Sgt. Pepper blew his mind?

[mikeyj]

Mikey -- a BILLION more people were thinking/feeling/saying "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together" than "Though it's hard I try not to look at my wind chimes" or "She'll return in love with her liberty."

This isn't opinion. It's history.

Oh yeah I agree, maybe I just misunderstood you.. I thought you were literally saying that people could relate to all of their songs on a literal level... I doubt anyone really thought "yeah I am a Walrus"

Sorry.... I'm guessing you meant when you said "That's ME", that you meant people were thinking "this is my kind of music?"... so yeah I would definitely agree with that... but as I say I just think aside from the music the Beatles had so much more going for them... and their music was just more accessible in most cases

[Jon Stebbins]

Mikey -- a BILLION more people were thinking/feeling/saying "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together" than "Though it's hard I try not to look at my wind chimes" or "She'll return in love with her liberty."

This isn't opinion. It's history.

All I Know is Lennon scared me, and it felt good...Tomorrow Never Knows, Strawberry Fields, A Day In The Life, I Am The Walrus...all of them scared me. I was 10, I was scared, and I couldn't stop listening to them. Its like he knew something had happened, or something was happening, or something was going to happen that us regular people didn't know about yet. That was trippy to experience in 66/67...and I didn't take acid until '77. But when I did, I'd kind of already been there thanks to Lennon. He and McCartney were brilliant at communicating feeling.

Brian seemed like he was scared right along with me, that's a different kind of appeal. He was sticking his toe in the scary places too...but you could tell he was at least as scared as you were. The dark parts of Good Vibrations, and Heroes and Villains...that's a terrified vision trying to whistle its way through the graveyard. Lennon never showed the slightest bit of fear...he just faced it head on and told us what it was like.

[Howie Edelson]

And don't forget, one of the Beatles' greatest strengths was that they were completly different from one another, yet remained a four-headed monster. The Beach Boys never seemed unified in the '60s after 1965.  They were also kinda visually anonymous, aside from Dennis and Mike. After Brian quit the road, it really wasn't until '68/'69 that they started looking cool onstage again.

It's interesting to think that in the modern age of artist/label relations, if one of the top acts on a label had the chart dissapointments of Pet Sounds, Smiley, and Wild Honey back to back, you can be sure that at the very least a huge turnover in the A&R department would've taken place. Ken Mansfield told me that Capitol never worked Beach Boys product, that it sold itself. Capitol is as much to blame for the post- Smile events as anyone "f***ing with the formula." (Someone hands you a Rembrandt and you can't sell it.)  

[mikeyj]

And don't forget, one of the Beatles' greatest strengths was that they were completly different from one another, yet remained a four-headed monster.

Yeah and they were all such witty individuals with so much charisma... I mean just look at some of their press conferences or interviews, they make you laugh... whereas look at the Beach Boys on that TV performance when they lip-synched DWB... it's almost embarrassing just how nervous and shy they look

[Dove Nested Towers]

Everything about the Beatles was uniquely universal, powerful and resonant and their music had an uncanny ability to unify people and make them relate to it.

The Beach Boys had a more delicate universality, especially in their pre-1965 work, but, although I won't call Brian's gift more special per se, it was geared to a more specific aesthetic
and was more polarizing, especially beginning with Pet Sounds. Each person either loved it more than anything in the world or was indifferent or even negative about it, whereas the
Fabs were simply irresistable, in a truly "cosmic" way. I remember when I first heard the White Album and all of Abbey Road, at an age relatively later than I first heard their earlier music, and
there was a totally seamless osmosis and assimilation of it into my mind and memory. Absolutely uncanny. Nobody else was like them.

Again, I'm not going to say that Brian's work was more special, and it's really not possible to
make these definitions  (it's interesting to try), But his best work was more ethereal and
had a mystical fragility to its eccentric and incredibly sensitive fabric.

That's a really interesting anecdote about Brian's reaction in the car with Michael Vosse. There
was a difficult-to-define threshold of originality and encapsulation of the cutting edge of the zeitgeist that the Beatles double A-side had that made Brian's reaction completely understandable, perceptive and correct, but Smile, while it couldn't have matched that univer-
sality, would have been an immortal reflection of an equally cutting-edge but more eclectic
vision of its time.

It's impossible to overstate the loss to the contemporary pop music world that Smile wasn't
able to be finished and released back then.

[Shane]

Allow me to throw a monkey wrench into this discussion with a couple facts:

1.  Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever did NOT make it to #1 in the UK.  I believe I read somewhere this was the first Beatles single not to make it to the top there.  It was knocked out of first place by... Englebert Humperdinck's "Please Release Me". 

2.  The SFF/PL single made it #1 in the US, only for one week.


Obviously, the long-term impact and influence of this single greatly outweighs its initial chart success.  But could this lack of success (in comparison to earlier Beatles efforts) hint at the fact that the public bore at least some resistance to the rapidly changing music of the Beatles?  I would propose that the Beatles were facing a bit of the same resistance that Brian encountered with Pet Sounds.  The Beach Boys weren't the only one to f*** with the formula.

[buddhahat]

There are some really good points here. I agree with the posters arguing that the public were more open to artistic experimentation from the Beatles than the Beach Boys. After all, versatility and musical shapeshifting was the Beatles thing, whereas The Beach Boys were trying to pull a major stylistic turnaround with Pet Sounds, and even more so with Smile. This shift from surf and car songs demanded a major reappraisal from their audience. I also think that The Beatles always anchored their more far out experimental tracks with songs that everybody loved. Revolver therefore has Tomorrow Never Knows and Yellow Submarine - something for everyone. This is true for Pepper also, and if you look at the Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane single you have the wacked out Stawberry Fields for the growing number of heads out there, but flip it over and you have a song that my girlfriend used to sing in school assembly! Smile however has nothing as accessible.

The point about the European appeal of the Beatles is also a good one. I have been wondering recently how well the Americana theme of Smile would have been received outside The States. It is a very American record, and I wonder how interested Joe Public outside the States would have been in the mythical picture of America that VDP's lyrics paint. Strawberry Fields is a far out, experimental song, but on a very basic level it's a song about getting out of your head - everyone can relate to that. Certainly the growing masses in 67 who wanted to be hip and 'turned on' could sing it and relate to those lyrics. Most of the lyrics in Smile are completely abstract.

[mikeyj]

Smile however has nothing as accessible.

What about Good Vibrations?

[MBE]

I think all of this is interesting. Brian Jones said it best when asked how he compares his band the Rolling Stones to the Beatles. He said he doesn't because the Stones are a band and the Beatles a phenomenon. The Beatles had that extra charisma and great marketing. At the end of the day though I don't care who meant more culturally. I like the Beatles music very much. I collect their records and enjoy them. Yet I never cared about them the way I do about the Beach Boys. When I hear the Beach Boys music I relate more, I feel it deeper. There are some things about the Beatles as people that I don't understand. I cannot relate to some of their viewpoints or experiences. I mean in Europe young people seemed to have grown up so fast. I don't think Murry would have let his boys go to Hamburg to play in seedy clubs. 

Maybe this means I am crazy but I relate to the Beach Boys more as far as their background and upbringing. I wasn't abused or anything, but their story is very American and they really give off a very American vibe. That wasn't always the hip thing in the sixties, funnily enough especially in the USA. As odd as they are in some ways, I grew up with people like them. They have this everyday quality that let's me enjoy them that much more. I mean I read interviews with Dennis and he talks about how much he liked root beer and Playboys. I went through that stage. I never wanted to go to Art College or be existential. Sure Mike with TM folowed some of the same things, but he unlike George Harrison never lost his relateability. Granted later in life George seemed to regain some of his humor, but Mike remained that obnoxious class clown we all knew. Brian and Dennis certainly pursued some alternative avenues, but at the end of the day I still feel like they were the type of guys you could have a burger with. Most importantly though there aren't too many Beatles songs that mean to me what the Beach Boys music does. That's just my taste and no more right or wrong then anyones. I would rather play Wild Honey then Pepper any day.

[phirnis]

MBE, I can very much relate to what you've written, though I come from Europe and more specifically even from that very country where the Beatles really kickstarted their career. For me it's hard to relate to the Beatles' more "earnest" or serious material, With A Little Help and When I'm Sixty-Four being far and away my favorite tunes on Sgt. Pepper. On the other hand there's a joyful or even funny quality to many Beach Boys songs and when there isn't you'll find yourself overwhelmed by the unexpected degree of sadness or plain directness. Like 'Til I Die, which is something you can relate to so easily and still it's such a profound kind of song.

[Dancing Bear]

Good Vibrations stood up to PL/SFF as well any other single in that era, and then some. But we're talking about February, almost five months later, and well... PL+SFF vs. Heroes and Villains (Cantina version). You can see Brian asking himself what the hell he was thinking. Hence the scrapping of the single release and back to the studio.

[Awesoman]

I have read several things on various websites as well as in various books (like Derek Taylor's book It Was Twenty Years Ago Today for example) that after hearing Sgt. Pepper, Brian was so blown away that he went to bed for days/months (depending on what you read).... now I may have missed something but I don't think I've ever heard Brian praise Pepper to a great degree... it's always been Rubber Soul and after that "Strawberry Fields Forever" as far as I know... In that "The Making Of Sgt. Pepper" documentary Brian doesn't seem too amazed by it, he just says something like "I think of Pet sounds and Pepper and I think gosh, those two records don't sound alike at all... only in that they're very creative - they must have picked up on the creativity, not the sound."

And in particular, that Derek Taylor book said something like Brian Wilson ran to his room for a thumbsucking episode as he didn't know what to do about it." So I dunno, was he really blown away by Pepper that much? I know he likes She's Leaving Home... but still it just seems to me that he's always liked Rubber Soul SOOOO much more than Pepper.

Considering SMiLE was pretty much canned at the point Sgt. Pepper was released and that Sgt. Pepper went on to become an insanely popular, highly influential record, I think that only contributed to Brian's problems with drugs and mental illness.

[Alex]

Smile however has nothing as accessible.

What about Good Vibrations?

And Vega-Tables? And Wind Chimes? And The Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine?

[buddhahat]

Smile however has nothing as accessible.

What about Good Vibrations?

And Vega-Tables? And Wind Chimes? And The Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine?

Good Vibrations I temporarily forgot about - of course it's accessible, but it's the only one of the Smile songs that truly is imo. I guess the benchmark for me is I can imagine my parents singing many of the songs from Sgt Pepper, in fact all bar maybe Benefit of Mr Kite and Within Without You. Maybe that's just because it's the most famous pop album ever, and by default the songs are sing-a-longable, I'm not sure, but if I try and imagine my parents singing Smile songs other than Good Vibrations and perhaps at a stretch H&V, the thought is completely absurd! Roll Plymouth Rock anyone?! Cabinessence?!! - these are not singalong lyrics!! Perhaps Vegatables is more accessible in its humour, but it does not have the same cross generational appeal as When I'm 64 and is not nearly as accessible a joke song. Maybe Barnyard might have appealed to kids, but undoubtedly Brian would've spliced it together with Swedish frog or something and it's nursery rhyme potential would've been entirely compromised. I'm not saying that Brian & VDP were trying and failing to create accessible songs. I think they were going on their own trip with Smile and the incomplete results are clearly breathtaking and beloved by all here, but I do think the uncommerciality of the music would've resulted in its eclipse by Sgt Pepper. I'm sure Brian wanted it to be a commercial success, but it must have slowly dawned on him that he and VDP were not creating that type of record. When VDP left the project I think he was totally lost as to what to do with Smile.

[MBE]

Phirnis it's interesting hearing it from somebody from England. I just get the feeling that while the Beatles were loved in their home country, the UK was more open to music that sounded very American at that time. Here their very Englishness made them more exciting.
Away from that though it is the universality of Til I Die that makes it better to me then something as subjective as Working Class Hero. I always felt you had to share certain viewpoints to really be a part of some of the Beatles music, on the other hand I feel the Beach Boys music (at lease after the Surf/Car period) speaks to everyone. Even with the early stuff as Mike once said if you couldn't relate to living by the Ocean, you could probably relate to wanting a cool car.

[phirnis]

I actually meant Germany, but anyway. The universal appeal you're talking about is probably indeed most evident from 1965 onwards. That said, I can relate to the surf/car image just as well, though I don't even have a driver's licence myself. For someone living far away from a place like California, The Beach Boys' music can very easily develop a utopian quality and this quality is just as much represented by sound as it is by lyrics. The lifestyle portrayed in these songs is that of an almost universal fantasy of youth and carelessness normally absent from most European pop music (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Things like watching the Time To Get Alone video in An American Band is what really made me a hardcore fan. Now these guys seemed to be so comfortable with who they were and what they were doing, it was completely unusual to me and very infectious. It changed the way I was thinking about profoundness in music completely - and all for the better.

[buddhahat]

I actually meant Germany, but anyway. The universal appeal you're talking about is probably indeed most evident from 1965 onwards. That said, I can relate to the surf/car image just as well, though I don't even have a driver's licence myself. For someone living far away from a place like California, The Beach Boys' music can very easily develop a utopian quality and this quality is just as much represented by sound as it is by lyrics. The lifestyle portrayed in these songs is that of an almost universal fantasy of youth and carelessness normally absent from most European pop music (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Things like watching the Time To Get Alone video in An American Band is what really made me a hardcore fan. Now these guys seemed to be so comfortable with who they were and what they were doing, it was completely unusual to me and very infectious. It changed the way I was thinking about profoundness in music completely - and all for the better.

This is spot on - I think The Beach Boys music does evoke a sort of mythical ideal of youth, especially to non Americans who can imagine the California of the 60s as a utopia of sorts. I actually think the surf and car songs express this mythical California very effectively, but the peak of the Beach Boys as portrayers of this fantasy was Pet Sounds imo, as it describes the teen experience with great emotional depth, and it therefore has universal appeal. With the Beach Boys (quintessential Californian youths) singing about life as a Californian teen you have the perfect marriage of message and medium. The lyrics of Smile try to take a look at America on a larger, historical scale and deviate from portraying the teen experience (apart from GV, and perhaps Wonderful)  that characterizes all of their work up to that point. You now had Californian youngsters singing about the plight of the Native American, and the Chinese workers on the railroad. I think there's a huge dissonance here that would have recquired quite a suspension of disbelief from the record buying public - "What do these surf bums care about Native Americans?!"

Sgt Pepper's lyrics were abstract but still related to the Beatle's lives and the contemporary experiences of everyday people in the 60s: i.e going to a show (Sgt Pepper, Benefit of Mr Kite), friendship, drug-taking, leaving home, meter maids, getting out of bed, eating breakfast and reading the newspapers. It was pop art, and was absolutely in sync with the zeitgeist. Smile was a combination of pop music and high art that would have befuddled the public imo, and I wonder how much the Americana theme would have been commercially problematic. It asks the listener to take a trip back in time, and I also doubt that historical America would've had so much appeal to 60s non-American listeners as the contemporary Californian utopia the Boys had been portraying up to that point. Don't get me wrong, I love this element of Smile and I feel that Brian's grand cinematic music complements the lyrics perfectly, but I wonder if a Smile that had stuck predominately to girl/boy themes, perhaps from a psychedelic perspective (which is essentially what Good Vibrations was), might have been a more sellable prospect - to the public, and to the other skeptical beach Boys. This would have been a logical next step after Pet Sounds (Pet Sounds on acid!) and a viable Beach Boys record, whereas the abstract, historical concept of Smile would not have been.

[MBE]

It comes down to Van Dyke being a unique but resolutely uncommercial writer. Brian's melodies and vocal lines were, on the whole, in tune with what was selling, but the lyrics weren't. That said I am glad Brian attempted it because of that movie like quality. As incomplete as some of the songs are, the album would have won over people on the strength of the Beach Boys performance. They were truely singing (as Murry would say) with their hearts, even Mike did a grudgingly great job. The other thing though is Tommy sold, Quadrophenia sold, in the UK Smiley sold, there was a place for Smile. Sure the Who albums came some years later but there was a market for left field pop/rock.

[Magic Transistor Radio]

Are we starting to come to the conclusion that MICHAEL LOVE was right about Smile? That would be interesting to see what he would've done with the lyrics. I really think that GV has very good lyrics (better then Tony Asher's). Do you really think Mike would've written Do It Again lyrics for Smile? Say what you will about Mike, but he is not that stupid!

[Alex]

Are we starting to come to the conclusion that MICHAEL LOVE was right about Smile? That would be interesting to see what he would've done with the lyrics. I really think that GV has very good lyrics (better then Tony Asher's). Do you really think Mike would've written Do It Again lyrics for Smile? Say what you will about Mike, but he is not that stupid!

Whether Mike was right or wrong about SMiLE, I'm kinda glad Brian got VDP to write the lyrics. I can't imagine those songs with any other words.

[lance]

My thoughts:

!. I think without VDP the music would have been a lot different.
    a) I believe the music was dominated by BW but VDP added his bits and vice/versa for lyrics.

2. Had it been released, it would not have sold on a par with SGT. Pepper, but it would have sold better than Smiley Smile; and to this day I think that The Beach Boys would have had a lot more respect--and their albums would be in less danger of going out of print.

I think at some point Brian realized that all this sh*t was happening around smile--it was already impossibly hyped, Mike didn't like it, the record company probably didn't like it and he was already in trouble with them, and when SGT Pepper came out, he said, "f*** it, you guys win." Then he started making music that expressed himself rather than trying to make a sequence of "greatest albums ever." I think it was a healthy move.

[brother john]

Thing is, Sgt. Pepper is not a particularly great album. They made lots of much better records before and after that were much less self-indulgent. Its a triumph of hype over quality.

[the captain]

Thing is, Sgt. Pepper is not a particularly great album. They made lots of much better records before and after that were much less self-indulgent. Its a triumph of hype over quality.

I think it's the best album ever made. Subjectivity wins out again.

[Alex]

Thing is, Sgt. Pepper is not a particularly great album. They made lots of much better records before and after that were much less self-indulgent. Its a triumph of hype over quality.

I think it's the best album ever made. Subjectivity wins out again.

Well, guess what? SMiLE is the best album ever, and Pepper blows donkey balls!! Subjectivity beats subjectivity!!!

[the captain]

Subjectivity beats subjectivity!!!