Anybody else find the Love to Say Dada sessions kinda sad and hard to listen to?

[Al Jardine: Pick Up Artist]

I've been on another all things Smile kick (boots, TSS, the lot), but the Dada sessions just seem kinda depressing. The end, it's all fizzling out, a flash in the pan.

In a weird way, you can kinda *hear* it on the tracks...just...not a lot of energy, not a lot of good vibrations.

Or maybe I should just go to bed

[Jay]

You can even hear it on the Good Vibrations box set. The difference between Love To Say Dada and something like Heroes and Villains or Cabinessence is night and day.

[jabba2]

I thought I read this song was worked on after Brian decided to scrap SMiLE.

[Surfer]

Hold on!  Why would Brian Wilson scrap Smile for?     To me i love Smile and his other work

[Disney Boy (1985)]

Hold on!  Why would Brian Wilson scrap Smile for?     To me i love Smile and his other work

Mate, I've always, always stuck up for you in the past.... but, seriously, don't be so bloody daft.

[Wrightfan]

I thought I read this song was worked on after Brian decided to scrap SMiLE.

I think the announcement that SMiLE was cancelled came after the sessions but they could've been over before I guess.

[guitarfool2002]

Interesting take on this. I actually don't find them depressing for a few reasons. First, the genesis of that riff was, I believe, in January 1967 - Now that time period in particular can be discussed a lot because I'm coming around to think the direction of Smile changed dramatically in December 1966...a lot of the "go for it" experimental attitude and energy/drive/determination seems to have fizzled out after a number of internal conflicts that shook the proceedings. Yet, as 1967 kicked off, some of Brian's really bizarre and unique experiments in the studio started happening around the Heroes fragments and section recordings. Some truly bizarre yet beautiful recordings came from that (Sweeping Strings, anyone? The typewriters, gongs, sirens, and everything else around the 'intro' title? )

"All Day" was a riff he was trying out, but experimenting with taping the piano strings combined with tape echo...all that cool stuff to make a new sound based on the Dada riff.

But I'll concede, there is something *different* about the Spring '67 takes of the song.

The reason why I don't find it depressing above all others is what eventually became of it decades later. I'll get confessional here...when I first heard "In Blue Hawaii" as a really crappy quality streaming audio preview, or something, I had tears running down my face, it was so beautiful and it finally felt like the potential hiding beneath all of Brian's studio sessions around All Day/Dada had finally been realized, and in ways I never imagined I'd hear from all the bootlegs, all of the variants like "Air Dada" and whatever else was floating around before BWPS.

It was one of the highlights of BWPS, a triumph of finishing what was bursting at the seams with potential for 40+ years, waiting for the final piece to be fit into place...

And I always liked the groove and the feel he had on that song going back to the '93 box set and whatever boots and mp3's it showed up on. Brian's piano playing on that track stood out to me because of the feel he had in the part.

But 2004...That was triumphant. So I can't hear the darker elements in light of what it eventually became.

[alf wiedersehen]

Hold on!  Why would Brian Wilson scrap Smile for?     To me i love Smile and his other work

Mate, I've always, always stuck up for you in the past.... but, seriously, don't be so bloody daft.

What my rude friend meant to say is that Brian was having some issues in completing the album, and figured it would be easier to take a break from making it.

[The Demon]

Smile never died, it just became the Catholic church.

[topsyandpip56]

They certainly sound like Brian's lost some drive. He sounds a lot less dynamic.

[punkinhead]

In my humble opinion, as an early listener coming into the Beach Boys fandom with only greatest hits known of their music and I had only heard GV and Heroes and Villains (Smiley Smile version) from those greatest hits, so I obviously didn't know anything about Smile. So after my first viewing of the BB: An American family, I found out so much about the Beach Boys that I never knew, and was intrigued about this "Pet Sounds" and "SMiLE"...so with only one song to go on from the TV movie (not including GV), the "Geronimo Leaps and Bounds over the Glory of the Dustbowl" tune, I wanted to hear more, something exactly like it. Little did I know that these scenes were exaggerated and weren't exactly what happened.
But anyways, after the buying of the GV box set a year later, I heard Love to Say Dada and could totally hear parts of "Geronimo"....this was Smile to me! It sounded like those wild and crazy songs I'd read about for a couple of years.

[punkinhead]

Deleted

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

When I hear it, I'm amazed at how cheerful Brian sounds in the between-take chatter.  What happened to cause him to scrap the final session?

[Ebb and Flow]

If you're talking about the overly cheerful voice calling the takes out on the talkback mic, that's not Brian.  According to c-man's sessionography in the SMiLE book Brian was playing temple blocks the 1st day's session and piano on the 2nd day.  I don't think it's ever been confirmed who that guy calling the takes out is.

[c-man]

If you're talking about the overly cheerful voice calling the takes out on the talkback mic, that's not Brian.  According to c-man's sessionography in the SMiLE book Brian was playing temple blocks the 1st day's session and piano on the 2nd day.  I don't think it's ever been confirmed who that guy calling the takes out is.

It's Gold Star engineer James (Jimmy) Hilton.

[Joel Goldenberg]

If you're talking about the overly cheerful voice calling the takes out on the talkback mic, that's not Brian.  According to c-man's sessionography in the SMiLE book Brian was playing temple blocks the 1st day's session and piano on the 2nd day.  I don't think it's ever been confirmed who that guy calling the takes out is.

It's Gold Star engineer James (Jimmy) Hilton.

I thought it was a stoned Brian. Is that also Brian singing "wah, wah, hoo wah"?

[Cam Mott]

Wasn't 1967 one of Brian's most prolific years? It seems to me he was anything but depressed. More than he ever was, I mean.

[Joel Goldenberg]

Wasn't 1967 one of Brian's most prolific years? It seems to me he was anything but depressed. More than he ever was, I mean.

He looks quite down in the pictures from the Lei'd In Hawaii rehearsals.

[c-man]

If you're talking about the overly cheerful voice calling the takes out on the talkback mic, that's not Brian.  According to c-man's sessionography in the SMiLE book Brian was playing temple blocks the 1st day's session and piano on the 2nd day.  I don't think it's ever been confirmed who that guy calling the takes out is.

It's Gold Star engineer James (Jimmy) Hilton.

I thought it was a stoned Brian. Is that also Brian singing "wah, wah, hoo wah"?

Brian and Hal Blaine, from what I could gather. Hal is heard singing a bit on the basic tracking session.

[Cam Mott]

Wasn't 1967 one of Brian's most prolific years? It seems to me he was anything but depressed. More than he ever was, I mean.

He looks quite down in the pictures from the Lei'd In Hawaii rehearsals.

Isn't there a picture of Brian seeming to have a blast on a motorbike from that trip?

[Al Jardine: Pick Up Artist]

Fun fact, you can "have a blast" and still be morbidly depressed.

The expression somebody is wearing at any given moment doesn't really reflect the overall mood of somebody with a mental illness.

[Cam Mott]

Fun fact, you can "have a blast" and still be morbidly depressed.

The expression somebody is wearing at any given moment doesn't really reflect the overall mood of somebody with a mental illness.

Exactly my point, photos don't tell us much.

Being very productive with fun recordings and going out on the road again when you don't usually probably tells us all we need to know about how not depressed Brian was in 1967.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

If you're talking about the overly cheerful voice calling the takes out on the talkback mic, that's not Brian.  According to c-man's sessionography in the SMiLE book Brian was playing temple blocks the 1st day's session and piano on the 2nd day.  I don't think it's ever been confirmed who that guy calling the takes out is.

It's Gold Star engineer James (Jimmy) Hilton.

I thought it was a stoned Brian. Is that also Brian singing "wah, wah, hoo wah"?

WTF...sounds just like Brian's speaking voice to the point where it not being him is kind of scary. And it being Blaine on the 'Waa waa ho waa' part blows my mind.

[alf wiedersehen]

That would include the "duh doobly doo" part, right?

I've always been curious about this part.
The voice never sounded like any of the Beach Boys to me, so it's interesting to figure out that it's actually Hal.

[Joel Goldenberg]

Wasn't 1967 one of Brian's most prolific years? It seems to me he was anything but depressed. More than he ever was, I mean.

He looks quite down in the pictures from the Lei'd In Hawaii rehearsals.

Isn't there a picture of Brian seeming to have a blast on a motorbike from that trip?

From what I saw of the home movie in the American Band doc, Brian doesn't look happy on the motorcycle. He does look happy doing a somersault in the grass, though.