Ques. About A Day In The Life Of A Tree

[pixletwin]

Did Brian ever record vocals for the song (besides the bit he's on at the end)? I like Jack Rieley's vocals on there but I was wondering if there was an alternate version of this floating around somewhere.... 

[SloopJohnB]

I don't think there's an alternate version - I don't even know if Brian is on the tag... If you're talking about "Oh Lord I lay me down... etc", it is Al. 

[John]

STOP!

Hammertime!

...Wait till we get to Surf's Up before carrying on this Brian / Al debate!

[pixletwin]

   Well even if its Al, I still want to know if there is a version of Brian singing this. 

[Andrew G. Doe]

Not that anyone I've ever spoken to is aware of, and that includes Jack Rieley & Steve Desper.

Tag vocals:

"Treeeeeeeeeeeees like meeeeeeeee weren't meant to liiiiiive" - Van Dyke.

"Oh Lord I lay me down" - Alan.

"......." - Brian.

[SloopJohnB]

"Treeeeeeeeeeeees like meeeeeeeee weren't meant to liiiiiive" - Van Dyke.

"Oh Lord I lay me down" - Alan.

"......." - Brian.

I laughed at this one 

[pixletwin]

"Treeeeeeeeeeeees like meeeeeeeee weren't meant to liiiiiive" - Van Dyke.

"Oh Lord I lay me down" - Alan.

"......." - Brian.

I laughed at this one 

That was good.

Thanks AGD. I read an interview with Rieley saying that Brian had laid down a few takes... Too bad he never recorded them. Ah well.... *SIGH*

[Roger Ryan]

As I recall, someone around here posted that there is a live concert version of the song from the early 70s with Brian doing the lead vocal. That wasn't discredited, was it?

[Dancing Bear]

I think the live version features Brian on organ and Jack on lead vocals.

[the captain]

It's also terrible sound quality, unless I'm mistaken.

[Dancing Bear]

It's also terrible sound quality, unless I'm mistaken.

Audience recording. Some dudes near the tape machine teasing Jack about his struggle to reach the end of the song, that kind of thing.

[MBE]

Brian sings more of the backup on the live version. He's just doing wordless falsetto on the Surf's Up take along with bomp bomps and the like.

[SurfRiderHawaii]

From the Jack Rieley Thread - http://www.smileysmile.net/index.php/jack_rieley_speaks_part_one



Re: Thanks, Jack!/"Tree" song question

From: Jack Rieley
To: 'Beach Boys list' (pet -sounds@lists.primenet.com)
Reply-To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Date: Oct 7 1996 - 6:17pm

You wrote:

My first question would be: how about telling us what really went on with that wonderful "Tree" song! I know some people on the list have mentioned they don't like it, but some others, like me have said they love the song and couldn't imagine anyone else singing it and giving it the same feeling that you did. Any recollections other than the "Brian was crying afterward -- and I don't know if he really was moved by it or just giving me the business" (paraphrased), would really be welcome.

Brian Wilson and I had been talking a lot about the sorry state of the planet back then. He was filled with questions and we went on for hours about it. Forests were dying, the air had turned brown, the earth's future was beginning to appear hazardous to health. When Brian first played the chords and sang the tentative melody for me, he asked what the song should be about and I suggested a single tree as metaphor for the earth; that single tree as metaphor for more than ecology. I fell in love with the chords at once and loved the swelling tension of that droned bass line; the song seemed to lend itself to the lyrical concept. He went nuts for the lyrics when I showed them to him. Loved 'em, memorized the first verse and was singing around the house. Carl and I were positive that Brian had to sing A Day In The Life Of A Tree.

We recorded the instrumental track in a few days. On the day we were to record the lead vocal, I was with the engineer in the control room (this was in Belair, at the Bellagio house) and Brian was in the studio. He did a few warm-up takes and then, dramatically animated as was in wont, tore the headphones from his ears and exclaimed that he needed me to help him. I went out into the studio and he pleaded that he just wasn't getting the feeling that I intended with the lyric. "Show me what I'm supposed to do," he insisted, handing me the headphones as he ran to the control booth.

I did about 5 takes of the song, all except for the false-setto bit near the end. Each time I screwed up one part or another, and after each take Brian used the talkback to inform me something like, "I see what you mean. But how about the blah-blah part. Do another take so I'll know just how to do the song." And dumb me: I did another take.

It was after one of those that Brian burst from the control booth to the studio, laughing loudly, a proclamatory laugh. He rushed me like a bear, raised both arms into the air as would a victorious high school athletics coach and exclaimed that I had just done the final lead vocal!

I protested. It was turing into another BW cop-out, I suspected. But by then Carl was there too. He said Brian had told him a couple of days previous that I had to sing Tree. It had all been cooked in advance.

To my astonishment, the false-setto bit turned out easy. After Van Dyke's bit, the added voice at the end is Linda Jardine.

Reports of Brian crying, with joy or otherwise, upon hearing my vocal are bullshit.

[Andrew G. Doe]

"After Van Dyke's bit, the added voice at the end is Linda Jardine."

... doing a most impressive impression of her then-husband. 

[pixletwin]

Thank you SurfRiderHawaii. It was this quote that made me wonder. I knew I'd read it somewhere.

I was with the engineer in the control room (this was in Belair, at the Bellagio house) and Brian was in the studio. He did a few warm-up takes and then, dramatically animated as was in wont, tore the headphones from his ears and exclaimed that he needed me to help him.

So takes of him singing it should exist somewhere, no? 

[Andrew G. Doe]

Thank you SurfRiderHawaii. It was this quote that made me wonder. I knew I'd read it somewhere.

I was with the engineer in the control room (this was in Belair, at the Bellagio house) and Brian was in the studio. He did a few warm-up takes and then, dramatically animated as was in wont, tore the headphones from his ears and exclaimed that he needed me to help him.

So takes of him singing it should exist somewhere, no? 

Unless you can extract them from underneath Jack's lead - no. Any such scratch vocals were taped over.

[pixletwin]

Thanks Andy. I like Jack's vocals. I agree with Brian that there is something tree-like about his voice ( ) but I was just hoping. Thanks everyone for your input. This is one puppy I can finally put to bed.

[SurfRiderHawaii]

AGD - I think the reference to "Linda Jardine" was a slur at Al.  By the tone of this Q & A, Reiley detested Mike, Bruce and Al.

By the way, I saw you wrote the accompanying book to the rerelease of the BB Videography listed on Amazon.  Is this something new that we should all hear about?  Details sir?

[Andrew G. Doe]

It's basically an overview of all the albums from Surfin' Safari to In Concert (and including Smile). Here's a taster:

Smile
not released December 1966/January 1967

It may seem strange to include an unreleased album in a survey of a band’s catalogue, but Smile was no simple failed project: rather, it marked the decline of both The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson as major creative forces in rock. After Smile, neither of them would ever be the same again.

Although by the band’s own high standards a relative failure, Pet Sounds was a vindication of Brian’s rapidly evolving songwriting and production methods, and now, in summer 1966, he sought to apply the “feels” method of making an album to a single: and he already had the basic material to hand, for during the Pet Sounds sessions he’d begun a song initially entitled ‘Good, Good, Good Vibrations’, only to set it aside (and also pull it from the track listing) to concentrate on finishing up the album. Once this was accomplished, and with the rest of the band on tour, Brian returned to the (mildly) retitled ‘Good Vibrations’ and from 17 further sessions from early May to late September at three different studios (and at a reputed cost of some $50,000, a figure that would have funded four of five albums for most bands of the time !), and after discarding at least two previous mixes, distilled 3.35 of sheer musical and vocal magic that topped the charts world-wide. At once classic Beach Boys, yet sounding like nothing they’d ever done before, ‘Good Vibrations’ swung effortlessly from rock to choir via barbershop and doo-wop over a backing track of deceptively simple complexity and spaciousness (punctuated by a wailing theremin). It remains a towering achievement.

Having proved to himself that he could assemble a song from so many different sections with such success, Brian saw no reason why he couldn’t do the same with a whole album and, recruiting Van Dyke Parks as his new collaborator, he embarked on that very course. The underlying theme of this new album (initially titled Dumb Angel, then simply Smile) was one of American history and territorial expansion from New England to Hawaii shot through with shafts of humour. Initially, all was plain sailing: Capitol backed Brian’s judgement by booking studios in month-long blocks and devising lavish packing for the new album, while the sessions for the instrumental tracks came to be regarded as legendary even as they were happening, for the excellent reason that the music itself really was as good as everyone said it was. Before departing on an overseas tour, the rest of the band did vocal sessions for such experimental tracks as ‘Home On The Range’ (later ‘Cabin Essence’) and ‘Do You Like Worms ?’, and while they probably didn’t have the least idea what they were singing about, they did excellent work: everything was looking decidedly rosy.

Exactly when, and why, it all began to unravel is hard to pinpoint.  Certainly Brian’s escalating drug usage wasn’t helping matters, but to blame this alone is to ignore the increasing distractions which now beset him. He was moving in a new, more sophisticated circle of people, all eager to show him something of their world, be it poetry, art… or more drugs. More, some of his new friends considered that Capitol weren’t treating him fairly, and as a result, a lawsuit against the company was being instigated: further, the band’s own record company, Brother, was being set up – and all these activities began to distract Brian from the immediate task at hand, as did the later arrival of a film crew to shoot footage for a prestigious TV documentary on pop music, hosted by Leonard Bernstein. Then again, it may have begun to dawn on him that maybe what had worked with a single song might not be practicable on a whole album (which album was in turn expanding as Brian sought to incorporate all his new experiences and influences). The band returned from Europe in mid-November and promptly embarked on a short US tour, but when they returned to LA they discovered that in their absence, things had changed, and not – in their view – for the better. To their credit, they buckled down to singing lyrics that seemed at best incomprehensible, at worst next to gibberish, but between late November (and the legendary ‘Fire’ session, which Brian’s altered perception held directly responsible for a rash of fires in LA) and mid-December the situation slowly deteriorated, to the point where some of the band were openly questioning Brian’s judgement. Exacerbating the situation was the deadline for the album, which was originally set for a December 1966 release, but by the middle of that month Brian had to tell Capitol that neither the album nor a new single, ‘Heroes And Villains’, would be ready until mid January. At the same time, a handwritten track listing for the album was also handed in, presumably at the request of Capitol in order for the design of the back cover to be finalised – however, the handwriting wasn’t Brian’s and it’s doubtful if he knew of its existence at the time.

Come mid-January 1967, and neither album nor single were close to completion as the situation surrounding Brian and Smile edged closer to dissolution. His self belief ebbing as his paranoia increased, Brian systematically shut out his new friends one by one and took to almost obsessively re-recording ‘Heroes And Villains’, perhaps realising that, after all, he couldn’t pull it all together. From here on in, the final death of Smile was merely a matter of time: when Paul McCartney dropped in on Brian at a ‘Vega-Tables’ session in mid-April, it was all over bar the final rites, yet ironically the broadcast of the ‘Inside Pop’ TV show later in the month, which featured Brian performing a stunning solo version of ‘Surf’s Up’ aroused huge expectation for Smile as, for the first time, the world at large could judge for themselves what all the fuss was about, and the verdict was overwhelmingly positive.

It was too late: by May, the album was officially pronounced dead by the band’s publicist, Brian locked the tapes away and returned to the studio with his band mates to come up with something – anything – to fill the void caused by Smile’s collapse. It wasn’t just an album that died – something inside Brian Wilson was snuffed out that spring, never to be rekindled. In the years to come, he would sporadically make great music, but never again would he approach the heights he once attained in the fall of 1966. For the band, the final slamming of the door came with their withdrawal from the June 1967 Monterey Pop festival: the perception was they knew they couldn’t compete with the newer, hipper bands from LA, San Francisco and England and, true or not, it was hugely damaging. It would take The Beach Boys close to four years to win back their audience and reputation.

The crowning irony is that had the album been completed and premiered at Monterey, things could have been so very different, for Brian’s compositions and productions were as advanced as anything that anyone of the day was doing, as the public response to ‘Surf’s Up’ showed. Songs like ‘Wonderful’, ‘Wind Chimes’, ‘Heroes And Villains’ and ‘Child Is Father To The Man’ demonstrated an almost organic unity, common musical themes and riffs flowing from one to another, while the vocals were, if anything, better than ever. We’ll never know, but one thing is undeniable – on almost all subsequent albums for the next four years, there would be an echo of Smile, be it a brief musical moment or a whole song. Smile may have been something of an albatross around the band’s collective neck, but it was also a useful resource to mine in times of need.

[Aegir]

That's pretty good.

[SloopJohnB]

It was an electro-theremin. 

[Andrew G. Doe]

Iffn you're gonna get real picky, it was a tannerin. 

[SloopJohnB]

Two names for the same thing! 

Seriously, this excerpt sounds great, I'll try to get the whole thing! 

[pixletwin]

me too. might be worth getting for the book alone.

[SloopJohnB]

I've just read the excerpt again and it's probably the best concise SMiLE essay I've ever read - brief, yet containing enough essential details! Great job on that one Andrew