References to SMiLE tracks from period articles, collated and arranged by song

[The_Holy_Bee]

As there are a number of 'what if' SMiLE threads currently at play on the Board, and questions about/references to the 'Big Three' press articles (Siegel, Vosse, Anderle/Williams) have been cropping up fairly frequently, I decided to do some text recognition on pdfs of these features, and copy and paste any quotes about specific songs into one document, arranged (for no real reason) in the order given on the Capitol memo. I'll also do the various outliers, like 'Psycodelic Sounds', under their own headings. I've found the process of collating the extracts surprisingly interesting; I hope it ends up being of use to somebody here!

The Jan '67 'Teen Set' article, ghostwritten by Vosse, has also been added into the mix, as it contains by and large the most in-depth coverage of actual SMiLE sessions of any of the first-hand accounts. Interestingly - to me - many of the songs/sessions covered in that piece are also mentioned by Vosse, after a fashion, in Fusion in 1969. His recollections of these events - although the tone is understandably 'peppier' for Capitol's in house magazine - are surprisingly unchanged considering the three year gap between the two pieces.

Due to the amount of time this has ended up taking, this first post only covers Do You Like Worms, Wind Chimes and H&V. I hope to get another chunk up tomorrow sometime. Anyway, again - I hope this is of some use to somebody!

********************************
Sources:

Teen Set, Jan ‘67 - published in the Capitol promo magazine, this article was ghostwritten by Michael Vosse with input from (according to some sources) Brian Wilson, covering events during October, November and December 1966.
Goodbye Surfing, Hello God!, Oct '67 - by Jules Siegel, published in Cheetah magazine, covering events from (approx.) October '66 to mid '67
Crawdaddy!, March-April and May ‘68 - ‘Brian’ pts 1 & 2, David Anderle interviewed by Paul Williams
Fusion, 1969 - Michael Vosse interview.  


Do You Like Worms

DAVID: [There were] a couple of Indian things, "Bicycle Rider."
PAUL: Wasn't that a part of "Heroes & Villains"?
DAVID: At one time. It was also part of something else.
[Crawdaddy! Pt II, May 1968]

‘And another song, "Bicycle Rider," was to be integrated with [Cabin Essence]: they thought they'd put together these two separate songs…’
[Fusion, 1969]

‘Brian shuffled through the acetates, most of which were unlabeled, identifying each by subtle differences in the patterns of the grooves. He had played them so often he knew the special look of each record the way you know the key to your front door by the shape of its teeth. Most were instrumental tracks, cut while the Beach Boys were in Europe, and for these Brian supplied the vocal in a high sound that seemed to come out of his head rather than his throat as he somehow managed to create complicated four-and five-part harmonies with only his own voice. "Rock, rock, Plymouth rock and roll over," Brian sang. "Bicycle rider, see what you done done to the church of the native American Indian... Over and over the crow cries un- cover the cornfields. ... Who ran the Iron Horse? ... Out in the farmyard the cook is chopping lumber; out in the barnyard the chickens do their number. ... Bicycle rider see what you done done..." A panorama of American history filled the room as the music shifted from theme to theme; the tinkling harpsichord sounds of the bicycle rider pushed sad Indian sounds across the continent; the Iron Horse pounded across the plains in a wide-open rolling rhythm that summoned up visions of the Old West; civilized chickens bobbed up and down in a tiny ballet of comic barnyard melody; the inexorable bicycle music, cold and charming as an infinitely talented music box, reappeared and faded away.’
[Goodbye Surfing, Hello God!, 1967]


Wind Chimes

‘“Wind  Chimes" was the first dub off the Smile album that I heard: at that time it was considered a tentatively finished product ... He did a great deal on it with blending vocal harmonies using the 8 track, getting things happening with voices that he had not done before, and that I had not heard before ... and since they recorded it in bits and pieces, there were several natural breaks in the song—and Brian did something I've never heard anybody do: by recording everybody and doing the song straight through, and going back to the tape and eliminating voices, he had this little section where voices sounded like little percussion instruments — because he took everything out and would only let one little thing come in at a time, so suddenly there was this break and it was funny, but it worked so well that it built up the rhythm and made the change in such a way that all I can say is he found a new way to make musical changes in a song. And I must've heard the thing a hundred times: Anderle and I used to beg him to play that old dub for us. [...]

‘But at the same time [Brian made the Fire recording], he took the tail end of "Wind Chimes" - which the way it was originally recorded was, again much more beautiful than on Smiley Smile - and he had a minute and a half tag on it where he took a stand-up tack piano and a grand piano; and, a track at a time, did little music-box overdubs; and then he went in and mixed them with different echoes on different channels into ... I've never heard anything like it… He was doing everything: he had an engineer there just to punch the tape thing, but he'd go in and mix in between. This was mainly done in Western Three, rather than Gold Star Studios which he used for a few things.
[Fusion, 1969]

‘It is a balmy afternoon in Hollywood. Brian Wilson comes into Studio 3 at Western Recorders for an overdubbing session. In the booth his personal 8-track tape machine is ready to roll. In the studio an old, upright honky-tonk piano and Brian's beautiful black grand piano wait under the microphones. "I have an idea, I'm not sure exactly how this is going to work, but we'll try it." Brian goes to his piano and signals Chuck, the engineer, to roll the tape. He plays a simple music box melody. The tape is run back. On a second track he adds some tinkles on the honky-tonk piano. For about half an hour Wilson goes over the same piece, filling the eight tracks with counterpoints, syncopated gates and notions. "OK, let's hear it." Wilson in the control room, standing close to the center speaker, listens to the playback. He rushes to the board and supervises the throwing of switches and turning of knobs — more echo on the third track, a touch of reverb on the second honky-tonk overdub, this track dry and the other with more highs. Something happens to the sounds; they change, they move around and are transformed into a work of sheer beauty. Everyone in the booth has seen and heard the entire process.’
[Teen Set, Jan ‘67]


Heroes and Villians

‘DAVID: "Heroes & Villains" was a critical track on the album. Would have been a critical part of Smile in its original form, not in the form that came out.’
[Crawdaddy! Pt II, May 1968]

‘There is a knock at the studio door. It is "Humble Harv" Miller, a Los Angeles disc jockey who has been upsetting the rigid traditions of top 40 radio programming… Two happy rebels shake hands and the mutual affection is instantaneous. Brian sits at the piano and plays Harvey his new single "Heroes and Villains." Miller is excited: “That is going to be the greatest record anybody's ever heard." It is late. Miller hurries off to his car and Wilson to his.’
[Teen Set, Jan ‘67 - describing events of late night Nov 4 ‘66]

'While the Beach Boys are rocking Europe, BB-mastermind Brian Wilson, has not been resting on his and their laurels! This week Brian’s working on the next Beach Boys’ single, another adventure in pop music called “Heroes And Villians" [...]

'Brian sits in his bedroom playing the background track to "Heroes and Villains' for a reporter from New York. As the barnyard section comes over the speaker Brian leaps off of his bed. "I'VE GOT IT!" He laughs and jumps into the center of the room. "It's a color short. 16 mm. I'll shoot it. Next week. It's a chicken, and the chicken is wearing TENNIS SHOES. The chicken is wearing tennis shoes and he is bopping around the most beautiful pad. Paul Robbins' pad. Somebody get Robbins on the phone. We've got to shoot it next week!"'
[Teen Set, Jan '67]

‘The Beach Boys are back from Europe, Thanksgiving has just passed and an awesome recording schedule faces them. The new album "Smile" and the new single "Heroes and Villains" must be completed by Christmas. Day and night and long weekend sessions are planned. Mike Love, Carl Wilson and Al Jardine huddle around one of the big playback speakers at Columbia Records, studio A ... (Brian records all over town—Western, Goldstar, Columbia .) .. twelve takes on one small section of background voices for "Heroes and Villains" have just been completed. Mike is not quite satisfied with his singing on a few bars. They go back into the studio. Over and over they re-record the difficult and complex harmony pattern until it is perfect. Then Brian takes them to the piano and teaches them more background to be overdubbed. The creative process here is as spontaneous as in the earlier track sessions. Carl has an idea and goes to the microphone alone laying in a lovely and funny little riff behind the choral effect. The Beach Boys and their producer work together well. The communication is not limited to words, there is a profound spiritual rapport. They are tuned to one another and it shows up in the music.
[Teen Set, Jan ‘67 - describing a currently unidentifiable vocal session, late Nov/early Dec ‘66]

‘In one specific song Brian wanted to sing the lead, but it was almost promised to Mike. And Mike couldn't cut it the way Brian wanted it to be cut, although Mike was cutting it beautifully. But it still wasn't right, and Brian wanted to do it ... they went through an incredible amount of time, almost a whole week of wasted studio time, before Brian finally did it. Brian didn't know how to deal with the boys.’
[Crawdaddy! Pt II, May 1968 - the song in question being quite probably, though not necessarily, 'Heroes and Villians']

'BRIAN WILSON calls his next single, "Heroes and Villains", "a three-minute musical comedy, with some new production techniques that I think will surprise everyone." The next Beach Boys LP is now named 'SMiLE'; nearly all the songs were written by Brian in collaboration with Van Dyke Parks, organ player on many Beach Boys and Byrds tracks.'
[from 'What Goes On', the news column of Crawdaddy!, 'January' 1967 edition. In fact, this issue rolled off the presses in the first week of December 1966, so the quote from BW above likely dates from the end of Nov]

‘So, in the studio, things were going off and on: the album was moving very slowly, and it missed its Christmas release -- so at that point they decided to concentrate on the single, "Heroes and Villains" - of which there must have been a dozen versions. The best version I heard, which was never completed, but at least I could see the form of it, was an A side B side version lasting about six minutes. It was a beautifully structured work; and Van Dyke was still very involved.’
[Fusion, 1969]

‘DAVID: [W]hen I left, "Heroes & Villains" was being planned to be a single, only because it was the closest thing to being finished, at that point, and sadly not even the original "Heroes & Villains" because right at that time Sergeant Pepper came out.
PAUL: When I was there in December, Brian was thinking of "Heroes & Villains" as the single.
DAVID: Right. He would think of "Heroes & Villains," and then he would call up two nights later and say it was going to be this, and it was going to be that, and it was going to be "Heroes & Villains" again, and then everyone said, No, Brian, it should be "Heroes & Villains," no Brian it should be this.... See, people should never be allowed to say "No" to Brian Wilson. Brian is a person that never should be said no to. 'Cause if you just get behind him, or next to him, and go with him. it's gonna come out okay.’
[Crawdaddy! Pt II, May 1968]

‘Smile, which was to have been released for the Christmas season, remained unfinished. "Heroes and Villains," which was virtually complete, remained in the can, as Brian kept working out new little pieces and then scrapping them. [...] More significant, perhaps, to those who that night heard the original instrumental tracks for both Smile and the Beach Boys' new single, "Heroes and Villains," is that entire sequences of extraordinary power and beauty are missing in the finished version of the single, and will undoubtedly be missing as well from Smile—victims of Brian's obsessive tinkering and, more importantly, sacrifices to the same strange combination of superstitious fear and God-like conviction of his own power he displayed when he destroyed the fire music.’
[Goodbye Surfing, Hello God, 1967]

‘... but things interfered, external things interfered with the music .. In March, Brother Records was just about all set up — and it was agreed that the Beach Boys first thing would be on Brother and be "Heroes and Villains."

And I don't know ... We just stopped getting on ... The more time that went by the more apparent it became that the project was never going to be finished ... at all.’
[Fusion, 1969]

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Thanks for starting something like this. Could be a great resource and perhaps merits being "stickied" at the top here or maybe the TSS board as an easy to find index of sorts for quotes and sources. I regret that at the moment I have nothing to add

[Phoenix]

Great stuff!  I look forward to the rest of this thread and the continued discussions it will bring.

[Emily]

What a great reference this will be!

[Sandy Baby]

Thank you!   
It's amazing to read.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Most excellent.  

To have such texts cheek by jowl is useful, if only to illustrate that different people saw the same situation quite... well, differently. Thus:

"The Beach Boys and their producer work together well. The communication is not limited to words, there is a profound spiritual rapport. They are tuned to one another and it shows up in the music." [Teen Set, Jan ‘67 - describing a currently unidentifiable vocal session, late Nov/early Dec ‘66]

"In one specific song Brian wanted to sing the lead, but it was almost promised to Mike. And Mike couldn't cut it the way Brian wanted it to be cut, although Mike was cutting it beautifully. But it still wasn't right, and Brian wanted to do it ... they went through an incredible amount of time, almost a whole week of wasted studio time, before Brian finally did it. Brian didn't know how to deal with the boys." [Crawdaddy! Pt II, May 1968 - the song in question being quite probably, though not necessarily, 'Heroes and Villians']

Granted, the Teen Set article is essentially a company puff piece, but even so...

(btw, if the dating on the first quote is accurate, the only known "H&V" vocal session that could, at a stretch, be thought of as "early" was 12/13 at Columbia)

[Jay]

This is already shaping up to be possibly the best thread in this entire website. 

[Andrew G. Doe]

It has that potential. Let's not f*** it up, huh ?

[thetojo]

Excellent thread! Looking forward to more.

I'll try to contribute if I have the time, and anything useful to add.

[The_Holy_Bee]

Many thanks for the kind words! Here's the next three tracks (pretty straightforward so far, but I can't help but be aware 'I'm in Great Shape' and 'The Elements' are coming up shortly...)

**************

SURF’S UP

‘But they played me another thing [on Vosse’s first night at Brian’s house] called "Surf's Up," and...it's a masterpiece, and if it is not released -- it's a crime, because it was so brilliant, man: it was the full circle - Brian Wilson looking all the way into himself and his audience...and calling it "Surfs Up" - obviously bringing up those connotations - doing a song which had the same sort of aura or approach to imagery as a film like Marienbad: sort of disjointed time, baroque images…’
[Fusion, 1969]

‘"Surf's Up," which is a masterpiece, unbelievable . . . that was the one song, "Surf's Up" was the one perfect blending of Van Dyke and Brian. Absolute perfection. One of the most important songs I've ever heard in my life. I don't know if it will ever be out.’
[Crawdaddy! Pt II, May 1968]

'As to Smile itself—well, you know about "Surf’s Up." It was going to kind of close the album, and then after it was over they were going to a sort of choral, a-men sort of thing.'
[Fusion, 1969]

‘Back at Western Recorders on a Friday night. The Beach Boys are receiving heroes' greetings in England, and Brian is busy in the studio taking musicians through another of his track sessions. A few dozen takes see many changes and embellishments come to the piece. Finally Brian is satisfied with a take and sends the men home with warm thanks and encouragement.'
[Teen Set, Jan '67 - describing the 'Surf's Up: 1st Movement' session of Friday November 4th 1966 (see 'Psycodelic Sounds' below)]

‘It is another night at Goldstar. A group of older musicians whom Brian has never met are there to perform on French horns. Five minutes after producer meets players, the men are creating laughing effects and having conversation with their horns. "It was just an idea I had, and I'm happy to see it works." How does he do it? Somebody standing in the hallway asks.'
[Teen Set, Jan ‘67 - describing the ‘Surf’s Up: Talking Horns’ session of Nov 7th, also known as ‘George Fell Into His French Horn’.)

‘Now we're into about the end of November (still '66), and at that point a very important thing happened to help the situation: David Oppenheim came out to do that special; and when he came up to Brian's house, I think he turned Brian on to what he (Brian) was doing by receiving it so well. And Brian was a bit in awe of the man, because he'd just done this special on Casais, and Stravinsky. And Brian ordered them screened; we got the 16 mm. print and Brian loved them. And he knew that the man used to be the head of the classical record division at Columbia: no one from that world had ever talked with him before; and he began to think maybe I am doing the right thing if these people understand it.

And so we did that show in the house where he sang "Surf's Up."

Brian is the most shy person in the world about performing, so you can imagine what a good job Oppenheim did on his head to get him ready.’
[Fusion, 1969]

‘And there is also a spectacular peak, a song called "Surf s Up" that Brian recorded for the first time in December in Columbia Records Studio A for a CBS TV pop music documentary. Earlier in the evening the film crew had covered a Beach Boys vocal session that had gone very badly. Now, at midnight, the Beach Boys had gone home and Brian was sitting in the back of his car, smoking a joint. [...]

“OK, let's go," he said, and then, quickly, he was in the studio rehearsing, spotlighted in the center of the huge dark room, the cameramen moving about him invisibly outside the light. "Let's do it," he announced, and the tape began to roll. In the control room no one moved.

David Oppenheim, the TV producer, fortyish, handsome, usually studiously detached and professional, lay on the floor, hands behind his head, eyes closed. For three minutes and 27 seconds, Wilson played with delicate intensity, speaking moodily through the piano. Then he was finished. Oppenheim, whose last documentary had been a study of Stravinsky, lay motionless.

"That's it," Wilson said as the tape continued to whirl. The mood broke. As if awakening from heavy sleep the people stirred and shook their heads. "I'd like to hear that," Wilson said. As his music replayed, he sang the lyrics in a high, almost falsetto voice, the cameras on him every second.

"The diamond necklace played the pawn," Wilson sang. "A blind class aristocracy, back through the opera glass you see the pit and the pendulum drawn.

"Columnated ruins domino," his voice reached upward; the piano faltered a set of falling chords. In a slow series of impressionistic images the song moved to its ending: I heard the word: Wonderful thing! A children's song!

On the last word Brian's voice rose and fell, like the ending of that prayer chorale he had played so many months before.

"That's really special," someone said.

"Special, that's right," said Wilson quietly. "Van Dyke and I really kind of thought we had done something special when we finished that one."

He went back into the studio, put on the earphones and sang the song again for his audience in the control room, for the revolving tape recorder and for the cameras that relentlessly followed as he struggled to make manifest what still only existed as a perfect, incommunicable sound in his head. [...]

At home, as the black acetate dub turned on his bedroom hi-fi set, Wilson tried to explain the words. "It's a man at a concert," he said. "All around him there's the audience, playing their roles, dressed up in fancy clothes, looking through opera glasses, but so far away from the drama, from life — Back through the opera glass you see the pit and the pendulum drawn.'

"The music begins to take over. 'Columnated ruins domino.' Empires, ideas, lives, institutions—everything has to fall, tumbling like dominoes.

"He begins to awaken to the music; sees the pretentiousness of everything. `The music hall a costly bow.' Then even the music is gone, turned into a trumpeter swan, into what the music really is. Canvas the town and brush the backdrop. He’s off in his vision, on a trip. Reality is gone; he’s creating it like a dream.

"Dove-nested towers. Europe, a long time ago. The laughs come hard in Auld Lang Syne. The poor people in the cellar taverns, trying to make themselves happy by singing. Then there’s the parties, the drinking, trying to forget the wars, the battles at sea. While at port a do or die. Ships in the harbor, battling it out. A kind of Roman empire thing. A choke of grief. At his own sorrow and the emptiness of his life. because he can’t even cry for the suffering in the world, for his own suffering. And then, hope. Surf’s up! … Come about hard and join the once and often spring you gave. Go back to the kids, to the beach, to childhood. I heard the word of God; Wonderful thing; the joy of enlightenment, of seeing God. And what is it? 'A children's song!' And then there's the song itself, the song of children, the song of the universe rising and falling in wave after wave, the song of God, hiding the love from us, but always letting us find it again, like a mother singing to her children."

The record was over. Wilson went into the kitchen and squirted Reddi-wip direct from the can into his mouth, made himself a chocolate Great Shake, and ate a couple of candy bars.

"Of course that's a very intellectual explanation," he said. "But maybe sometimes you have to do an intellectual thing. If they don't get the words, they’ll get the music. You can get too hung up on words, you know. Maybe they work; I don’t know.” He fidgeted with a telescope.’
[Goodbye Surfing, Hello God!, 1967, describing events of Dec 15 ‘66. The ‘Beach Boys vocal session that had gone very badly’ refers to that of 7-10pm the same evening, at which both the backing vocals for ‘Wonderful’, as heard on TSS, and now lost vocals for ‘Surf’s Up’ itself were taped.]


GOOD VIBRATIONS

‘A short time after his LSD experience, Wilson began work on the record that was to establish him right along with the Beatles as one of the most important innovators in modern popular music. It was called "Good Vibrations," and it took more than six months, 90 hours of tape and complete versions before a three-minute-and-thirty-five-second final master tape satisfied him. Among the instruments on "Good Vibrations" was an electronic device called a theremin, which had its debut in the soundtrack of the movie Spellbound, back in the forties. To some people, "Good Vibrations" was considerably crazier than Gregory Peck had been in the movie, but to others Brian Wilson's new record, along with his somewhat earlier LP release Pet Sounds, marked the beginning of a new era in pop music.’
[Goodbye Surfing, Hello God!, 1967]

‘DAVID: When I really got in with Brian was right around the time of the fourth final "Good Vibrations." I heard it, and it knocked me out, and I said, uh oh, there's something happening here that is unbelievable. And then, the next time I came up, it was different. And then I came up one evening, and Brian… informed me at that time that he had decided to totally scrap "Good Vibrations." He was not going to put it out. The track was going to be sold to Warner Brothers to be put out as an r&b song, sung by a colored group. Brian has always had a feeling for r&b, very heavy feeling for r&b. [...] I called Brian back the next day and I proposed, made a proposal to him, which I don't personally think caused him to decide to finish, but maybe he... it gave him a different perspective. Anyway, he went ahead and he finished it.
PAUL: What was the nature of the earlier "Good Vibrations"?
DAVID: It was a lot shorter, it was a lot tighter rhythmically, melodically it was a lot simpler than the final song. It was much more a commercial ditty, if that's possible. There were no lyrics at that time, that he had recorded; he had just recorded tracks. Brian goes in and cuts all the tracks first. He is motivated by the music, generally; the music will then motivate the lyric, and a lot of times the lyric comes very late. Brian is totally musical. Obviously he's not lyrical. Brian has written some of the worst lyrics in history. Although you shouldn't say "worst" lyrics, but some of the simplest lyrics. His lyrics have never been on the par that his music has been on, ever. He really has a musical head.’
[Crawdaddy! Pt I, April-March 1968]

‘Anyway, we went over to Brian Wilson's house one night for dinner: David Anderle and his wife, and me and a chick, and Van Dyke and his wife, and a guy from the Saturday Evening Post named Jules Segal - very obnoxious writer. We all had dinner, and then listened to "Good Vibrations" which was not yet out: I had never heard it. And it was just too beautiful - what a beautifully structured thing: and we just listened to it a few times.’
[Fusion, 1969]

‘Ah ... he was forced to put "Good Vibrations" on [to SMiLE], something he never wanted to do is put a single onto the album, but he was forced to do that For sales. That was another, I'm sure, a minor tragedy for him.’
[Crawdaddy! Pt II, May 1968]

‘Well, I can quote Murray Wilson (Brian's father and publisher) one night sitting down with me and astounding me, telling me what a horrible mistake it had been for Brian to put out "Good Vibrations" - because, he said, Brian's going to lose his whole audience: those kids don't want to hear that; the Boys have got to go back to what they were doing. So that became the big argument: Are we gonna' lose our image or we are gonna’ start a new one…’
[Fusion, 1969]

‘"They've Found the New Sound at Last!" shrieked the headline over a London Sunday Express review as "Good Vibrations" hit the English charts at number six and leaped to number one the following week. Within a few weeks, the Beach Boys had pushed the Beatles out of first place in England's New Musical Express' annual poll. In America, "Good Vibrations" sold nearly 400,000 copies in four days before reaching number one several weeks later and earning a gold record within another month when it hit the one-million sales mark.’
[Goodbye Surfing, Hello God!, 1967]


CABIN ESSENCE

‘And then Van and Brian played us two things they were doing on the album: one was...ah, part of the thing that turned into "Cabinessence." This was originally part of "Who Ran the Iron Horse," which was about this Chinese cat working on the railroad; it had the "crow" line in it. And another song, "Bicycle Rider," was to be integrated with it: they thought they'd put together these two separate songs… A lot of that kind of thing was going on: I mean, there are fragments of maybe five different songs combined in each of the songs as they stand now. "Cabinessence," for example, started out as a wholly different trip - Dennis was going to sing it by himself and sound like a funky cat up in the mountains somewhere singing to a chick by a fireplace: very simple - and that's all there was to it.’
[Fusion, 1969]

‘The recording of it on 20/20 is new, because before his ear operation about a year ago, Brian could not hear in stereo.

In the original, "Who Ran the Iron Horse," he had a very definite visual image in mind of a train in motion, and suddenly he stopped in the middle of the song with the "Grand Coolie" refrain. Back then, there was no voice track on it: I mean, he cut the whole instrumental track— it was mixed and done—and he brought it in and played it for me . . . and I didn't know what it was supposed to be. I definitely felt the railroad presence, I definitely felt the west present, I definitely felt the cowboy and Indian thing—but there was this strange oriental thing going on in the middle of it; and I asked him what it was ... and he said: "Uhm . . . This song's about the railroads . . . and I wondered what the perspective was of the guy who drove the spike . . . those Chinese lobormen working on the railroad . . . like they'd be hitting the thing . . . but looking off, too, and kind of noticing a crow flying overhead . . . the Oriental mind going on a different track . .."’
[Fusion, 1969]

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

It has that potential. Let's not f*** it up, huh ?

Indeed. I say we all agree to keep all of our own speculation, opinions and disagreements to other threads. Theres plenty to choose from and you can always start your own. And just use this thread to post links to sources, and quotes from articles. Lets try to keep this an index of references for quick use when discussing the album, rather than a place where those actual discussions are had.

Im too lazy to post quotes from them, at least right now, but I can add some links to sources.

Here's a 31 page scholarly article about SMiLE: http://www.people.carleton.edu/~aflory/Smile.pdf


And the link to Goodbye Surfing, Hello God: https://read.atavist.com/goodbye-surfing-hello-god?no-overlay&preview


And links to read the Crawdaddy interview with Anderle: http://www.vistaservices.com/crawdaddy/page2.html
I believe its the April, May and June issues if I recall correctly. Someone correct me if not.

Links to the Fusion interview with Vosse
http://s351.photobucket.com/user/marcus1970/media/Fusion_01.jpg.html
http://s351.photobucket.com/user/marcus1970/media/Fusion_02.jpg.html
http://s351.photobucket.com/user/marcus1970/media/Fusion_03.jpg.html
http://s351.photobucket.com/user/marcus1970/media/Fusion_04.jpg.html
http://s351.photobucket.com/user/marcus1970/media/Fusion_05.jpg.html
http://s351.photobucket.com/user/marcus1970/media/Fusion_06.jpg.html

This is a link to a Smiley Thread which has embedded scans of the April 1967 Teen Set Issue:http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php?topic=17139.0

Link to an interview series on Danny Hutton:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL35350BBCE486D776
Its not all SMiLE based, and he doesnt get as in-depth as the others, but still worth considering[/u]

Interview with Al from when TSS was released:http://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/2013/04/02/al-jardine-smile-beach-boys-interview/#sthash.Ui2Rl7S9.dpbs

Someone listing all the chords used in SMiLE song by song: http://www.surfermoon.com/tabs/smile.html
Im not musically trained so I cannot verify if this is accurate or not. If it isnt, someone please feel free to point it out


These next few links may not be of the same calibur, but are some other things Ive come across recently that some of you might appreciate...

A fans dissection of Smiley Smile (Im not sure if its worth including Smiley here or not but I think the projects are closely linked): http://smileysmile.org/closelisten.htm

2 Fan dissections of SMiLE: http://ratherrarerecords.com/on-brian-wilson-and-smile/ & http://www.angelfire.com/mn/smileshop/historymott.html

A series of fan essays on Brian, many pertaining to SMiLE: http://www.surfermoon.com/essays.shtml

Another site about SMiLE: http://www.goodhumorsmile.com/page04.htm

If any of these arent reliable sources, anyone can feel free to point that out. I wont take offense Theyre just some things Ive found online, read and bookmarked on the subject. I thought some of them might have some useful info or at least interesting analysis.


Mods, if youre reading this, and this thread takes off...how about making this a stickied thread so it appears at the top of this board or TSS? This way, people can reference their theories and find quotes easily as the SMiLE topics come and go from now on.

[The_Holy_Bee]

Part Three:

WONDERFUL

‘Most of these Smile songs got to almost their final stage of recording - some of them were done, and then changed: like on Smiley Smile - a song called "Wonderful." They became self-conscious and made it into a joke. But the original version of it was so beautiful: Brian met Stephen Foster in that song, which is what he always wanted - that sentimentality ...only getting by with it...by being very straight with it.’
[Fusion, 1969]


I’M IN GREAT SHAPE

[this title, perhaps unsurprisingly, is not mentioned in any of the period articles. As I’m trying to resist editorialising in this collation, therefore, references to sundry pieces such as ‘Barnyard’ and ‘Workshop’ will be included under the listing of the named song in context of which such discussion occurs.]


CHILD IS FATHER OF THE MAN

‘I got a sneak preview of one of the tracks the previous night, when Dennis Wilson played me a piano version of one track, “Child of the Man” [sic], a cowboy song, and then gave me the throwaway line of the year - “And this is a prayer I’m working on for it!”
[UK newspaper, late ‘66 - if anyone can provide an attribution, I’ll edit the post accordingly]

‘DAVID: Let's see, what else is there…
PAUL: "The Child is the Father of the Man."
DAVID: Which I understand will be on his next album. I just heard that from someone, I don't remember who told me....’
[Crawdaddy! Pt II, May 1968 - this probably refers to the musical quotation from this song in Dennis' 'Little Bird', released later in '68 on the album 'Friends']


THE ELEMENTS

‘PAUL: Let's try to remember the tracks. "The Elements.". .
DAVID: Okay. Smile was going to be the culmination of all of Brian's intellectual occupations; and he was really into the elements. He ran up to Big Sur for a week, just 'cause he wanted to get into that, up to the mountains, into the snow, down to the beach, out to the pool, out at night, running around, to water fountains, to a lot of water, the sky, the whole thing was this fantastic amount of awareness of his surroundings. So the obvious thing was to do something that would cover the physical surroundings. We were aware, he made us aware, of what fire was going to be, and what water was going to be; we had some idea of air. That was where it stopped. None of us had any ideas as to how it was going to tie together, except that it appeared to us to be an opera. And the story of the fire part I guess is pretty well known by now.
PAUL: There's a lot of confusion about it.
DAVID: Well, briefly, Brian created a track for the fire part which was the most revolutionary sound I've ever heard. He actually created a fire, a forest fire, with instruments, no sound effects—a lot of strings, and a lot of technique on the board—when you would listen to that thing, it would actually, it would scare you, you would be scared listening to that. It was so overpowering . . .
[Crawdaddy! Pt II, May 1968]

‘It was just another day of greatness at Gold Star Recording Studios on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood. [...] Walking into the control room [...] was Brian Wilson himself, wearing a competition-stripe surfer's T-shirt, tight white duck pants, pale green bowling shoes and a red plastic fireman's helmet. Everybody was wearing identical red plastic toy fireman's helmets. Brian's cousin and production assistant, Steve Korthoff was wearing one; his wife, Marilyn, and her sister, Diane Rovelle—Brian's secretary—were also wearing them, and so was a once dignified writer from The Saturday Evening Post who had been following Brian around for two months.

Out in the studio, the musicians for the session were unpacking their instruments. [...] "Steve," Brian called out, "where are the rest of those fire hats? I want everybody to wear fire hats. We've really got to get into this thing." Out to the Rolls-Royce went Steve and within a few minutes all of the musicians were wearing fire hats, silly grins beginning to crack their professional dignity.

"All right, let's go," said Brian. Then, using a variety of techniques ranging from vocal demonstration to actually playing the instruments, he taught each musician his part. A gigantic fire howled out of the massive studio speakers in a pounding crash of pictorial music that summoned up visions of roaring, windstorm flames, falling timbers, mournful sirens and sweating firemen, building into a peak and crackling off into fading embers as a single drum turned into a collapsing wall and the fire-engine cellos dissolved and disappeared.

"When did he write this?" asked an astonished pop music producer who had wandered into the studio.

"This is really fantastic! Man, this is unbelievable! How long has he been working on it?"

"About an hour," answered one of Brian's friends.

"I don't believe it. I just can't believe what I'm hearing," said the producer and fell into a stone glazed silence as the fire music began again.

For the next three hours, Brian Wilson recorded and re-recorded, take after take, changing the sound balance, adding echo, experimenting with a sound effects track of a real fire. "Let me hear that again." "Drums, I think you're a little slow in that last part. Let's get right on it." "That was really good. Now, one more time, the whole thing." "All right, let me hear the cellos alone." "Great. Really great. Now let's do it!"

With 23 takes on tape and the entire operation responding to his touch like the black knobs on the control board, sweat glistening down his long, reddish hair onto his freckled face, the control room a litter of dead cigarette butts, Chicken Delight boxes, crumpled napkins, Coke bottles and all the accumulated trash of the physical end of the creative process, Brian stood at the board as the four speakers blasted the music into the room. For the 24th time, the drum crashed and the sound effects crackle faded and stopped.

"Thank you," said Brian into the control room mic. "Let me hear that back." Feet shifting, his body still, eyes closed, head moving seal-like to his music, he stood under the speakers and listened.

"Let me hear that one more time." Again the fire roared.

"Everybody come out and listen to this," Brian said to the musicians. They came into the room and listened to what they had made. "What do you think?" Brian asked.

"It's incredible, incredible," whispered one of the musicians, a man in his fifties wearing a Hawaiian shirt and iridescent trousers and pointed black Italian shoes. "Absolutely incredible."

"Yeah," said Brian on the way home, an acetate trial copy or "dub" of the tape in his hands, the red plastic fire helmet still on his head. "Yeah, I'm going to call this 'Mrs. O'Leary's Fire' and I think it might just scare a whole lot of people."'
[Goodbye Surfing, Hello God!, 1967, describing the events of 28th November 1966]

‘DAVID: … and then there was a rash of fires in the city, and Brian became aware of this rash of fires, and then there was the fire across the street from the studio.... Brian's not superstitious, he's something that I can't name, 'cause I totally do not understand what it is, but he had a series of dialogs with me where at one point he asked if I would check the fire department, call the city fire department or whoever it was that I would have to call, to find out if there were more fires within this period in Los Angeles than in any other period in history. Because he really felt, I guess, the word is vibrations. Brian is very into vibrations, and made me, to this day, very aware of vibrations.'
[Crawdaddy! Pt II, May 1968]

‘As it turns out, however, Brian Wilson's magic fire music is not going to scare anybody—because nobody other than the few people who heard it in the studio will ever get to listen to it. A few days after the record was finished, a building across the street from the studio burned down and, according to Brian, there was also an unusually large number of fires in Los Angeles. Afraid that his music might in fact turn out to be magic fire music, Wilson destroyed the master. "I don't have to do a big scary fire like that," he later said. "I can do a candle and it's still a fire. That would have been a really bad vibration to let out on the world, that Chicago fire. The next one is going to be a candle." '
[Goodbye Surfing, Hello God!, 1967]

‘That's when several things contributed to what I would call Brian's growing uncertainty about whether or not he could fulfill this project: Smile. The first uncertainty, was whether or not the group could cut it. While they were in England, Brian cut the tracks - and the tracks were just brilliant. I mean, you would have loved them. For example, he was doing a four part suite called "The Elements," and the fire section of it was all done with percussion instruments. It was like Stravinsky. It was beautifully done, and lasted about two minutes...You've heard all about that thing, with the tape and the fire destroying it...Well, that happened, but it doesn't mean anything.’
[Fusion, 1969]

‘DAVID: Anyway, after we all laughed at him, as we normally did in these situations, he went ahead and destroyed the tape. Completely. Eliminated it, never to be heard again. That basically destroyed "Elements."
PAUL: Was this the first break in Smile, the first turn downward?
DAVID: Yeah. That was the first sign that we were going to have problems on this album.’
[Crawdaddy! Pt II, May 1968]

[The_Holy_Bee]

Part Four, finishing up the songs included on the Capitol Tracklist. 'Psycodelic Sounds' to follow.

************************

VEGA-TABLES

‘Brian Wilson and master percussionist Hal Blaine meet eyeball to eyeball for a deadly game of pool. Blaine picks up his celery stalk, Wilson has his and with oh-so-careful english spins the radish off the tomato for game. Guy Webster is clicking off color photos nearby. "I want people to turn on to vegetables, good natural food, organic food. Health is an important ingredient in spiritual enlightenment. But I do not want to be pompous about this, so we will engage in a satirical approach to the matter."

Brian and Van Dyke Parks, his collaborator for the Smile album, write a funky, silly, joyous little ode to VEGA-TABLES. A young pop artist is commissioned to do a vega-table painting for the album, and the Wilson creative process continues.’
[Teen Set, Jan ‘67]

‘DAVID: Um . . . "Vege-tables."
PAUL: How was that going to be?
DAVID: Not like it is on the album. It's on Smiley Smile, it was changed quite a bit. See, all that stuff was changed, because Brian ... none of the tracks are on Smiley Smile. Some of the songs are there, but he's recorded them in the house.’
[Crawdaddy! Pt II, May 1968]

‘"Vegetables" is another one that could have been, but wasn't quite, but almost was. On Smiley Smile, though, it's really pretty close to the way it was meant to be done …’
[Fusion, 1969]


THE OLD MASTER PAINTER

'It is a crisp, clear November night, and from Brian Wilson's living room, high atop Beverly Hills, the city glistens in patterns of light. Wilson sits at his piano. Jules Siegel, Saturday Evening Post’s top music journalist, lies on the floor playing catch with Banana, the Wilson beagle. Banana is indefatigable. Siegel has been throwing the ball for twenty minutes. His arm is tired. Banana could go on all night.

Wilson turns to no one in particular and speaks. "'You Are My Sunshine' can happen another way. Listen." He plays a mournful series of chord patterns while singing a sad revision of the song "You were my sunshine, my only sunshine ..." The next night he is back at Goldstar and a studio full of cellos, strings, and percussion performing those same poignant chords. There is no sheet music. There hasn't been time for that. Brian is doing the arrangement on the spot. He prefers to work that way — like Fellini on the set with no script, scurrying about whispering snatches of dialogue into his players' ears.'
[Teen Set, Jan ‘67 - apparently describing the events of 13 and 14 November, 1966]

‘Vosse: And like I said, Brian loves Stephen Foster ... that kind of song. So one night we were over at his house and he started playing "You Are My Sunshine" by ... Who wrote that?
Interviewer: Jimmy Davis, ex-Gov. of Louisiana.
Vosse: I used to go to high school with his son. Well, Brian started playing it slowly—almost like an R&B thing— just slowing down the tempo: really mournful. And we were all a little high, I guess, that night ... and he started doing a "you were my sunshine" thing: he put the song in the past tune—and he was trying to find his bass rhythm for it: and in doing that he found this weird little riff that just sort of developed. And it hit him, man, right then that he wanted a barn yard—he wanted Old MacDonald's farm—he wanted all that stuff. So he immediately got Van Dyke over and they did a chart for "You were my sunshine," which ... It's so hard to remember exactly what he wound up doing because he changed things so much ... he wound up writing a clarinet part for it which is impossible to describe: a whole different sound that he found in the middle of all this ... and it developed into an instrumental thing with barnyard sounds—people sawing—he had people in the studio sawing on wood—and Van Dyke being a duck—and it was marvelous. It made you smile and at the same time touched you.’
[Fusion, 1969]

'"HERE WE GO!" The voice booms over the intercom system and the men spring into action. Saws chew up boards, nails are driven with hammers — the workshop is alive with sounds. In the control room at Goldstar Recording studios in Hollywood, Brian Wilson sits at the board chuckling. “Do you believe it!" He slams his hand down on the arm of the chair. They believe it.

Brian Wilson is cutting an album. He wants the sounds of a workshop for background on one of the tracks. David Oppenheim, Emmy award winning producer of CBS documentaries on Igor Stravinsky and Pablo Casals, sits watching and listening. He believes it. Moments later he is out in the studio, tools in hand, banging and sawing away with the veteran studio musicians.'
[Teen Set '67, describing the events of 29th November 1966]


PRAYER

'Like medieval choirboys, the voices of the Beach Boys pealed out in wordless prayer from the last acetate, thirty seconds of chorale that reached upward to the vaulted stone ceilings of an empty cathedral lit by thousands of tiny votive candles melting at last into one small, pure pool that whispered a universal amen in a sigh without words.'
[Goodbye Surfing, Hello God!, 1967]

‘On the last word Brian's voice rose and fell, like the ending of that prayer chorale he had played so many months before.’
[Goodbye Surfing, Hello God!, 1967 - describing the end of the solo version of ‘Surf’s Up’]

[The_Holy_Bee]

Last one, I think. Please note that a couple of additions to my posts above been made since their original posting (to 'Heroes and Villians', 'Surf's Up' and 'The Old Master Painter). If anyone has noticed any omissions, please PM me with the reference and I'll add it to the original posts.

*************

‘PSYCODELIC SOUNDS’

Water Sounds ('Bob Gordon's Real Trip'):
‘Now I had for a year—knowing nothing really about making records—been convinced that ... I don't know, I heard some record with water on it, and it wasn't even a very good record—but water really sounds nice when you listen to it clearly. And I was talking to Brian one day about water sounds on records—he and Van Dyke had both decided the album would have quite a bit of sound effects on it—and Brian had a list of things he did not want off sound effects records: he wanted us to get the real thing. That was really my first assignment for the record and he got me a Nagra - he didn't mess around, man, I had the whole thing - I didn't even know how to work one. And a list from Brian, and a stack like this of tapes; and off I went to get these sounds. And in the process of doing that we talked more and more about water. At first, Brian said he wanted to do a water album, so what we finally got it down to was that Brian and I collected, for a week, together, every kind of water sound we could: we like spent a whole evening in some chick's kitchen because she had a metal sink; and boiling water and toilets-went out to streams, went out to the ocean, went to water fountains - everywhere, man - garden hoses: one night we were up at three o'clock in the morning rolling pebbles down the street in front of his house because there was water in the streets — he was hearing all that; and when we got through, he listened to those tapes, and he told me, and I'm sure it was true, that he could sit down and edit those tapes and find the notes and construct a song so that all of it would come from the sounds of the water: he would do nothing to it except edit it, 'cause he said within that range of what we had recorded were all the notes in all the musical scales—the water has all that kind of varying pitch.

And that never got done.’
[Fusion, 1969]

Cab Driver Monologue (‘Taxi Cabber’):
‘O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois — It is one in the morning on a chilly, windy October night. Brian Wilson and an associate get off a jet flight from Los Angeles on their way to meet The Beach Boys on tour in Michigan. This is the group's final concert before leaving for the now legendary visit to Europe, and Brian is going to run through one final work rehearsal to polish up the new songs which have been added to the concert repertory. A cabbie, during the short drive to nearby O'Hare Inn, tries to explain the intricate and confusing set of boundaries which surround and join the airport grounds. The monologue was Pinter-Beckett with a touch of Chester Riley: Brian gets every second of it on his portable tape recorder which was hidden under a huge pea coat. Safely inside of his hotel room Wilson listens to the cabbie's recorded voice over and over again, clapping his hands and laughing loudly. "Now, THAT is humor. There is so much pretense and defensiveness in recorded comedy today. This man is truly, humbly funny. I want to take this sort of approach to a humorous record, maybe a radio show." Does he ever stop working? No.’
[Teen Set, Jan ‘67 - describing events of 20/21st October 1966, when Brian travelled to Michigan to help the band rehearse for the first live performance of ‘Good Vibrations’ at the University of Michigan on October 22nd.]

‘DAVID: I think what Brian tried to do with Smiley Smile is he tried to salvage as much of Smile as he could and at the same time immediately go into his humor album. 'Cause it's so—I hear elements in that of our discussions about the humor album, just little pieces of it.’
[Crawdaddy! Pt II - May 1968]

The Chants:
‘Now it is late and time for fun. Brian and four friends sit in the darkened studio around an open microphone. Each person makes and repeats a sound which represents the “feeling" of underwater life to him ... Brian softly whispers into ears asking for a variation here, a more pronounced rhythm there, soon the effect is created and Brian returns to the booth to mix the sounds with echoes and pitch changes to create a vocal Atlantis. “This is an interesting direction. When the guys get back we'll try something similar.”’
[Teen Set ‘67, describing events of 4th November 1966]

‘DAVID: One of the really, uh, the uniquely beautiful things about Brian was that he never had one idea that I can remember that was simple. He never had one idea that made sense. Everything was new. Every single idea he would say had no foundation anywhere, except for his head. This is how he got into, for instance, the chanting: one night we were at the studio, and Brian didn't feel like putting down a track. We were just laying around, and he said, "Come out here, everyone." So we all went out there, not one of us a professional, and he had us making animal noises, incredible noises, directing us from the control room: "Louder." "Softer." "More expansive." "Get in closer." The whole thing. We started off very conscious of what we were doing, looking at each other and very embarrassed, and then he just drove us into it, totally. We went into the studio and listened to it; he put it with music, we listened to it again and walked out knowing that once again Brian had done it. This was a daily routine. To have your mind blown by something Brian was coming up with.’
[Crawdaddy! Pt I - March-April 1968]

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Fantastic Work, Holy Bee.

I hope you dont mind me posting those links here. In hindsight Im not sure if that was appropriate or not, like if you wanted to keep it solely about those quotes from those specific articles on just the tracks or something. I liked the idea of a reference thread for SMiLE quotes and links without getting bogged down in arguments (which I admit I start as often as not) and perhaps got carried away. I appreciate you giving the Psychedelic Sounds an air of legitimacy by including them with the official tracks as well. Thanks for taking the time.

[The_Holy_Bee]

No problem, Mujan! Glad you appreciated it. I think your post above is fine - am glad I got to post the last three installments in sequence, but now they're up I'm quite happy to let the thread become whatever it becomes.

EDIT: On a related note, I put together all these collations as one word doc, so if anyone wants a copy of that (just to have all the quotes in one place) fire me a PM and I'm happy to send it through.

[SMiLE Brian]

Holy mother of bee!

[The_Holy_Bee]

Thanks, AGD -

(btw, if the dating on the first quote is accurate, the only known "H&V" vocal session that could, at a stretch, be thought of as "early" was 12/13 at Columbia)

I'm taking it there's at least one H&V vocal session logged for '66, then? C-man's excellent TSS sessionography is slightly unclear on the subject.

On the subject of the dating in the Teen Set article, I was slightly surprised to discover how accurate it appears to be, if you cross reference the months/days given for various events with the recorded chronology. Even the fact the 'Surf's Up First Movement'/'Humble Harv' meeting/Chants episode did indeed take place on a Friday (November 4).

The only major dating confusion I can see in the two Vosse pieces regards Workshop/Barnyard - which he recalls in 'Fusion' as developing directly from the past tense 'You Are My Sunshine' (including the animal noises/power tool effects etc) but were in fact taped over three weeks before OMP/YAMS, in the case of 'Barnyard', and a good two weeks later in the case of 'Workshop'. Not that the difference of a fortnight is necessarily all that important, especially considering the interview was published a good three years later, but possibly worth noting. Otherwise almost all the dates and information provided in the two Vosse pieces (of those, of course, which can be verified historically) do indeed seem to check out.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Currently known "H&V" vocal sessions in 1966 are:

10/17 (logged as "I'm In Great Shape") - not listed as a vocal session but as it was recorded at Columbia...
12/13
12/27
12/28 (Brian only)

I need to point out that the vast majority - if not all - of recent info regarding sessions on 10452 has been supplied to me by Craig, either directly, or by combing his posts here, or liner notes, or his wonderful website. These days, I collate rather than research.

[Cam Mott]

Great work, THB.

[The_Holy_Bee]

Many thanks, Andrew - if the session described in Teen Set was not long after Thanksgiving, then a 13 Dec session is the closest on the logs to the scene Vosse describes. And just two days before the notably problematic 'Wonderful'/'Surf's Up' vox session, interestingly enough.

[The_Holy_Bee]

Thank you, Cam.

[harveyw]

Wow, amazing thread, thanks so much.

One additional piece of info I might add: I have a 1967 Japanese picture sleeve for Heroes & Villains/You're Welcome, and amongst the Japanese character set, the sleevenotes make reference to "Surf's Up", "Wonderful", "Do You Like Worms", "Wind Chimes", ""Vege-tables" (sic) and "Cabin Essence", as well as something called "The Bronze Statuette" (I assume this refers to the Brother Records logo). If I post a scan of the notes, is there anyone here who would be willing & able to translate the same? Or is there an online tool which could achieve this? I assume the notes are a rehash of material we already have, but you never know....

[yonderhillside]

Fantastic work collecting all of that. I think that description by Brian of Surf's Up may be one the most beautiful things I've ever read. Perfectly sums up what's not heard, but felt, from the song.

[guitarfool2002]

The Jan '67 'Teen Set' article, ghostwritten by Vosse, has also been added into the mix, as it contains by and large the most in-depth coverage of actual SMiLE sessions of any of the first-hand accounts. Interestingly - to me - many of the songs/sessions covered in that piece are also mentioned by Vosse, after a fashion, in Fusion in 1969. His recollections of these events - although the tone is understandably 'peppier' for Capitol's in house magazine - are surprisingly unchanged considering the three year gap between the two pieces.

Not surprising at all, because as has been said many times here through the years, Michael Vosse was there and presents a factual eyewitness account of what he saw, what he heard, and what he was involved in directly as one of those closest to Brian during the time he's writing about.

I wish he had said more through the years, because Michael was actually someone who knows despite attempts to suggest otherwise depending on the discussion.

It's good to excerpt by song, yes, but at the same time I think a reference where the articles are presented verbatim as they appeared may be just as if not more valuable in order to have the original context that anyone can see for reference, especially if these words start getting parsed and pulled out of context as so often has happened.