Upcoming BW interview in Village Voice (June 8)

[Roger Ryan]

Another thing about that whole 12 tracks issue: Why is it it anyway that nearly all those 60s LPs have exactly 12 tracks on them, no more, no less? Does anyone have information about this? Was that some kind of legal obligation in the contracts? Only Pet Sounds and the "live" album have 13, the past-disaster SS and WH have only eleven. "Party" has actually 13 songs, but "I Get Around" and "Little Deuce Coupe" are declared to be a medley, which they aren't, so that one too has 12 tracks.

Could it be possible there was a "12 track" obligation which had its part in the downfall of the ambitious SMiLE project?

Maybe someone else who knows more can chime in, but I believe only the first 10 or 12 songs would count on an LP when it came to royalty payments; anything more would be a bonus for the listener, but did not count when paying the performer. The Beatles would routinely put on 14 tracks per album, but two or three tracks would often be trimmed by Capitol for the U.S. release with the extra tracks being collected for a makeshift future album (YESTERDAY...AND TODAY, for example).

[Peter Reum]

I find the argument about fades to be inconsequential, mainly due to the fact that if sequencing was not done, then segues would not be done either. That was something that Brian addressed in 2003/4, with Paul`s assistance. It to me is analagous to saying the roof isn`t on a building when the blueprint isn`t accurate, or the support beams aren`t in place. This is not to discount what`s there, but Brian used what was there to assemble 2003 Smile, fades or no fades.

[Roger Ryan]

I find the argument about fades to be inconsequential, mainly due to the fact that if sequencing was not done, then segues would not be done either. That was something that Brian addressed in 2003/4, with Paul`s assistance. It to me is analagous to saying the roof isn`t on a building when the blueprint isn`t accurate, or the support beams aren`t in place. This is not to discount what`s there, but Brian used what was there to assemble 2003 Smile, fades or no fades.

My first reaction would be to disagree with this given that specific fades were recorded in '66/'67 for tracks like "Vegetables" and "Heroes & Villains" that were not recreated when BWPS was put together (the assumption being that "fades" would not work during live performance where it was determined to bunch the segments together in "movements"). But the more I think about it, the more I think you may be right to an extent. Perhaps what you're saying is that Brian prepared fades for the majority of the songs because he didn't know how they would be sequenced together (therefore, he didn't know which tracks would appear at the end of a "movement" and would require a fade). Even with the BWPS sequencing, it would be logical to have "Cabin Essence" and "Surf's Up" end with fades as they conclude their respective "movements" (again, this was obvious not done on BWPS since the album, more-or-less, replicated the live presentation). What is interesting is to note which original SMiLE tracks don't appear to have fades. Whereas every track on PET SOUNDS ends in a fade, "Our Prayer", "Wonderful", "He Gives Speeches", "You're Welcome", the original version of "Wind Chimes", "The Elements (pt. 1)", "I'm In Great Shape", and "The Old Master Painter" all exist without a definite fade. That does lend some credence to the idea that Brian thought he might hard-edit some of these tracks together or, at the very least, he would break the PET SOUNDS approach and not use fades for every track. The BWPS hard-edit of "I'm In Great Shape" into "I Wanna Be Around" sounds like something that could have been planned in '66 and maintain that combo as a single track under the "Great Shape" title. Also, perhaps "Heroes & Villains" did not have a fade associated with it until Jan. '67 when Brian used the segment recorded for "The Old Master Painter" to end the "Cantina" mix. Could he have originally intended "Heroes..." to hard-edit into another track?

[Chris Moise]

There is a problem with the idea it is Diane`s writing inthat I have fairly extensive samples in both or their hands in my collection. The writing closely resembles Carl`s writing NOT DIane`s. So what we have is a mystery, it is not as cut and dried as one might believe.

It strains credibility to think that the album producer wouldn't be required to sign off on the back cover track list before it was finished by the art department. Capitol art directors, one of them Smile’s art director George Osaka, that no artwork and printed material went without review and approval by the album's producer. Add to this the fact that Brian did not work outside of the 12 tracks on the list in months following the handwritten list. Also add that Van Dyke Parks has said single LP of banded (i.e. separate) tracks with no segues and crossfades between them save for within "The Elements".

Sure, Brian might have changed his mind and done any number of things. He might have decided it was going to be a triple album incorporating variations of "Teeter Totter Love" but there is no evidence to support this. The only evidence we have pointing to a 1966/67 Smile consisting of 'movements' is your recollection of Brian telling you this in 1982. While interesting this, IMO, isn't much in the face of the contemporary evidence that points to a 12 track album.

[Peter Reum]

There is more than just my talk with Brian...there is Domenic`s talk with him. Capitol had a slick and track list for Lei`d in Hawaii as well...have you seen it? My point is that things shift from week to week at record companies, and albums change...drastically. Wild Honey is another example, as is 15 Big Ones, as is Holland, as is In Concert, as is the change from Add Some Music to Sunflower. Your point means nothing except in the context of December 12. 1966. It may have been completely different in February, May, or October 1967.  While I appreciate your point that at one time Smile may have been considered to be a "banded 12 track album".....it is not only plausible but possible that conceptually it changed, as did all the other BB albums I listed above. Remember that Brian began with the existing 66-67 tracks as they existed in the vault in 2003.

[OBLiO]

Something else I have considered is that the songs themselves are not traditional. Al Jardine mentioned how Vegetables never really resolves when he performed at Amoeba. None of the vignettes have traditional resolve, so you you can either join vignettes together or fade-out. Brian said the music would be a "new" spiritual music. It would be "new" in the popular song world because the sections were akin to chants. The vignettes become interchangeable. The chorus of one song could also be the tag of another. The idea of movements could involve recurring themes, where a chorus of one song could be a tag of another, but there is so much material that there isn't too much of that going on. I've looked at the 12 tracks and try to work out how to group 4 songs into one movement. You get 3 groups of 4 songs overall, but I am not so sure that track list isn't just to provide the record company with something to show what is in production. Any one of the song titles could be changed or taken off at anytime before release or could have ended up in a 4 song/3 movement piece... but if presented to the record company that way too early might have caused a problem.

I really believe, in the end, the story you want to tell determines the final presentation. The 2004 story is happier than the 66-67 story. they were able to take what they did and turn it into a more positive thing.

[Cam Mott]

This is just one of those things we are going to continue to disagree on probably. I don't share the view that decisions made in 2003 for a live show comp have anything much to do with the historical SMiLE. As I remember even Brian said BWPS isn't the way SMiLE was going to be in 1966. But on the other hand, would he remember that if we are questioning his memory?

I may have been too specific saying fade, BW uses fades or tags to end discreet tracks. I think all of the tracklisted titles have a fade or tag. Granted Wonderful's fade is short and could seem vague. H&V had Barnyard and a tag to Part 1 before it had the OMP fade on cantina. So to me that is the concrete evidence from the period and it adds up to Brian  planned a 12 track album during the period of the recording and there is no contemporaneous evidence of anything else. [1,2,3,4, here comes "this just in,  newly discovered irrefutable contemporaneous evidence of 1966 segued movements"]

[OBLiO]

The movements could have been separated into 12 separate tracks though and placed in groupings. What vignettes were to be included into each track is the puzzle. I can take Rock with Me Henry and put it in Worms as much as I can take Rock Plymouth Roll and put that into Wonderful. It depends on what story you want to tell or how you want to tell it. I think it was supposed to be a more comical venture overall as far as initial intention, though. But I am with you Cam on Brian knowing exactly what he wanted and knew what he was doing, although things changed as time passed.

[Peter Reum]

To Oblio...I agree that one can get into the same riddle that Brian was presented with when he tackled Smile in 2003...that is...the combinaTion of logical movements given the extant content OR the 12 track list is daunting!  All the more remarkable in terms of what Darian and Brian put together! The segues are incredible...and the new lyrical content is a delight.

To Roger...I appreciate your explanation of "hard fades" and "soft fades" as you term them...your example of the Fire track and Wind Chimes, just as an example, make the idea possible that Wind Chimes WAS part of The Elements, and that perhaps Wonderful could have been linked to Surfs Up. That certainly brings to question the idea of a "banded twelve track album"...perhaps the list WAS a snapshot in time. Or maybe it wasn`t...

[OBLiO]

Yes... like in a symphony you might have just a couple measures of a recurring theme come out of nowhere to remind you of something. Or if you ever listen to the way music is arranged in a cartoon. I can see the music arranged in that way with maybe comical phrases or the psychedelic chants interlaced. We already have the "Heroes and Villains just look what you've done"... that music occurring in two separate songs. And they did do a great job putting all of it together in 2004.. I really like the melody and lyrics in Blue Hawaii. I listened to Jan and Dean Meet Batman recently and I think Brian might have been going for something similar, only less comic book. Another thing I found interesting is "Our Prayer" the aaaaa uuuuu mmmmm.... is pretty much Aum or Om. Just noticed that the other day.

edit: sp

[Peter Reum]

I have always seen the connection between some of the material in J&D Meet Batman and some of the Smile skits. Whether they were useable in the context of Smile is open to debate... BUT it was clear that Brian was trying to move his humor into his work, and Smile 2004 is a clear example of that. I explored the psychology of humor in Light the Lamp, and have found Brian`s use of humor in his music refreshing from my earliest listens to his work.

[OBLiO]

Yes... the trick is how to edit the dialogue and where it is placed. There is an absurdity to it. Theatre of the absurd. I saw a photograph of a fake fight on stage between Mike and Brian. That kind of thing. Arguments can be absurd and funny. You can use something absurd or goofy to rile up an audience and then hit 'em with a song. Or something like "I'm gonna call the cops!" and then in comes the keystone cop music.... something like that. Get 'em laughing and then sing something very spiritual.

I had the J&D Meet Batman and it was Bill who reminded me of it and I see the connection, as well.

Was just listening to Surf's Up and it is a three movement piece. Linear. I can see the SMiLE music moving from A to Z without repeats, but variations of recurring themes. They pretty much did that in 2004 and they did successfully include the absurd in the 2004 SMiLE, but in a much more subtle manner. Not sure why, but when I hear the saw kick in, sawing away, it always makes me laugh. What are those Little Rascals building out there in the barn?

[Micha]

I find the argument about fades to be inconsequential

That depends on what you try to prove with it or what you think the other wants to prove. I'm pretty sure that in early stages SMiLE was to be a 12 track album. There ARE fades to several songs. Jules Siegel mentions the bicycle rider theme fading away. I'm not convinced though that it would have stayed that way. At some point - which may very well have been as early as late 1966 - Brian started to see SMiLE as a 3-movement piece. Does that mean he junked the fades? So far we just don't know. Even if he decided in 1966 to junk them, those three movements still would have contained individual songs - and their number might have been 12. Would those be the 12 songs mentioned on the back cover slick? We can't tell!

I don't share the view that decisions made in 2003 for a live show comp have anything much to do with the historical SMiLE.

Well, my point to that is that there just is no "historical SMiLE". There are historical recordings for SMiLE. But many decisions that would have been necessary to complete the album seem just not to have been made. While those missing decisions were obviously done in 2003, we can't tell which decisions date to 1966/67 and which are new.

Maybe the whole movement-and-segues thing was one of the reasons Brian junked SMiLE as a whole in 1967. He couldn't do it the way he wanted back then. There's one contemporary quote where he says he wants to keep as much of SMiLE a secret before he releases it. The movement grouping could be one of those secrets. But that's pure speculation on my part.

[Cam Mott]

OK, but to me there is a historical SMiLE and Brian had it thought out before he went into the studio, not after. He made improvements to individual tracks of course but they were also thought out before the recording. If we are going to accept that Brian's intentions were for movements and his definition for movements was so broad as to include being merely a grouping of individual tracks then I could see that. However, I don't see it, I just don't see the evidence for it in the recordings. It's all in the music a Coach used to say.

If it turns out that he did intend movements, I won't be disappointed because I started at the position that I wanted SMiLE to out Sgt. Pepper Sgt. Pepper.

[MBE]

To me it doesn't matter now. All we can go on is what exists, or at best comtemporary interviews or paperwork. What is important today is that some great music was made and it's finally going to properly come out. Myself I couldn't be happier.

[Roger Ryan]

Given that much of the SMiLE story is about Brian losing confidence, I tend to think that if Brian is being accurate and truthful about there actually being "movements" in the original SMiLE, it was something that existed in his mind early on that got eroded away. Looking at the way the sessions went, I see the songs becoming more conventional as time goes on. "Vegetables" starts off with Parks at his most "out-there" lyrics only to use much more straight-forward lyrics a few months later. "Heroes & Villains" starts off as a huge multi-section western comedy incorporating "Barnyard" and "I'm In Great Shape" (the most obvious example of creating a "movement" using different songs, right?) along with sound effects; it eventually is reduced to a three-and-a-half minute single with a more traditional verse/chorus/verse/bridge/verse/chorus structure. Ultimately, everything gets whittled down to SMILEY SMILE.

The project began on a very grand scale and ended as a modest one.

[Peter Reum]

Roger, that was the conclusion I also reached, but who really knows? It seemed to me that if Brian had an idea for segued themed songs, then it might have begun that way and feedback from peers, whether the band or other musicians might have made him reign in his ideas and go more conservatively. As time has passed, I have also entertained the notion that he set the whole mess aside to get an album out, then intended to return to it later. Ideas evolve through time...or devolve too.

Cam, no matter whether a 12 track album or in movements, I have no doubt that Smile musically would have easily matched Sgt. Pepper in terms of sophistication and production values, had it seen release in 1967... but that was not to be...apparently Brian had to let it gestate for 37 years to give it life.  But those 66-67 recordings have captured the imagination, haven`t they? What other album has been so analyzed, do it yourselfed, and examined as closely as Smile....it truly has a life of its own!

[Chris Brown]

Great discussion going on here!

I've always been firmly on the "12 individual tracks with fades" side of the fence, but there have been excellent points made on both sides that have changed my thinking somewhat. Brian was a master at creating great fades, and the ones we've heard from Smile are among his best. I agree that at some point in 1966, it's quite possible that Brian was thinking in terms of movements - on a small scale at least, we know this to be true ("Heroes" being the best example of movements within a song, at least in it's late-'66 Humble Harv incarnation). But whether he saw a movement as a grouping of songs that would ultimately conclude with a fade is obviously a lot harder to pin down. I've never put much stock in the BWPS sequencing, but it certainly fits the theory  You change all the crossfades and link pieces to hard edits and use the brilliant "Cabinessence" and "Surf's Up" fades, and for the most part, it works.  But by doing that, you're still losing fades to "Heroes" and "Worms," which to me are sacrifices that aren't worth making.  Maybe Brian thought otherwise, but we'll probably never know.

I think Roger hit the nail on the head about how the level of ambition Brian had for the project diminished over time. The evolution of "Heroes" just taken by itself is a tragic microchasm of the album as a whole.

[Cam Mott]

Cam, no matter whether a 12 track album or in movements, I have no doubt that Smile musically would have easily matched Sgt. Pepper in terms of sophistication and production values, had it seen release in 1967... but that was not to be...apparently Brian had to let it gestate for 37 years to give it life.  But those 66-67 recordings have captured the imagination, haven`t they? What other album has been so analyzed, do it yourselfed, and examined as closely as Smile....it truly has a life of its own!

Peter,

On that we agree.

[Jason]

Cam, no matter whether a 12 track album or in movements, I have no doubt that Smile musically would have easily matched Sgt. Pepper in terms of sophistication and production values, had it seen release in 1967... but that was not to be...apparently Brian had to let it gestate for 37 years to give it life.  But those 66-67 recordings have captured the imagination, haven`t they? What other album has been so analyzed, do it yourselfed, and examined as closely as Smile....it truly has a life of its own!

Reminds me of that essay from the late 90s (forget which one or who wrote it, I'll have to track it down) which proudly proclaims that Smile has more message boards devoted to it than any other album...oh, the days of being a misty-eyed fan of everything Beach Boys. Miss those days.

[Micha]

Great discussion going on here!

Yup! Everybody makes good points, friendly tone...    I like this.

I think Roger hit the nail on the head about how the level of ambition Brian had for the project diminished over time.

Yeah, while I think that BWPS is a great achievement in composition, it doesn't seem to be - IMHO - recorded with as much ambition as in 1966, despite the great musicianship and singing. But I love the live renditions.

And Cam, I say there is no historical SMiLE because Brian didn't deliver one at the time. If he had completely thought it out before going into the studio, which he very well may have, he certainly didn't stick to his vision. As Peter Reum said, albums change in time. Maybe BWPS is as close to Brian's vision as one could ever get. And as I said many times before, BWPS is the only SMiLE we've got, and how complete Brian's vision was when he started recording we will probably never know. That is, if there isn't an extensiv BW interview in the box...

[Cam Mott]

And Cam, I say there is no historical SMiLE because Brian didn't deliver one at the time. If he had completely thought it out before going into the studio, which he very well may have, he certainly didn't stick to his vision. As Peter Reum said, albums change in time. Maybe BWPS is as close to Brian's vision as one could ever get. And as I said many times before, BWPS is the only SMiLE we've got, and how complete Brian's vision was when he started recording we will probably never know. That is, if there isn't an extensiv BW interview in the box...

We will agree to disagree.

[Bill Tobelman]

I disagree with you guys...respectfully.

BWPS is faithful to the original vision IMHO. The problem is that folks have not successfully recreated that original vision for themselves...they have not connected with the creator's process.

That's why when Brian says SMiLE was too advanced & inappropriate music to be making his honesty does not fall on empathetic ears.

[Micha]

I disagree with you guys...respectfully.

BWPS is faithful to the original vision IMHO.

This may be true! Maybe we will know more when the box is out. When I said "Brian did not stick to his original vision" I meant if he has had one, he didn't stick to it in 1966/67 but put Smiley Smile out instead. How close BWPS is to that original vision I don't know. Clearly H&V changed radically from the beginning in 1966 to the BWPS version. That one is rather close to the single version about which VDP stated he had never heard it sequenced that way during the recordings.

We will agree to disagree.

Yup! Respectfully! And I don't mean that ironically!

[Bill Tobelman]

Interesting note regarding "Heroes And Villains" is Al Kooper's claim that it was a "You Are My Sunshine" kind of thing in May of '66 when he heard it (I'm going on memory here). So that may be the original vision.

We have the sun on the cover of BWPS so that appears to be on topic.

It will be interesting when the box set comes out. The original session song titles are pretty boss. When one hears the "rock rock & roll Plymouth Rock roll over" part in "Holidays" they'll flash back to an earlier title, "Do You Like Worms" (not "Roll Plymouth Rock"). That's pretty cool and removes a layer of Americana from BWPS.

When I said "respectfully" it was meant to salute the manner & style of this thread as well as the posters!