Why didn't Smile happen?

[Daniel S.]

Here is a post by Scot Livingston I found over on the Surfer Moon site a couple of years back. Not sure if this post has been read by everyone or even posted here before. But I really like it and would like to share it. I think it is one of the best posts ever on Smile.

It begins here:

WHY DIDN'T SMiLE HAPPEN?

I some ways, one would think that this is the easiest question to answers. Since, unlike the other two hypothetical questions, this one involves things that actually happened. Or rather, didn't happen. But you know what I mean. There are however many theories out there. And the truth is probably each of these factors contributing to some extent. But how much, and which one was the straw that broke the camel's back, that's hard to say. So let's just look at each of the theories one by one:

1.) Mike Love and the other Beach Boys

The other Beach Boys are often seen as the villains to Brian's hero in the SMiLE story. Most often the other Beach Boys are boiled down to (or personified as) Mike Love. Truth is the rest of the Beach Boys might've been confused by SMiLE, but only Mike Love would've said anything. Or possibly the other Beach Boys didn't mind so much, but didn't stand up to Mike when he was putting SMiLE down. And can you blame them? They were stuck with Mike all the time on the road, while they only saw Brian during vacations and recording sessions. Who would want to live with a petulant Mike?

As popular opinion has dictated, each of the Beach Boys has at one point or another claimed to have originally liked SMiLE. I've got to imagine that of all of them, Dennis liked it the best. Or at least admired the balls it took to do something like that. Mike Love (on his few generous days towards the project) claimed that he had nothing against the music itself. It was just that the lyrics were too hard to relate to. And he was probably right. It takes a lot more effort to imagine oneself dominoing ruined columns than it does to be having fun fun fun till Daddy takes the T-Bird away. But look at PET SOUNDS. Strangest lyrics on there by far were the West Indies patois of "Sloop John B" - their biggest hit off the album. The rest of the lyrics, while exhibiting a lot more depth and maturity, were still primarily revolving around boy-girl relationships.

Point is, they weren't very supportive. And mostly because - it wasn't very commercial. And again, we may have to concede that Mike was right. I once was taking a friend of mine to a concert and during the drive I had one of my SMiLE tapes in. When the hammering and drilling of "I Wanna Be Around" came blaring out of my speakers, my friend - who is a fairly open minded guy in terms of music, Frank Zappa and the like - turned to me with this look which said, "What is this crap?" For whatever reason, the public at the time seemed far more likely to have accepted this kind of 360 turn and radical experimentation from the Beatles than they were from the Beach Boys.

In fact both Mike and Brian may have felt a twinge of "I told you so" after the public reaction to PET SOUNDS. Brian may have felt vindicated by the critic's reactions, cult following, and celebrities' word-of-mouth. While Mike may have believed that the disappointing sales proved that he was right in allowing Brian to do only one album of what he felt was ego-music.

And unlike PET SOUNDS, SMiLE required a lot more group participation. The vocal arrangements were much more complex. Unlike PET SOUNDS, this wasn't (or couldn't be) a Brian Wilson solo record. Brian is a sensitive guy. Having to hear Mike (and the others) bad mouth all his hard work for all of those necessary vocal sessions clearly undermined his self-confidence. And Brian's not a guy who likes to go out on his own. That's what make PEST SOUNDS and SMiLE some interesting, they're works of an individual who wants to blend into the crowd. I don't know how deliberate it was, but I always liked the fact that on the proposed cover to SMiLE, all the letter of the title are capitalized except the I. As anyone into handwriting analysis could tell you - the I denotes the self. And a small I, in relation to the other letters, indicates low self-esteem or little ego (depending on how you look at it).

Of course the question then becomes: If Beach Boys thought SMiLE was too weird, why then did they make SMILEY SMILE, a record which was equally as weird if just not as well done. Even the songs written specifically for it (and not SMiLE) like "Whistle In" and "Little Pad" are pretty strange. Only "Gettin' Hungry" sounds like the kind of old school hits they were hoping for from Brian. There are a couple of reasons for this: 1.) SGT. PEPPER was released (almost days before the first real sessions for SMILEY SMILE began) proving that this kind of music could in fact make truckloads of money. 2.) The Beach Boys passing on the Monterrey Pop Festival, while it may not have precipitated the division, clearly illustrated how the Beach Boys were un-hip, out of touch, "surfing Doris Days". This was their attempt at regaining some hippie credibility (much like the Monkees' trippy 1968 movie HEAD). And 3.) None of the other Beach Boys had tried, much less succeeded, at writing their own material yet. This was all they had to work with.

Of course, when it was released SMILEY SMILE was seen much like the Rolling Stones' THEIR SATANIC MAJESTIES REQUEST. Namely a pale imitator of SGT. PEPPER, when in truth I find SMILEY SMILE has a lot more in common with the other big selling album during the summer of 1967 - HEADQUARTERS by the Monkees. The Monkees, who had learned how to play their own instruments in order to tour, wanted to prove that the could with this album. Not that the Beach Boys minded not being the musicians on TODAY or SUMMER DAYS, but they felt the same urge. Only problem was, while the Monkees would've been an okay folk-rock garage band, the material they were sidled with, Don Kirshner's stable of bubblegum writers didn't mesh well. So too, the Beach Boys touring band's ability to play car and surf songs didn't mix well with Brian's deepest psychadelia. Oddly enough, the Beatles themselves ended up with the same problem on LET IT BE. They wanted to show that they could play their own instruments, but the songs Lennon and McCartney were churning out required arrangements more sophisticated than any 4 musicians, no matter how able, could play. Who knew the Monkees would be that influential?

2.) Brian's group of "friends"

While Brian later complained that he needed to hear a "yes" during those days, in the months prior to Beach Boys return from touring England, all he heard was yes. From his infamous inner circle of friends, sycophants, hangers-on and yes men. These were the guys who boosted his self-confidence after the lackluster sales of PET SOUNDS. The guys who told him that he was a misunderstood genius. The names of these men (Paul Williams, David Ardele, etc. etc.) are well known in SMiLE circles, despite the fact that they never wrote sang or played a single note on the album. Although Van Dyke Parks is sometimes lumped into this group, I think he belongs in a separate category (see below). These were guys who would do any crazy thing Brian asked. Anything except for starting a barroom brawl for Brian to record, apparently. These are guys who saw the potential in Brian. Whether cynically seeking it in money. Or foresightedly seeing it in artistic brilliance. They wanted to be close to that.

The problem is Brian's a follower. There's a reason why Mike's the lead singer, and it's not just because Brian wanted another voice and Mike couldn't play an instrument. From his father Murray to Dr. Landy to his wife and manager today, Brian feels more comfortable doing whatever it is that makes the people around him the happiest. And while this group of friends may have had the best of intentions, thinking they were encouraging Brian to reach his fullest potential, they have been planting ideas in his head which weren't really his. >From "Rio Grande" on his eponymous solo debut to his recent PET SOUNDS symphony tour, Brian frequently does things that it seems others would want him to want to do more than he really wants to do them. And this "teenage symphony to God" may have eventually become more ambitious than Brian felt able to do.

Besides, he knew how much he needed the rest of the band (both in terms of vocals and emotional support). Clearly he couldn't have been surprised by their reaction to SMiLE. What did he expect, Mike to start crowing about how great the lyrics to "Cabinessence" were? (ha-ha, that was a little pun). While Brian clearly wanted to continue going forward artistically, surpassing even PET SOUNDS, and finally impressing his father. But maybe not something as grandiose as some would lead us to believe SMiLE was meant to be. Often the most ambitious parts of SMiLE (a 14 minute, 2-part "Heroes & Villains" and "The Elements Suite") tend to be the pieces most shrouded in confusion, and for which the least actual concrete work was done. Truth is the "teenage symphony to God" may have been something Brian thought he wanted a lot more than he really did want.

Let's take a look at that oft-quoted phrase in more detail. Was he really going to write some sort of psalm or hymn? While music has always been a religious experience, other than "Our Prayer" and the references to God in "Wonderful" (whose lyrics many have interpreted as sexual), there is not a lot of talk about any sort of religion on the album. I think what he meant when is he was writing something TO God and not about him. Rather that the lyrics would have a wider, deeper, loftier aim than the just getting a fast car and a hot chick. But it was still teenage. Meaning not that Brian (who was in his mid-twenties) was a teenager, but rather that the music would be aimed at a teenage audience. Namely that it was still going to try and be pop music. The question than comes in; What did Brian mean by the word "symphony"? Did he mean for SMiLE to be one long continuous piece of music - which lasted as long as a symphony? Or that it would follow strict symphonic guidelines? Did Brian, who did like Gershwin but really wasn't classically trained, even know what that meant? Brian threw out the words "pocket symphony" to describe "Good Vibrations" and even subtitled "Fall Breaks Into Winter" a W. Woodpecker symphony. Clearly Brian didn't know (or at least mean) symphony in the strictest sense. But rather - like the phrase "to God" - meant trying for something a little harder and more complex in the music as well as in terms of subject matter.

But Brian may have lost sight of that with the encouragement of his group. His friends may have given him too much rope, and Brian simply hung himself on it. Although of all the craziness that this clique indulged Brian in, what is often cited as the most detrimental were the drugs.

3.) Drugs and Brian just losing his mind.

Actually the popularity of this theory seems to be waning. While the songs themselves were clearly written under the influences; Carol Kaye insists, and listening to most of the sessions bear this out, that Brian was completely in control during the recording process. Not to say he was stone cold sober, but Brian was lucid and functioning. Stories of weirdness abound, but really what happened? Sessions cancelled due to bad vibes? While it's possible, no one has yet mentioned an actual date when this happened. Asking musicians to don fire hats and even keeping an actual fire in a wastebasket during the "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" sessions? Ok, that's true - but have you seen the footage of the Beatles' sessions with the symphony for "A Day In The Life"? Tuxes and clown noses. It's all just apart of building the atmosphere. In order to help the musicians get the right feel for the song. All that other "Fire" weirdness, thinking it caused spontaneous combustion and the attempt to destroy the tapes. Well, that all happened after the recording session. Outside of the studio. As long as he was working in the studio, Brian was ok.

Of course all the drugs, while in and of themselves did not stop SMiLE from happening, they did I think exasperate another problem, Brian?s' psychedelicate state of mind. Brian is not a well man. Even if he had grown up in a perfectly functional Donna Reed household, he would've turned out a bit insecure, and sensitive. And then of course being brought up by Murray Wilson - the depths of whose abuse we may never know (although I certainly hope that the allegations Brian made in the "auto"-biography are like most everything else in that book, a big fat lie). Still no one would argue that Murray would earn Father of the Year. If all that were not enough to create a neurotic paranoid (or whatever else Brian's been diagnosed with) he went and did about the most unhealthy thing a human could do: he became a rock star in the sixties. When drugs were not only plentiful and available but expected. Particularly mind altering hallucinogens. All of this conspired to create a fairly fragile individual. Not that Brian's state of mind alone would've stopped SMiLE. There are some quotes out there (some even from Brian) that indicate if he had completed, or even continued, SMiLE he would've ended up dead or a vegetable (irony). "I had to kill SMiLE, because it was killing me." "By killing SMiLE, Brian saved himself". While considering the infrequency and inconsistency of his post SMiLE work, some can fans can be forgiven for wishing they could make that Faustian bargain (Brian's soul for one last great album), I don't think SMiLE would've necessarily meant the end of Brian Wilson. If everyone around him knew and understood and helped support him, Brian could've finished. This just meant that all of the other myriads of factors surrounding him were that much more potent. Actually considering all Brian had to work against, it's amazing we have as much of SMiLE as we do.

4.) Capitol Records

While it's probably true that Capitol Records would've concurred with Mike Love, and preferred something a little more commercial, there is no indication that any one at Capitol ever heard the album. At least not until after the project was canned and the tapes returned to their vaults. Of course there was always the potential reaction of Capitol to worry about. Particularly considering their less than enthusiastic response to PET SOUNDS. But don't know how much of a factor that was. All that Capitol really seemed to want was just something. Anything. Now. Now! NOW!! Capitol Records was antsy. Why else would they print up covers and booklets and even start to run ads for an album that hadn't even gotten a final running order yet?

So the deadlines came and passed and more were set. Who knows directly Capitol was breathing down Brian's neck, but I'm sure he must've felt it even if it was subtle. Got to strike while the iron's hot. While the hit single (which Brian didn't really want on there in the first place) was still fresh on people's minds. Got to get it out in time for the Christmas rush. Or at least when teenagers still had the money the got from their grandparents for Christmas. Hurry. Hurry. Hurry. Look at it this way: Brian took how many months to finish "Good Vibrations"? If he was going to record another twelve song in that manner of that caliber, it would've taken him five to seven years to finish! No wonder Brian felt rushed. Sure he had been working on this thing for almost a year by the time he gave up (and at a time when the six months the Beatles spent working on SGT. PEPPER seemed decadent) but it was hardly as much time as he needed.

Part of the problems with Capitol may also have been cause by the fact that record company execs were feeling a little lost. Much like Hollywood did after the surprise success of EASY RIDER. They just sorta threw up their hands and said, "We don't know what the kids of today want" and then just trusted the creative talent to do whatever they felt best. Capitol had taken a big risk with "Good Vibrations" (possibly out of guilt for not backing PET SOUNDS more). The risk didn't involve how innovate or experimental the recording was, but in the only terms that record companies understand. Dollars. And it paid off too. Not because it was a great sounding record, but because it made a lot of money for them.

Capitol should've been on the top of the world at this point. It had two of the biggest selling acts, and the both started with the letters B E A. But Capitol had no control or even influence over the Beatles. They were in London. And they were technically signed to Parlophone, with Capitol just getting the rights to release and distribute in the US. It must frustrated them that they could go in and meddle with their golden goose (although they sure hacked the heck out the albums that the Beatles gave them before releasing them). The Beach Boys on the other hand were right there with them in LA. While they did eventually let that snot-nosed punk produce their own records, they had to find some way of justifying their existence if the artists were going to take control of their own careers. So Capitol was used to having some sort of control over the Beach Boys. "Good Vibrations" or not. But all they could do was wait. And they were not happy waiting.

What Brian really needed was a stopgap solution. Something he could whip up quickly to temporarily satiate the maws of Capitol while he figured out just how to finish SMiLE. Something along the lines of PARTY, which bought Brian enough time to make PET SOUNDS.

Of course Capitol Records was not happy for other reasons as well. One being that the Beach Boys were suing them for royalties. The other was that the Beach Boys were starting their own label. To go into competition with them. While Capitol may have seemed ready and eager for anything Brian might've given them - there was always the possibility that even if SMiLE was finished they wouldn't release it. Aside from Capitol's reaction to these two occurrences, there was also Brian's to consider. These legal wranglings required Brian's attention (or at least attendance) away from recording. It was these kind of distractions from the studio that lead Brian to leave touring in the first place.

5.) Van Dyke's absence

Van Dyke, I think, underestimated his role in SMiLE. To him he was just another hired hand on Brian's project. No different from Chuck Ritz or Hal Blaine. That's what Van Dyke did. He was hired by other bands (the Byrds) to either arrange or produce or play keyboards or write lyrics or whatever. He did his job, and he did his job to the best of his abilities, but it wasn't his music. He could write his own music, and ultimately that's what he wanted to do. this was just his way of making the rent.

So when Jules Siegel wrote in "Goodbye Surfing, Hello God" that Van Dyke left the project, it's easy to see why Van Dyke didn't see it that way. He was just the lyricist. Did Tony Asher or Gary Usher hang around for the recording sessions? Of course not. And while he didn't mind showing up occasionally, because he liked Brian and the two might even be considered friends, it certainly wasn't his cup of tea. First of all, there was all that weirdness from Brian circle of friends. Not the drugs (which Van Dyke was also known to enjoy), but the dog doo in the piano's sandbox. Business meetings in the pool. Tents in the living room. All that weirdness. On the other side he was getting all this out-right hostility from Mike and the others. Questioning his lyrics. If they didn't like them, hire him. It was just a job. Besides Van Dyke had his own album to work on.

But to Brian it wasn't just his album. It was a collaboration. Granted Van Dyke didn't get to write any of the chords, but all that stuff about pan-patriotic westward expansion, that was Van Dyke's idea. That was his thing. And Brian needed Van Dyke. Someone who wasn't one of the fawning members of his inner-circle, but wasn't completely negative like the rest of the band either. Brian isn't good and standing up for himself. He needed someone to defend and justify SMiLE to the rest of them. Someone who could tell the emperor that he was naked but could also compliment him when he dressed himself. Brian may bot have realized it, but he needed someone who was neither a yes man or a no man. Van Dyke was the only one in his circle who could appreciate his genius without being awestruck by it. And I don't think Van Dyke ever really realized that that was his role in SMiLE.

6.) The FBI fearing that this would lead to an over-throw of the government by liberals over-excited by the music, leading to certain discoveries involving UFOs, JFK and Area 51.

Ok, I made that last one up. But somewhere in those other reasons lies the crux of SMiLE's original disappearance. That still doesn't answer why SMiLE continues to elude us to this day. Why the proposed 1967 10-song follow-up failed to produce anything more than a serial number at Brother Records (#000002)? Why the proposed 1972 SMiLE only resulted in the "completion" of "Surf's Up" and a record deal with Warner Brothers? Why the 1988 attempt by Dr. Landy to show-off how much he had thoroughly "cured" Brian gave us nothing more than that memo about the tape boxes from Capitol Records? Even Brian's so-called master plan has yet to bear fruit. Is SMiLE curse? Are we just unlucky? Or maybe SMiLE was simply never meant to be. So let's move on to the next big question.

HOW WOULD SMiLE HAVE BEEN RECIEVED?

There are basically two theories about this. Neither one is particularly easy to substantiate. I've boiled them down to two simple analogies; either SMiLE would've been SGT. PEPPER (only more so) or it would've ended up like PET SOUNDS (only more so).

SMILE as SGT. PEPPER

This theory holds that when SMiLE was released it would have instantly won all the praise and acolytes that SGT. PEPPER received. It would've have issued in a Spring of Love (as opposed to a summer). SGT. PEPPER itself would've been viewed with the same skeptical distaste that met the Rolling Stones' THEIR SATANIC MAJESTIES PRESENT (or even SMILEY SMILE). Seen as a cheap attempt to cash in on the current craze by a band that really should know better. Brian Wilson is hailed as a genius. And leads a normal healthy productive life. Or at least doesn't end up as bad as fast. Who knows? It is possible. Remember "Good Vibrations" was one of the Beach Boys biggest selling 45s, while the preview single from SGT. PEPPER, "Strawberry Fields"/"Penny Lane" was the first Beatles single to break their streak of #1s in the UK.

Of course then the question becomes, what would Brian have done next? Would he have tried to top himself once more? Could he (or anyone) ever make something that was as big a step forward from SMiLE as SMiLE was from PET SOUNDS (which was a big step forward from SUMMER DAYS ... etc. etc.) Most likely, Brian's head would've exploded, although one can always dream of what that beautiful monstrosity would've been like. How little of it would've been done by the time it collapsed.

But while we're on the subject, I've always thought it odd that SMiLE is always linked with SGT. PEPPER. Granted (according to Sir Paul, John might think different) but PET SOUNDS was the inspiration for SGT. PEPPER. And RUBBER SOUL was the inspiration for PET SOUNDS. And true, SMiLE was cancelled shortly before SGT. PEPPER's release while SMILEY SMILE was started right after it. But in my mind SMiLE's musical twin was never SGT. PEPPER, but rather REVOLVER. Particularly when you compare the two to their immediate predecessors. Both PET SOUNDS and RUBBER SOUL are stylistically and thematically consistent, while SMiLE and REVOLVER are far more diverse in their arrangements. PET SOUNDS and REVOLVER are mature, subdued, quiet, emotional records. SMiLE and REVOLVER are far more intellectual, surreal, and psychedelic. Not to say that they are cold or cerebral, but they are both LPs aimed more at the head than the heart. Besides Brian would've actually heard REVOLVER before or during the making of SMiLE, while all he knew at the time of SGT. PEPPER was the acetate of "A Day In The Life" that Paul played him during the sessions of "Vega-Tables"

SMiLE as PET SOUNDS

Only more so. By which I mean, it would've been even less enthusiastically publicized by Capitol than PET SOUNDS was. It would've sold even fewer records than PET SOUNDS did. It would have received even stronger support from and even smaller cult than PET SOUNDS. It would've taken even longer to be appreciated. And Brian would've fallen even harder and faster than he did after PET SOUNDS, perhaps never to rise to even the piddling heights he has managed since. While we SMiLE aficionados would like to think our beloved masterpiece would've been embraced with open arms, this sad tale seems far more likely. So again I assert, SMiLE is a much better album for having never been completed.

[Mahalo]

Thanx Heywood....Excellent Reading.

[Bill Tobelman]

It's a mystery ain't it? Why didn't SMiLE happen?

I have another SMiLE mystery. Why did Brian apparently become so paranoid during SMiLE?

He wasn't "paranoid" during Pet Sounds or Smiley Smile or Wild Honey. Hmmmmm.

My guess is that when Brian was doing SMiLE....he was keeping a secret. The big secret was what SMiLE essentially was. Brian didn't tell anybody ('cept maybe Van Dyke & Frank Holmes).

When Brian saw the movie SECONDS he freaked cuz he saw some of his secrets on the big screen. How could that happen? "Somebody must be bugging me. Somebody must be tapping into my mind. There could be mind gangsters, right?"

And since Brian was keeping a secret....nobody really knows what SMiLE was really about.

SMiLE is Brian's biggest put-on (a planned spiritual turn-on) and when he started questioning the project's appropriateness he decided to scrap the whole thing. He started to see the project as an evil thing (later expressed VIA the "witchcraft music" quotes in the seventies) and hoped the subject would eventually fade from the public's eye.

Didn't happen.

Anyway, that's my take.

[the captain]

My guess is that when Brian was doing SMiLE....he was keeping a secret.

I agree with this much. But I think the secret was that The Genius didn't know how to finish it. And because it's better to be crazy or an addict or oppressed by a wicked cousin than incapable, we got one f*** of a story for 37 years until he let Darian dot the Is and cross the Ts.

[Sheriff John Stone]

I'm not following this "secret" line of thinking. What was Brian keeping a secret?

The album was named/titled. Van Dyke's lyrics were discussed/debated. About 75-80% of the album was recorded, at least in demo form. The guys laid down their vocals, both lead and backing. Artwork was being done, some completed. A songlist was submitted to the record company; a front cover was finished. Interviews/articles were being written/published.

If you are referring to sequencing, yes, it wasn't finished, but I wouldn't refer to that as being a secret. Can you be more specific about Brian's secret?

[the captain]

Me, no. I was just fucking around with previously posted language and general idolatry. 

[Mahalo]

Brian's paranoia was, in part, due the pharmaceutical speed he was taking.....that stuff often makes people paranoid......another side effect of speed is, should I say for lack of a better term...."scattered thoughts"....

I think one of the reasons SMiLE! wasn't finished is becasue he just didn't have the sober mindset to put everything together definitively...

[XY]

At one point he probably discovered that the usual pop-buyer won't pray to "Vega-Tables" and when he continues to work like that, he'll have to play the genius for years to come. So better stop when you're on top. And with "Good Vibrations" he reached all his goals. The BB topped the Beatles, Spector died with "River Deep" and to record an album of 12 GV's would take 6 years, so why working like a fool and making everyone around you unhappy when you can get their smiles with recording a complete album in 2 weeks?

[pixletwin]

Brian's paranoia was, in part, due the pharmaceutical speed he was taking.....that stuff often makes people paranoid......another side effect of speed is, should I say for lack of a better term...."scattered thoughts"....

I think one of the reasons SMiLE! wasn't finished is because he just didn't have the sober mindset to put everything together definitively...

This, I think, hits donkey on the tail.

[Sheriff John Stone]

Brian's paranoia was, in part, due the pharmaceutical speed he was taking.....that stuff often makes people paranoid......another side effect of speed is, should I say for lack of a better term...."scattered thoughts"....

I think one of the reasons SMiLE! wasn't finished is because he just didn't have the sober mindset to put everything together definitively...

This, I think, hits donkey on the tail.

How dare you guys say that! Don't you know SMiLE wasn't finished because of Mike Love? It's Mike's fault. He whined too much.

[carl r]

Here's what I reckon ! Theory coming on strong... by the way I think people will be thinking about this for many years to come...

At some point, maybe in 1964 or 1965, Wilson started writing songs influenced by pop art in much the same way as Pete Townsend in the UK. (For me, it is a closer comparison than Lennon or McCartney, but that's another story...)

Pop art can mean a lot of things, but for me in a musical sense it's a layered textured approach to lyrics and sound, composition as a narrative in day-glo colours, like a comic book, consisting of scenes and feeling. And it's not necessarily biographical, or restricted by the three dimensions, so it enables musicians to collaborate with others on matching words to music to feelings.

Early, great examples for me would be Let Him Run Wild, the ballads on Beach Boys Today!, The Kids Are Alright.

I don't know that this was a deliberate decision by Wilson to write his songs like this, but I don't think it was an accident. After all, the train in Caroline No comes from what he heard once when he was sitting in a public library. Pop stars in public libraries ?  At this point Wilson was a self-taught intellectual committed to his art. Apparently unstoppable.

The approach eventually resulted in Pet Sounds. And initially as far as I can tell,  Smile had a sense of this grand narrative, the panes in the story all decorated, the lines of the plot carefully contrived, one which was folding imploding and evolving. Complicated, intricate stuff.

But some of the emotion within the music, given its spikes by Van Dyke, didn't want to stick in the panes, in the structures, which had been designed for the purpose. And with the negative reaction of others in the band, Wilson, trying to appease, tried to move them around, and the more he moved them, the more the mosaic appeared to make less sense, and then when he moved the moved the pieces back again, they seemed even worse. Like a clock, it would have seemed to him, the interdependent parts just refusing to tick. And with belief in the structure and format itself being undermined by the reactions around him, the music spilled out into the margins, into his inner life, his own psyche.

So our pop artist, having stretched the limits of the structure which he had pioneered, had eventually lost his appetite for such abstract puzzles. He'd lost none of his talent but was no longer to take such a cerebral approach. And when Smile eventually arrived years later, it was a meat'n'two veg version, but still vivid and passionate, just not so clever.

[Glenn Greenberg]

He wasn't "paranoid" during Pet Sounds or Smiley Smile or Wild Honey. Hmmmmm.

Do we know that for sure?

[adamghost]

I think the essay misses two key issues...the first is the ongoing lawsuit at the time with Capitol Records, and the other is Brian's drug use, not in terms of how it affected him mentally, but in terms of how it alienated him from the band.  You have a situation where Brian couldn't communicate properly what he was trying to do with the people that he needed to make it happen...Brian may have been perfectly functional (or not), but if he came off as incoherent or inaccessible to his bandmates and his label, that's going to naturally breed misunderstanding and then resentment all 'round.

[Chris Moise]

Brian's paranoia was, in part, due the pharmaceutical speed he was taking.....that stuff often makes people paranoid......another side effect of speed is, should I say for lack of a better term...."scattered thoughts"....

I think one of the reasons SMiLE! wasn't finished is becasue he just didn't have the sober mindset to put everything together definitively...

While I don't disagree with that it's worth mentioning that thousands of albums have been written, recorded and released while the principals were on speed. Some of the best albums ever were fueled by cocaine. Not saying it wasn't a factor in Smile's non-appearence but there was more going on as well..

[Bill Tobelman]

SJS said,

"I'm not following this "secret" line of thinking. What was Brian keeping a secret?"

The secret was that SMiLE was an intentional mystery. I know of no other album presented in this form.

The mystery is to help prompt a spiritual experience.

Have you heard of this aspect of SMiLE?
Probably not. It's a secret.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

He wasn't "paranoid" during Pet Sounds or Smiley Smile or Wild Honey. Hmmmmm.

Do we know that for sure?

You'd think he'd be MORE paranoid during WH, since that;s around the time he started doing coke. :/

Even Brian's so-called master plan has yet to bear fruit.

Was this (admittedly excellent) post written before BWPS?

In any case, great thread.

[JJ3810]

More than anything else, I think SMILE didn't happen because there just wasn't enough time to do it the way Brian wanted to. Lots of work and with all that was going on those days, better things things to do.

[Mahalo]

Brian's paranoia was, in part, due the pharmaceutical speed he was taking.....that stuff often makes people paranoid......another side effect of speed is, should I say for lack of a better term...."scattered thoughts"....

I think one of the reasons SMiLE! wasn't finished is becasue he just didn't have the sober mindset to put everything together definitively...

While I don't disagree with that it's worth mentioning that thousands of albums have been written, recorded and released while the principals were on speed. Some of the best albums ever were fueled by cocaine. Not saying it wasn't a factor in Smile's non-appearence but there was more going on as well..

Just to clarify....I mentioned his paranoia was due...IN PART....due the pharmaceutical speed he was taking....

I agree totally that there was much more going on at the time which led to the stillbirth...but I stand by my final statement which is that Brian didn't have the sober mindset to finish the album....

Another part of me believes he was closer to finishing it than any of us imagined...

As far as some of the best albums, even artwork being fueled by cocaine, obviously there is truth to that statement...but Brian was the last person in the world who needed that particular vice in order to think abstractly and put together great music. In his case, it might've given him some good ideas but ultimately did muchMUCH more harm than good...

[SurfRiderHawaii]

More than anything else, I think SMILE didn't happen because there just wasn't enough time to do it the way Brian wanted to. Lots of work and with all that was going on those days, better things things to do.

I agree completely!  That was the age where artists were expected to pump out two albums per year.  The reason the Beatles were so fantastic was that they were able to do that, with superb albums each and every time.

If Brain hadn't been pressured by the record company, and band (ML), to keep the good vibrations flowing, he would have finished  Smile.  Remember, it took him six months just to do Good Vibrations.  In hindsight, GV should have been left in the can and released to coinside with the album. 

I think, if Brian had the time, Heroes would have been something different.  'Do You Dig Worms'/Roll Plymouth Rock' were just lyrical variations of Heroes and Villians.  Who knows how Brian would have pieced it all together in the end.

Today, it is not unusual for artists to take 3 plus years, or more, to make an album (those not named Neil Young).

Maybe, if Smile had gone on thru 1970, it might have come out with 'Till I Die', 'Can't Wait Too Long', and goodness knows what.

By then, it would have been the greatest album ever produced, surpassing even 'Pet Sounds'.  What we have now is 'BWPS',  a rerecording of where and what Brian had when Smile stopped circa 1967.

[the captain]

By then, it would have been the greatest album ever produced, surpassing even 'Pet Sounds'.  What we have now is 'BWPS',  a rerecording of where and what Brian had when Smile stopped circa 1967.

To be devil's advocate, it might also have been over-thought, over-produced sh*t, just like most albums slaved over for so long that the artist loses all perspective. There's something to be said for albums in and of the moment. Brian lost the moment and couldn't figure out what to do.

[cwalter]

Time was of the essence in January, '67. Time was not on Brian's side. If he could have wrapped it up then, and presented it with full orchestra and full BB support at the Monterey Pop Festival, perhaps Jimi Hendrix would not have sung about his desire to "...never hear surf music again" in Third Stone From the Sun.

It could have been "the big one" but wasn't...and that's what all the fuss is about...

[buddhahat]

Time was of the essence in January, '67. Time was not on Brian's side. If he could have wrapped it up then, and presented it with full orchestra and full BB support at the Monterey Pop Festival, perhaps Jimi Hendrix would not have sung about his desire to "...never hear surf music again" in Third Stone From the Sun.

It could have been "the big one" but wasn't...and that's what all the fuss is about...

Doesn't that line refer to the death of some surf guitar legend like Dick Dale rather than the Beach Boys? Also I'm sure Desper claimed that Hendrix actually liked the BB.

[Roger Ryan]

Dick Dale has claimed that Hendrix threw that line into "Third Stone From The Sun" when he heard that Dale was diagnosed with what was believed to be terminal colon cancer in '66 (Dale, fortunately, survived and has remained healthy since). I don't know if anyone else has substantiated Dale's claim, but there would certainly be no reason for Hendrix to diss someone like Dale whom he did admire (the line is "you'll never hear surf music again", not "you'll never have to hear surf music again" - it's intent sounds more nostalgic or mournful than critical).

By the way, Dale covered the Hendrix track a number of year ago with the opening spoken-word statement: "I'm still here Jimi; wish you were".

[Fun Is In]

Wasn't Brian pretty much done with "surf music" himself at that point?

At least in the studio.

[Chris Moise]

Dick Dale has claimed that Hendrix threw that line into "Third Stone From The Sun" when he heard that Dale was diagnosed with what was believed to be terminal colon cancer in '66 (Dale, fortunately, survived and has remained healthy since). I don't know if anyone else has substantiated Dale's claim, but there would certainly be no reason for Hendrix to diss someone like Dale whom he did admire (the line is "you'll never hear surf music again", not "you'll never have to hear surf music again" - it's intent sounds more nostalgic or mournful than critical).

By the way, Dale covered the Hendrix track a number of year ago with the opening spoken-word statement: "I'm still here Jimi; wish you were".

On the session tape after "you'll never hear surf music again" Jimi chucks and says "that sounds like a lie to me"..