SMiLE Theory #9.4556,9805,5876

[A Million Units In Jan!]

Would Brian have completed SMiLE if he attempted to record it one song at a time as opposed to sections of songs at a time? Did all the sections drive him to just say 'forget it' and start over?

One thing I've wondered is, Brian's thing has always (for the most part) been about 'Love'. He's always talking about how the music he made was about love from his heart, or it was made so people could feel love. He just got done making an album that was an emotional trip for him (Pet Sounds). So was SMiLE the first instance of not making music out of 'love' but out of 'ego', and that helped him make his decision to toss it all out in the end?

[Chris Brown]

Interesting theory...with the way Brian was thinking at the time, I'm not sure a "one song at a time" approach was feasible in the first place.  He was changing his mind too often to just be happy with one sequence for a particular song and stick with it.  This was especially the problem on H&V.  He was determined to do a whole album in the style of Good Vibrations; that is, several pieces edited together to form a whole piece of music. 

The problem was that his vision for the album kept changing, prompting new sections being recorded and ultimately leading to more confusion.  Eventually he had so many little pieces that I don't think he knew which way was up.  Had he been in a better mental place, and been given the year he said he would have needed to complete SMiLE, I think he could have figured it all out.   

[Sheriff John Stone]

In some book, I read a quote from somebody close to SMiLE who said, "It wasn't a case of excessive tinkering." It does make you wonder, though. Look at how many sessions Brian did with "Good Vibrations", which, didn't somebody finally have to tell Brian, "Get the thing out!"

Brian never really did return to that sections/movements style of songwriting. After the SMiLE era, Brian did Wild Honey and Friends, and, if you look at the rest of his career, it's pretty much straight-forward songwriting. And, please don't mention "Rio Grande"....  

[the captain]

Brian never really did return to that sections/movements style of songwriting. After the SMiLE era, Brian did Wild Honey and Friends, and, if you look at the rest of his career, it's pretty much straight-forward songwriting.  

Absolutely true. I wouldn't necessarily say it was for the worse, either. The discovery that things can be assembled in a million ways is interesting, but it doesn't always make for any result, much less a good result. Sometimes the most satisfying kind of music is a song. A pop song. 2-3 minutes. Melody. Hook.

That isn't to disparage Smile, which I think could have been the best album released had it been released. But it could drive a guy nuts, pretending there is some grand scheme in the sky to be determined.

[Dancing Bear]

Question: How do you get your band, associates and label off your back?
Answer: You ask for one more year to finish an album that is already six months late.

Was Brian sincere when he asked for one more year? Maybe. Maybe he'd take some weeks off, cool his head, give a good listen to what had already been recorded and go on from there. Was he showing any sense of planning, design, focus in the first half of 1967? No. Would you believe Brian? Would you think it was a bluff?

After 1967 he had a professional home studio and could have worked on Smile anytime he wanted, unless the band were using it for their tracks. He never did. Never, even after WB's advance for Smile. Yeah I know, "Brian never touched Smile again because the Beach Boys had killed it and he wasn't gonna finish his masterpiece and give it to those jackals". It always makes sense like that. 

In fact... Did the band ever knew that Brian had asked for one more year to finish Smile? I've never seen it mentioned by Carl, Dennis, Al etc.

[Chris Brown]

Question: How do you get your band, associates and label off your back?
Answer: You ask for one more year to finish an album that is already six months late.

Was Brian sincere when he asked for one more year? Maybe. Maybe he'd take some weeks off, cool his head, give a good listen to what had already been recorded and go on from there. Was he showing any sense of planning, design, focus in the first half of 1967? No. Would you believe Brian? Would you think it was a bluff?

After 1967 he had a professional home studio and could have worked on Smile anytime he wanted, unless the band were using it for their tracks. He never did. Never, even after WB's advance for Smile. Yeah I know, "Brian never touched Smile again because the Beach Boys had killed it and he wasn't gonna finish his masterpiece and give it to those jackals". It always makes sense like that. 

In fact... Did the band ever knew that Brian had asked for one more year to finish Smile? I've never seen it mentioned by Carl, Dennis, Al etc.

I may be missing something, but I don't remember Brian ever saying that he asked Capital for another year...what he said in the Beautiful Dreamer doc was just that he would have needed another year, and knew that nobody would give it to him.  Was he more specific about actually making a request to Capital in another interview or something?

Even so, you do make a good point...given his erratic activity rate during the first half of '67, I don't know if another year would have done much good.  If anything, given his declining mental state, he would have just kept recording and re-shuffling things without much actually getting completed. 

Had he been in a better mental place, who knows, but I don't think that time was his problem.  He had completed every other Beach Boys album within a few months, at most.  He worked on SMiLE from August '66 until May '67, which under ordinary circumstances should have been more than enough time.  But with several things working against him (again, primarily his mental state), there was virtually no chance that the album would be completed, even if given an additional year.

[Cam Mott]

I think Brian did continue to work sectionally through Smiley at least didn't he?

I don't think we have a hnadle on how Brian was working;  I don't think he did that much, or an unusual amount of tinkering on the albums cuts. It seems to me that what has been thought of as tinkering and reassigning parts of album cuts are actually cuts meant only for H&V Part 2 as the B side of the H&V single A side.

He did tinker the singles: GV, H&V, and Vt. I just don't see indecision in Brian's tinkering, it seems like very decisive tinkering to me.  The confusion coming from thinking of cuts made as H&V Part 2 as tinkering of album cuts and not  references of albums cuts revised and clearly identified as only for H&V Part 2 for the H&V single's B side.

Just a theory.

[Dancing Bear]

I may be missing something, but I don't remember Brian ever saying that he asked Capital for another year...what he said in the Beautiful Dreamer doc was just that he would have needed another year, and knew that nobody would give it to him. 

Oh, please erase what I said then. My memory failed me.

[Jay]

I have kind of a dumb question. Brian recorded much of the Smile songs piece by piece, right? How did he, the rest of the group, or the people in the studio know which tape contained what? 

[Chris Brown]

I have kind of a dumb question. Brian recorded much of the Smile songs piece by piece, right? How did he, the rest of the group, or the people in the studio know which tape contained what? 

The group probably didn't know, or need to know...when they came in to sing, it was usually to edited-together backing tracks (except in the case of H&V, I believe). 

As for the studio people, everything was labeled and kept track of, I'm sure.  At least well enough to know what was what for editing purposes.

[Bicyclerider]

some Wild Honey tracks were done by sections as well as much of Smiley.  A Thing or Two, Here Comes the Night, I Was Made to Love Her.

I completely agree the "sectional" method and the problems inherent in that method was part of the derailment of Smile.  As you point out, Good Vibrations almost didn't come out, took too long to complete and an album of that kind of obsessive tinkering (I know Cam and others might disagree with that terminology - too bad, I believe it's accurate) would take years to come out.  Sectional songs on Smile:  Child, wind Chimes, Old Master Painter, Vegetables, Heroes, Elements, Cabinessence, Worms, I'm in Great Shape.  Surf's Up had at least two sections.  Wonderful is really the only nonsectional song (although there was a "tag" attempted).

[sofonanm]

Depends on what you mean by "ego".

Smile captured a transcendent feeling - think of the "Over and over..." part of Cabinessence. Eternally cycling pieces that really have no beginning and no end in their structure.

Or think of the Eb/F chord right at the grand culmination of the gospel-like "Gotta keep those lovin' good vibrations a'happenin' with her" drift into silence from GV. It's like a wave of the ocean rising up high, "Ahhhhhhhhhhh", and then falling with a rush into the chorus, which descends from Bb to Ab to Gb until the next wave starts rising. I mean, maybe you don't hear it in this way but it's a deeply spiritual piece of music. Brian was capturing a pure essence of feeling that transcended the ordinary state of mind.

In my eyes this was Brian's biggest problem in completing Smile - how to capture this feeling without limiting it by conventional song structures. I could listen to the chorus of Child Is Father To The Man for the rest of my life, I don't need a change. It's perfection as it is. But how do you get that on record? It has to end somewhere, has to become something else. But the becoming aspect was not in Brian's head while writing or conceiving the album. Those feels, fragments, and pieces celebrate BEING. Brian wrote them as living feels capturing his state of mind and they probably filled his living room with sound for hours. Just filling the space like air.

In light of the culture and Brian's interests at the time - Smile was Brian's egoless music. Smile was capturing his experiences on drugs and, more importantly, in LIFE during times where he was beyond the limitations of his past, beyond the limitations of his own thoughts...

Think about the Who Ran The Iron Horse segment of Cabinessence. It has no beginning and no end. It's a steam train chugging through sparse landscapes in a different America! You can hear the wheels spinning round and those... bard things jumping up and down. You can feel the thick cloud of smoke trailing behind. Little sparks and flashes jumping up from the tracks. You can see it whirling around the landscape, passing herds of animals and small towns and natives of the land. There's no ego there, there's no Brian there, there's no Van Dyke there, there's no Beach Boys there. There's just that train and that land.

One year the Beach Boys are appealing to surfing and car interests with a few girls thrown in for good measure. The next Brian's making music documenting the feeling of Oriental workers stationed in America as they aimlessly watch a a bird gliding the winds above them in circles throughout the hot afternoon. Come on!!!!

[variable2]

Depends on what you mean by "ego".

Smile captured a transcendent feeling - think of the "Over and over..." part of Cabinessence. Eternally cycling pieces that really have no beginning and no end in their structure.

Or think of the Eb/F chord right at the grand culmination of the gospel-like "Gotta keep those lovin' good vibrations a'happenin' with her" drift into silence from GV. It's like a wave of the ocean rising up high, "Ahhhhhhhhhhh", and then falling with a rush into the chorus, which descends from Bb to Ab to Gb until the next wave starts rising. I mean, maybe you don't hear it in this way but it's a deeply spiritual piece of music. Brian was capturing a pure essence of feeling that transcended the ordinary state of mind.

In my eyes this was Brian's biggest problem in completing Smile - how to capture this feeling without limiting it by conventional song structures. I could listen to the chorus of Child Is Father To The Man for the rest of my life, I don't need a change. It's perfection as it is. But how do you get that on record? It has to end somewhere, has to become something else. But the becoming aspect was not in Brian's head while writing or conceiving the album. Those feels, fragments, and pieces celebrate BEING. Brian wrote them as living feels capturing his state of mind and they probably filled his living room with sound for hours. Just filling the space like air.

In light of the culture and Brian's interests at the time - Smile was Brian's egoless music. Smile was capturing his experiences on drugs and, more importantly, in LIFE during times where he was beyond the limitations of his past, beyond the limitations of his own thoughts...

Think about the Who Ran The Iron Horse segment of Cabinessence. It has no beginning and no end. It's a steam train chugging through sparse landscapes in a different America! You can hear the wheels spinning round and those... bard things jumping up and down. You can feel the thick cloud of smoke trailing behind. Little sparks and flashes jumping up from the tracks. You can see it whirling around the landscape, passing herds of animals and small towns and natives of the land. There's no ego there, there's no Brian there, there's no Van Dyke there, there's no Beach Boys there. There's just that train and that land.

One year the Beach Boys are appealing to surfing and car interests with a few girls thrown in for good measure. The next Brian's making music documenting the feeling of Oriental workers stationed in America as they aimlessly watch a a bird gliding the winds above them in circles throughout the hot afternoon. Come on!!!!

by george i think he's got it

[Mahalo]

I could listen to the chorus of Child Is Father To The Man for the rest of my life, I don't need a change. It's perfection as it is.

Hell Yeah! 

[Mahalo]

In my eyes this was Brian's biggest problem in completing Smile - how to capture this feeling without limiting it by conventional song structures.  But how do you get that on record? It has to end somewhere, has to become something else. But the becoming aspect was not in Brian's head while writing or conceiving the album. Those feels, fragments, and pieces celebrate BEING. Brian wrote them as living feels capturing his state of mind and they probably filled his living room with sound for hours. Just filling the space like air.

He would've done it, as he said, if had another year or so to finish it... I suppose.

[sofonanm]

In my eyes this was Brian's biggest problem in completing Smile - how to capture this feeling without limiting it by conventional song structures.  But how do you get that on record? It has to end somewhere, has to become something else. But the becoming aspect was not in Brian's head while writing or conceiving the album. Those feels, fragments, and pieces celebrate BEING. Brian wrote them as living feels capturing his state of mind and they probably filled his living room with sound for hours. Just filling the space like air.

He would've done it, as he said, if had another year or so to finish it... I suppose.

Yeah... OR if in the year 2004 Darian Sahajana's dad stole his son's laptop, traveled back to year 1967, ejaculated on a computer mouse, and let the little spermatozoa do his thang.

... although I suppose his dad could just bring Darian back in time with him since he's bringing the laptop anyway.

[Mahalo]

In my eyes this was Brian's biggest problem in completing Smile - how to capture this feeling without limiting it by conventional song structures.  But how do you get that on record? It has to end somewhere, has to become something else. But the becoming aspect was not in Brian's head while writing or conceiving the album. Those feels, fragments, and pieces celebrate BEING. Brian wrote them as living feels capturing his state of mind and they probably filled his living room with sound for hours. Just filling the space like air.

He would've done it, as he said, if had another year or so to finish it... I suppose.

Yeah... OR if in the year 2004 Darian Sahajana's dad stole his son's laptop, traveled back to year 1967, ejaculated on a computer mouse, and let the little spermatozoa do his thang.

... although I suppose his dad could just bring Darian back in time with him since he's bringing the laptop anyway.

Isn't that what ultimately happened? (Imagine a little spermatoza with D's Hair...)

[sofonanm]

In my eyes this was Brian's biggest problem in completing Smile - how to capture this feeling without limiting it by conventional song structures.  But how do you get that on record? It has to end somewhere, has to become something else. But the becoming aspect was not in Brian's head while writing or conceiving the album. Those feels, fragments, and pieces celebrate BEING. Brian wrote them as living feels capturing his state of mind and they probably filled his living room with sound for hours. Just filling the space like air.

He would've done it, as he said, if had another year or so to finish it... I suppose.

Yeah... OR if in the year 2004 Darian Sahajana's dad stole his son's laptop, traveled back to year 1967, ejaculated on a computer mouse, and let the little spermatozoa do his thang.

... although I suppose his dad could just bring Darian back in time with him since he's bringing the laptop anyway.

Isn't that what ultimately happened? (Imagine a little spermatoza with D's Hair...)

Well, Darian was a life-giving, essential seed for the flowering of a resurrected Smile album. Brian's like a barren womb trying to conceive child.

[Mahalo]

True, but God allowed Abraham's wife Sarah to conceive at such an age...and I feel that it is nothing short of a miracle that we even have a BWPS... although I still feel that the first word out of Brian's mouth on the beginning of GV from BWPS is "Hi", not"I"...

[sofonanm]

although I still feel that the first word out of Brian's mouth on the beginning of GV from BWPS is "Hi", not"I"...

I wish Good Vibrations wasn't included on BWPS. I can enjoy the album a lot until it gets to that one... as soon as it's on I'm reminded of how much better the original single was - lyrics, voices, performance, production - and then I realize, "Oh, wait, so Smile would've been as good as Good Vibrations was, and, as good as this album is, it's got nothing on that..." It's supposed to end on a high note but it doesn't do it for me.

[Mahalo]

although I still feel that the first word out of Brian's mouth on the beginning of GV from BWPS is "Hi", not"I"...

I wish Good Vibrations wasn't included on BWPS. I can enjoy the album a lot until it gets to that one... as soon as it's on I'm reminded of how much better the original single was - lyrics, voices, performance, production - and then I realize, "Oh, wait, so Smile would've been as good as Good Vibrations was, and, as good as this album is, it's got nothing on that..." It's supposed to end on a high note but it doesn't do it for me.

Thinking alike, dude. I wish that compositionally they would've sang Prayer backwords in it's entirety after Blue Hawaii to finish the album. But then we wouldn't get to make fun of Brian saying "Hi"...so I'm divided.

[MBE]

I thought the use of Asher's lyrics was the big mistake. Of course Brian Wilson couldn't make Smile sound as good after 1974 because he lost his voice, and as I have opined before after the early seventies music wasn't recorded as naturally. Yet when I think about how bad it would have been if Joe Thomas or Landy were involved I thank God that the 2004 is as good as it is. It's the best it could be if not nearly what it would have been in 1966.

[Mahalo]

It was meant to be.

[phirnis]

I thought the use of Asher's lyrics was the big mistake. Of course Brian Wilson couldn't make Smile sound as good after 1974 because he lost his voice, and as I have opined before after the early seventies music wasn't recorded as naturally. Yet when I think about how bad it would have been if Joe Thomas or Landy were involved I thank God that the 2004 is as good as it is. It's the best it could be if not nearly what it would have been in 1966.

With Joe Thomas involved, most of Smile would probably have sounded like Mexican Girl.

[MBE]

Mexican Girl is silly but Thomas couldn't produce anything near even that.