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Author Topic: Smiley Smile was a joke.  (Read 14923 times)
Mr. Cohen
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« on: September 09, 2008, 12:05:21 PM »

I know there's been a lot of debate over what the motivations behind Smiley Smile were, but here's what I think. The album itself was a joke. Tired of the pressures of fame and greed (unsupportive band and record company), Brian took recordings that cost thousands upon thousands of dollars to make, cast them aside, got himself and his "square" bandmates stoned completely out of their minds, and then recorded the results and presented it to the record company as one big joke. I imagine it went something like this: "Haha, I'll show everybody. I'll throw away all those expensive tracks and record some stoned demos in my lo-fi home studio and give it to the record company and the band as my next BIG album that everyone has been waiting for. It'll be hilarious." It just really sounds like something a stoner would do. I think it was that simple.

And then you have the music itself. It's like a tortured artist took a beautiful mosaic that was almost finished and scratched most of the tiles off and splattered paint all over it and the presented it to the public as avant garde. There are some bits and pieces of the original masterpiece still left, but most of it is covered in organ drone and deep bass. Take Smiley Smile's "Wonderful". It seems like some of the original beauty of the SMiLE version tries to creep out more and more out of the haze as the song progresses, until we basically get the original melody untarnished at the end. I think it was very intentional. All of which is intriguing in its own way,

It's just something I wanted to say. It could all be wrong.
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Wirestone
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« Reply #1 on: September 09, 2008, 12:11:05 PM »

This is an excellent point.

I don't know if the album is entirely a joke -- but that kind of put-on humor is certainly a component of Smiley, and part of what makes it so difficult to figure out.

The other part of it, to me, is those peaceful chants -- things like "With Me Tonight" -- those don't quite seem like jokes -- more like Brian reaching toward a kind of blissed-out reverie in music to escape the stresses of the outside world. You see this reach a high point a year or so later with the "Can't Wait Too Long" sessions.
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Mr. Cohen
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« Reply #2 on: September 09, 2008, 12:19:30 PM »

I feel like he was really into the performances and songs on Smiley Smile as well. But to make a finished album in that slapdash manner was, I feel, definitely an intentional joke from the start. I think Wild Honey was then only recorded in Brian's lo-fi home studio because he was too uncomfortable with a professional studio environment at that point. The home studio was the only way you'd get music out of Brian by then. And then we see a more serious production effort on Friends, albeit still in the home studio.
« Last Edit: September 09, 2008, 12:21:13 PM by Dada » Logged
The Heartical Don
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« Reply #3 on: September 09, 2008, 12:33:45 PM »

Allow me to disagree completely, and with all due respect. I came to SS unawares of what SMiLE should and could have been. Neither did I know of what was at that time already available in almost true form (Cabinessence, Our Prayer). I loved Pet Sounds when I was around 15 and wanted to know more (it was 1974). I read in my music mag then that Heroes And Villains did have the same sense of adventure in it as did Good Vibrations (which, of course, was known the world over). So the next logical step in my quest was browsing the BBs rack at my retailer's and see if I could locate H&V. Hey, although there were only 6 or so LPs in there, there was an album with a very weird cover, and yes, H&V was on it.
I took it home and loved if from the word go. I did not see any joke. It was just weird, in a mesmerizing way. I went through about the same experience I went through with Van Dyke Parks' 'Song Cycle'. I loved to play the cassette tape I made from it in our backyard, on summer evenings, and enjoy the moods in there - a deep sense of isolation, being adrift, having lost something without knowing what that something was. Wind chimes. Wonderful. Woody. From a barbershop to Hawaii and back. Truly, truly amazing stuff, totally sui generis. I am thankful that the prosaic part of my brain did not have any info on SMiLE's intentions, so I could encounter SS unbiased. A blessing.
In short: I can only take SS totally on its own terms, not in any sense as a wilfully distorted and disfigured SMiLE.
Let me conclude with what is my conjecture here: Brian is simply unable to plot and scheme his way through things. He's not the type to reason: So You Guys Refused To Accept My Grand Vision? I'll Give You My Grand Vision - Shattered And Torn Into Shreds!
I even doubt whether he's the type of artist that thinks consciously of realizing a Grand Vision at all. He's a quite humble man, who, I'd say, just wanted to give his best to the people at any given time in his career, and I do like Van Dyke Parks' description a lot: 'SMiLE comes across as a collection of small, beautiful stamps'. That's how it works for me anyway: no attempt at rivalling James Joyce, but more trying to evoke the beauty of Little Nemo In Slumberland. Which is more than I could ever expect from an artist.

PS: my current favourite SMiLE-line is that 'easy my child' stuff, from CITFOM. Spiritually uplifting.
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Mr. Cohen
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« Reply #4 on: September 09, 2008, 12:40:23 PM »

I think he thinks more about things like "a grand vision" then he lets on. Remember, he was going on and on about creating a teenage symphony to God at the time.
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BJL
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« Reply #5 on: September 09, 2008, 02:07:00 PM »

In the bridge to Wonderful, "come on man, just be a cool guy...don't think your God." 
Brian clearly had lost confidence in his own abilities.  I don't think it was a joke, I think it was a cop-out. 
I do love the record tho...Brian just couldn't help being a genius, no matter how hard he tried.
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Fun Is In
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« Reply #6 on: September 09, 2008, 03:20:49 PM »

I don't think it was joke or a cop-out. I think that it was the best that a guy who was having very disturbing paranoid auditory hallucinations  and delusions could do.
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« Reply #7 on: September 09, 2008, 04:15:38 PM »


I never considered it to be a joke album, as in Brian was playing a joke on everybody. I think it's a joke album in the sense that it has the humor element that was important to him at the time. I think that it's pretty clear that Brian was having difficulty realizing the vision he had for SMiLE-it's sort of like his quote at the time of 'I'm workng harder than ever and getting less and less satisfaction out of it'.  I think he was never able, despite the efforts of the talented wrecking-crew, to get the sounds on tape that he had in his head. So once it was obvious that SMiLE wasn't going to happen ( and whether the reasons for that are the other BB's, the lawsuit, his mental state, the drugs, etc.)  he decided to strip it all down and make it much easier on himself and the other guys. That's not to say that Brian didn't care about the original SMiLE recordings, I think that it's non-realization  hurt him much more than he ever let on ( at the time). I mean, it isn't a coincidence that from the time SMiLE didn't come out, Brian was in a slow, downward spiral. But I think that for his own mental health, and the health of his band, he cooled out.
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« Reply #8 on: September 09, 2008, 04:20:40 PM »

'Smiley Smile' is an avant garde masterpiece,

Brian was not trying to be funny, the drugs were making him basically insane, and that's exactly what the album is

Also the album has aged wonderfully
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« Reply #9 on: September 09, 2008, 04:28:11 PM »

'Smiley Smile' is an avant garde masterpiece,

Brian was not trying to be funny, the drugs were making him basically insane, and that's exactly what the album is

Also the album has aged wonderfully

Agreed 100%.
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« Reply #10 on: September 09, 2008, 04:39:29 PM »

I think the Smiley versions are much better than the originals.  Humor is a big part of the album but that doesn't make it a joke.  None of the beauty was lost in the transition.  It's my favorite album of all time.

Check out my Smiley tattoo:



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« Reply #11 on: September 09, 2008, 04:41:02 PM »

It is what it was for the time being. It's still a weird ass album but at times, I can really dig it.
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Sheriff John Stone
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« Reply #12 on: September 09, 2008, 04:50:56 PM »

I always thought Smiley Smile was a business decision. It had been almost/over a year since Pet Sounds, and I think Brian felt pressure, maybe not all from the record company, but some self-imposed, to get a new album out. Brian was becoming ill, but I still think he felt some responsibility to the record company and the band. He could've gone right to a Wild Honey, which I wish he would've done, but he chose the easier route. He "dumb downed" the SMiLE tracks into a compact musically-coordinated album. That took the immediate pressure off so he could chill for a little bit.

I'm also not sure that Brian wasn't saving the SMiLE tracks for a later release. That memo from Capitol Records in Dominic Priore's book about Brian finishing SMiLE (it also discusses the booklet) is very interesting. I don't think Brian was pulling Capitol's leg, although some do...
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grillo
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« Reply #13 on: September 09, 2008, 05:42:47 PM »

Smiley Smile seems pretty straight forward to me. After a year of working on a specific concept (SMiLE), BW was running out of energy, and one must assume interest in the Ten or so songs for that album. As far as he was concerned they were done. And likely those songs fealt like a pain in the ass, not exactly the ideal environment for art.  Many things kept them from being released in the original form, Brian being the number 1 reason. So he scrapped that idea. Maybe he didn't want the pressure anymore. Maybe having the studio at home made it easier for him to hand off the responsibility of a growing business with more and more people counting on the group for an income. Smiley Smile was a deep breath, for BW and for the group. And maybe just a little F you to the tower. Great record though.
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the captain
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« Reply #14 on: September 09, 2008, 05:53:23 PM »

I don't think, to use SJS's term, that Smiley Smile is "dumbed down"; I think it's just a whole different thing. No, it isn't as complex, but the term dumbed down to me brings images of just strumming the guitar (or in Brian's case, pounding out the chords on piano) rather than having them performed in the intricate arrangements of the original Smile stuff. Smiley Smile isn't that. It's just different. An altogether different thing, confusing the issue by using some of the same songs. I think it was intentionally weird, intentionally different and maybe a little bit intentionally self-destructive (career-wise). Maybe a bit of a joke. But also serious (meaning real, legitimate) work.
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Sheriff John Stone
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« Reply #15 on: September 09, 2008, 06:19:29 PM »

I don't think, to use SJS's term, that Smiley Smile is "dumbed down"..... the term dumbed down to me brings images of just strumming the guitar (or in Brian's case, pounding out the chords on piano) rather than having them performed in the intricate arrangements of the original Smile stuff.

Isn't that what Brian did on Smiley Smile, strummed the guitar and played some chords (granted on the organ, not the piano)? On songs like "She's Goin' Bald" and "Little Pad", I hear a simple backing track consisting of a guitar being strummed. On songs like "With Me Tonight" and "Wonderful", I hear a simple backing track consisting of an organ. On songs like "Vegetables" and "Whistle In", I hear only a bass.

Now take those amazingly complex and intricate SMiLE tracks, and compare them to Smiley Smile. Maybe "dumbed down" isn't the perfect term (are we arguing semantics?), maybe stripping them and simplifying is?
« Last Edit: September 09, 2008, 06:38:29 PM by Sheriff John Stone » Logged
TdHabib
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« Reply #16 on: September 09, 2008, 06:42:38 PM »

I don't think, to use SJS's term, that Smiley Smile is "dumbed down"..... the term dumbed down to me brings images of just strumming the guitar (or in Brian's case, pounding out the chords on piano) rather than having them performed in the intricate arrangements of the original Smile stuff.

Isn't that what Brian did on Smiley Smile, strummed the guitar and played some chords (granted on the organ, not the piano)? On songs like "She's Goin' Bald" and "Little Pad", I hear a simple backing track consisting of a guitar being strummed. On songs like "With Me Tonight" and "Wonderful", I hear a simple backing track consisting of an organ. On songs like "Vegetables" and "Whistle In", I hear only a bass.

Now take those amazingly complex and intricate SMiLE tracks, and compare them to Smiley Smile. Maybe "dumbed down" isn't the perfect term (are we arguing semantics?), maybe stripping them and simplifying is?
"Watered down" would be my term, personally. These are very simple, somtimes jokey, versions of once heartbreakingly beautiful songs. SS is an album of fragments, really, highly entertaining fragments, but fragments. Doodles.
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« Reply #17 on: September 09, 2008, 07:10:04 PM »

Isn't that what Brian did on Smiley Smile, strummed the guitar and played some chords (granted on the organ, not the piano)? On songs like "She's Goin' Bald" and "Little Pad", I hear a simple backing track consisting of a guitar being strummed. On songs like "With Me Tonight" and "Wonderful", I hear a simple backing track consisting of an organ. On songs like "Vegetables" and "Whistle In", I hear only a bass.

Now take those amazingly complex and intricate SMiLE tracks, and compare them to Smiley Smile. Maybe "dumbed down" isn't the perfect term (are we arguing semantics?), maybe stripping them and simplifying is?
Well, you know I love arguing semantics... But it's not just different arrangements--not a "Wonderful: Made Easy!" It's a different Wonderful. Simpler, yes, but not just simpler. It is a different thing. It isn't simplifying, it is simpler but different.
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« Reply #18 on: September 09, 2008, 07:37:35 PM »

Interesting debate here.  People seem to either love SS or hate it.  Ok, maybe hate is a bit of a strong word.

The first time I heard SS was when I first brought home the cd twofer.  About midway thru, I had this sick feeling like I'd been had.  I'd already gotten past the fact that this cd was not in stereo, as I could have sworn I saw a stereo banner on the cover (I know the story behind this, but I didn't at the time).  The songs seemed to get weirder as I went along, and just when I thought I had had enough, Wild Honey came on and saved the day!

So my first impression was that this had to be some sort of joke on the group's part.  Maybe this was Brian giving the finger to Capitol, especially after snubbing PET SOUNDS.

In the years since, I've entertained the idea that maybe it wasn't intended as a joke, but that maybe they were really trying to do something "far out" and it just didn't quite gel the way they intended.  Remember the movie "Plan 9 from Outer Space"?  Ed Wood genuinely thought he was creating a masterpiece and somewhere in production, the whole thing ended up being a farce.  And now it's a cult classic.
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« Reply #19 on: September 09, 2008, 07:52:16 PM »

Interesting debate here.  People seem to either love SS or hate it. 
If I may be contradictory (as usual), I am actually pretty middle-of-the-road about it. It really would be around the median of my BBs albums. Below PS, Smile, Love You, Sunflower, Surfs Up, Friends, Holland, Today, SDSN; around Wild Honey; better than most of the rest. While the content itself is far from "normal" it falls in almost entirely average territory for me.
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« Reply #20 on: September 09, 2008, 08:33:57 PM »

Who knows, sounds like they were all stoned and just enjoying this cool, peaceful, trippy music. Be it a big joke on Capitol and the public's expectations, a humour album, trying to be hip or just making music that sounded good at the time. I get the feeling that they found a sound that they really enjoyed making for a few months there. Listen to the 1967 Hawaii rehearsals, it sounds like whispery Smiley Smile versions of Beach Boys classics.

I love Smiley Smile. I think it is an amazing album. There was a Carl Wilson quote about it being played to people in mental institutes or drug rehab clinics to help them through their ordeal. I like it.

The only thing I don't like about Smiley Smile is that H&V and GV are on it. Where the hell do they fit in the new Smiley Smile aesthetic? They don't.
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« Reply #21 on: September 09, 2008, 09:46:07 PM »

A joke? I don't think so. Unless he's been joking for 41 years. It takes a lot of effort.  Wink
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« Reply #22 on: September 09, 2008, 10:35:38 PM »

I think it was a dark little joke indeed. I think it was a willful act of destruction and Brian flipping the bird to his hipster friends, the record company, his own ego, the Beatles and their "competition" and everything. It's a creepy angry album. Yet beautiful.
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« Reply #23 on: September 10, 2008, 02:24:45 AM »

I literally hate the album. Complete garbage to me. Maybe it is for what might have been.....but I really think it is because the other members won out and Brian lost (by his own means), and that was the beginning of the end, no matter how much us lifers think of some of the music that came later.
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The Heartical Don
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« Reply #24 on: September 10, 2008, 02:34:35 AM »

I literally hate the album. Complete garbage to me. Maybe it is for what might have been.....but I really think it is because the other members won out and Brian lost (by his own means), and that was the beginning of the end, no matter how much us lifers think of some of the music that came later.

Are you applying for a ban, pal?  police
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