky Vosse Posse vocals on the album?!?"

*[ASIDE:]And yes, I do believe the Nov 4 recordings (Disc 1 of PS boot) are demos, however much we may not like them, whether they were abandoned soon after or evolved to be nearly unrecognizable (UC into the Water Chant & Brian Falls Into a Piano/Mic into George Fell), they are demos by definition. The evidence is right there: 1) Brian couldn't wait to try some ideas first thing in the middle of the night, which all the sources cite as his usual operating procedure. 2) The Beach Boys weren't around, so he used his posse of hipsters--they can even be heard complaining about the late hour and being ordered around as if they have nothing better to do. 3) Brian clearly has concepts for skits he wants to try out without directly telling everyone what to say, only giving them a vague scenario and see how it plays out organically. You can hear this for yourself or read my commentaries about the PS boot (not in this thread), even though the others sans Vosse (ever the loyal disciple) often ignore these setups and goof off in the interim (Mary Poppins, Ice Cream Man). 4) This was all professionally recorded, catalogued and filed with the rest of the SMiLE tapes, implying somewhat more importance than "goofball stoners absent-mindedly killing time because haha drugs." 5) Finally, the two main comedy skits Brian explicitly tried to direct the group towards were more professionally recorded with Wrecking Crew members within 3 days (George Fell) & 2 weeks (Veggie Argument). If this were anything except spoken word comedy, which a lot of people seem to have a visceral disdain for, it would be an open-and-shut case they're demos, but no one wants to legitimize this part of SMiLE. At least the concept of chanting was recorded a month later with the lone You're Welcome session, then several times more in the spring (including CCW) plus the Water Chant a little less than a year later. (Anyone pretending they can't see at least the conceptual carryover between UC & CCW/WC is absolutely full of sh*t and pushing an agenda--I die on this hill.)  [/ASIDE]

However, I think I disagree with this statement: "As I alluded to previously, you can have a funny album with offbeat "talking/laughing between cuts" or you can have music about the tragedy of American expansionism, but you can't have both simultaneously unless you want a mess."

I believe enough of the album Brian was recording in 1966-7 was finished to make sense of what he was doing, and I've never believed that the music contains the seeds of the albums demise in this way. Of course it wouldn't have been a unified statement, but it was an album that was *conceived from the beginning* to be both an Americana trip about the history of the West, a coming of age story, and a paen to, for lack of a better term, hippie spirituality (I don't mean to be disparaging by calling it that!). But the humor and the seriousness runs through all of it, and neither was ever segregated out into one part of the project. Barnyard and Heroes and Villains are silly, Cabinessence is somehow extremely silly (boing, boing boing!), very ominous, and not particularly poignant. Bicycle Rider is ominous, the Hawaiian chants are light, and the versus and title of Do You Like Worms are funny. Wonderful is beautiful but also very light. The tonal range within 75% of the songs worked on in 1966 is wider than the tonal range on all of Pet Sounds! That was a huge part of the point. (Also Song Cycle is not exactly a somber record, it's very light in its way, and full of musical humor from Vine Street on, something Van Dyke Parks very much appreciated in his work and Brian's, in my opinion, whatever frustrations he might have had with Brian's working methods at the time Smile was being recorded).

Well, I'm sort of two minds about this myself. First of all, I love SMiLE as-is (obviously) weird tonal shifts and all, but I still recognize it as an untenable mess of one-too-many ideas if that makes sense. It's like the Beatles White Album, where "its beauty is in its mess" but here, instead of 4 budding solo artists competing for space on the record, it's one guy's speed-addled, fraying mind trying to cram every cool sonic idea, every deep philosophical lesson, into less than 45 minutes. It's sort of rough around the edges and conceptually bloated, I think it's fair to say. It works brilliantly even in its fractured state, my fanmixes of "what might've been" blow me away on a good day, but sometimes I can't help but notice more of the cracks and think "Pet Sounds is actually better because it's so much more tight and cohesive."

Some of my misgivings maybe stem from my desire for uniformity and balance--VT and SU clearly had orbiting comedy skits, I have no doubt of that--but while the Veggie Fight fits like a glove, I must admit even I struggle to justify including George Fell sometimes. I used to like tacking it on at the end ala Her Majesty or Pepper's inner grove, but that does diminish the sincere profundity of SU's statement I think. At least it borderline does. I've seen other mixers start to use this idea like DAE LIMS which I find flattering (not sure if they were inspired by my efforts directly, but even if they weren't it legitimizes the choice, knowing a more famous mixer felt the same way independently) however, hearing someone else's version, which I now have no personal stake in, made me think "oh man, that's too much, you ruined the moment." My last mix (Voynich SMiLE) moved George Fell to an intro for SU, but here too you break the melodic momentum of CIFOTM (or whatever else) leading into Surf if you do that. So, I sort of unintentionally recreated what happened to Brian in '66 I feel, where he wanted an avant garde comedy + sound effects collage but (probably) realized the music he was making was too serious, too sad and reflective to work tonally with these left-turn jokes breaking up the flow. But for me, to have a skit in Veggies on Side 1 but no comparative moment on Side 2 also feels wrong somehow, like in my mind (and for no good reason) I want two mirror-like symphonic playlists, one reflecting on American history and society, the other on individual relationships and life cycles, and I want them as balanced as possible.

Someone might come in and say "you're too hung up on thinking Veggies was Americana, put it back on Side 2 like most people and then you've restored balance with two overtly silly tracks--Heroes and Veggies--on each playlist!" They may be more right than we know, because if SMiLE followed Pet Sounds singles releases, the kick-off single should be at the end of side 1, not the beginning of side 2 where the third or double A-side second single should be (which is Veggies). But, for me, that creates its own problems. As I've said, I don't believe in an "Elements Side" as the popular, long-handed down oral tradition from the '80s bootlegs would have us do. Even if I did, every version of such an endeavor sounds like a disjointed free for all to my ears, BWPS included. I say to split up the "BWPS second movement" tracks is an absolute crime, considering that segment is everybody's favorite, it intuitively works so well musically and conceptually, and (yet again) Brian said the first two groupings were vintage, Americana and Cycle of Life. So, rather than throw ALL that away because Priore said so, or your first bootleg did it, I say use the main tracks of the first two movements as the foundations for both sides of a Sixties-style album. Ok, that means dividing the "Elements tracks" up and we just established H&V should be separate from VT. See the issue? Either track would just sound so wrong rubbing elbows with the likes of Won/CIFOTM/SU(& WC). It just forces a tonally discordant left turn where there doesn't need to be one. GV isn't so bad with the Side 2 tracks, but it sounds absolutely lost next to Heroes or CE.

You may say I'm boxing myself in and creating arbitrary problems for myself, but that's what SMiLE does to you. You get a theory that sounds right until another contrary piece of evidence (often pedantically thrown in your face by a dissenter) pokes a hole in it, which is all any bystanders notice. ("Oh their explanation isn't perfect so they're wrong, even though literally no attempt to make sense of this mess has ever been without its inconvenient contradictions.") You explain how it's like a real life DBQ (document based question) in an AP class, where you're given a bunch of primary accounts and must carefully choose those which seem to paint a consistent picture while ignoring those that are antithetical, because not every observer will agree on what happened or may even be lying, but the existence of one alternate take doesn't/shouldn't necessarily silence a more compelling majority. But then you're accused of hobby-horsing and "misleading" people. More importantly, you get an idea for sequencing most of the tracks that seems great, but I'll bet if the rest of you are anything like me, there's always that one song that won't neatly fit. You either ran out of room on one side, forcing its inclusion with the other concept-playlist it isn't naturally a part of, or it could go either way (the singular Elements track) or something else. Anytime I've made a SMiLE mix, there's always some kind of compromise like that, where one thing isn't how I'd like but it's the only way the rest of it fits together. That, or I had to ignore evidence and do things I'm much less certain Brian would've (like using the Heroes intro for a standalone Fire, Dada as a standalone track, using I Ran instead of IIGS/BYS, etc) for the sake of making it sound better. That's why every time, as soon as I'm done a mix, I almost immediately think "wait, this could be better."

And that's not even touching what I consider the inappropriate undercutting of racial injustice with some silly jokes if you apply Brian's "talking between cuts" to the unambiguously Americana songs. How do you put a joke or laughing after CE's magnificent fade, or "fall into a microphone" during Fire? What comedy skit works with the genocide of the Indians? Maybe I'm being too literal here, or assuming there'd be comedy skits ala Fight & Fell between almost every track when it would've been applied more sparingly. (This is how my application evolved across two previous mixes, where "Olorin Edition" used PsychSounds clips between every track but that got obnoxious on repeat listens, so I scaled back with "Romestamo Cut" to just one or two per side.) It's all about how much you think Brian would've done, how seriously you take him in those interviews and if maybe he was only considering something like Heroes when he said that and I'm just assuming it'd apply to the whole album. We can't really know, but to me, the added problem of juggling such disparate pieces with (seemingly) discordant vibes must've surely been a factor in the collapse. At least, that makes intuitive sense to me, anyway, because I've experienced it firsthand working with this material.

And yet, and yet, all that said, I do still agree with a lot of what you're saying here. The melancholy and joviality does run through a lot of it. Worms has the goofy title and flippant "East or West Indies, we always get them confused" that most AI fanmixers frustratingly leave off. Surf's Up has the "horn laughing" sound even in the first movement (another reason I think Brian had a plan for the "horn droning" and "horn wailing" sounds from the same session). Heroes has the bouncy melody but tragic lyrics. I get it. And not all, perhaps not even most, albums are like PS and the USA with their uniform "sound textures" and interrelated subject matter. Thriller, Revolver and Abbey Road are all over the place (most forgettable albums I've heard are too). Even one of my top favorites, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, has that weird annoying detour in the middle where there's like 3 proto-prog freak out jam sessions in between 8 shorter, fun, whimsical-psychedelic ditties. (Tangent: I always thought "Take Thy Stethoscope" should've been replaced with "See Emily Play" at the very least.)  So just because everything wasn't perfectly aligned doesn't mean it was unreleasable or even unusual against its peers. But we're talking about Brian Wilson here, the man who was so obsessed with perfection he hosted 30+ Heroes sessions only to not use most of what he'd recorded anyway. The guy who wasn't satisfied even with the final cut of GV, only reluctantly letting go when he realized it was the best he could do, who considered giving the song away. The guy who set out to make "music people would pray to" and wouldn't settle for any less than the best. That's why I think these..."imperfections" or "rough edges" which might've been fine for another artist must've been unacceptable for him. He was in a manic state in Oct-Nov, wanting to put everything from dinner plates to a random Cabbie on the album. When the speed crash happened, the euphoric high giving way to depressive funk, suddenly he realized "I recorded a lot of 'junk' that's gonna take weeks to sequence properly, probably won't even sound all that good together anyway, the band already doesn't like it and if I change my mind I have to resplice this delicate tape until it physically falls apart."

I just think, knowing what we know about Brian's perfectionism, he would have had a lot of the same frustrations and second-guessing of the material as someone like me does trying to make sense of everything in the vault, but even more so because he made it, it's his would-be masterpiece, he has to live with its reception forever not me. Brian pre-Smiley was not one to make compromises on his important work. (Yes, he made filler albums on command, but he wouldn't cut the intro to California Girls, change Pet Sounds, nor would he trim GV down despite significant pressure to do so.) Surely it was a factor in any case. As far as my theory the two partners weren't seeing eye-to-eye, again I just base that on Anderle's (and I believe Vosse's) accounts as well as what Brian chooses to focus on in interviews (ALWAYS humor) compared to VDP, as well as their usual styles. Im not sure if we can totally say "SMiLE was conceived as an American gothic trip from the beginning" or at least I don't think we can definitively say it was Brian's idea or a 50-50 idea with what we know. Im guessing Brian had a silly cowboy song and things grew from there in competing directions, but that's just speculation based on a preponderance of the evidence as I like to say.


Sorry for all the long-winded tangents.