Smile Playing Order: a detail I don't hear discussed much (67' vinyl LP length)

[Chris Brown]

According to many sources (books, web, interviews...), GV never intended to be part of SMiLE; it was a link between Pet Sounds and SMiLE, it was Brian's Rhapsody in blue; and once again according to many informations, Capitol put the pressure to have GV on SMiLE, because of the lack of hits in the project, as they did with 'Sloop John B' on Pet Sounds. And I never included GV in my SMiLE mixes, doens't make sense to me.

The fact that Capital plastered "Good Vibrations" on the cover slicks certainly lends credence to that theory.  Why wouldn't Capital want such a smash hit on the album?  But whether Brian wanted it on there, that's a tougher question. 

Given that GV was started during Pet Sounds and completed before Smile really took off, it obviously wasn't a part of the Smile concept initially.  On the other hand, the modular nature of GV fits perfectly on Smile, and it was clearly the impetus for creating a whole record that way in the first place.  And if you put credence in Brian's sequencing for BWPS (I don't personally), you could certainly make the argument that Brian wanted it there all along.

I myself don't feel that Good Vibrations really belongs on Smile, but it doesn't feel incredibly out of place either.  As was discussed before, its inclusion on Smiley feels far more out of place.

[Sheriff John Stone]

Totally agree with your assessment, Chris.

The part of "Good Vibrations" that makes it hard for me to include on SMiLE is the lyrics. It's a love song, it's a boy meets girl song (Mike would Love me for that ). But seriously, lyrically, I don't know where it belongs; maybe near "Wind Chimes"?  When Carl sings, "Though it's hard I try not to look at my wind chimes" and "Now and then a tear rolls off my cheek", is he singing about the girl in 'Good Vibrations"? Come to think of it, weren't "Good Vibrators" and "Wind Chimes" recorded pretty close together?

[BiG GRiN]

I'm agree with you Sheriff about the lyrics; but I'm not sure the lyrics Mike Love wrote was the original lyrics, (according to what I read through the years), I mean, Brian started to work on GV with Tony Asher, and VD Parks (cello), and the original idea has always been  the story of the dogs (Brian and his Mom); and Mike came with the hook about girls and boys, so if Brian had keep working with Tony Asher and maybe VD Parks, GV could have been more strange and weird than the definitive version, and the music more in connexion with the lyrics.
Some people even talked about an instrumental version (the Rhapsody In Blue connexion).

[Sheriff John Stone]

Good thought, BiG GRiN. It would've been interesting to hear what a Van Dyke Parks lyric would've sounded like.

You know, a good song to follow "Good Vibrations" would've been "You Are My Sunshine" with the cello and even the lyric. Ooh, gotta revisit the SMiLE mix again...

[Bill Tobelman]

"Good Vibrations" SHOULD be on SMiLE as it was part of the LSD trip that inspired SMiLE.

That trip pointed to a new direction for Brian & the Beach Boys and "Good Vibrations" was part of that.

My guess is that the trip started out as an exploration of the "mystery" (Bri's acid flashback mystery/riddle) and the positive outcome of the search gave him the basic "Dumb Angel" concept after which he tackled the "next single" question which gave him the vision for the fully produced version of "Good Vibrations."

That's why BWPS ends with "GV."

[The Song Of The Grange]

My current mix of Smile has Wind Chimes coming after Good Vibrations.  Every once in awhile I see people say that Good Vibrations was supposed to be the Air section.  I don't buy into it (there is so much mis-information with the Smile myth), but GV and Wind Chimes feel related.  As do Look and Holidays.  These four were all recorded in the early Smile project.  Look sounds like an experiment on themes from the Good Vibrations sessions.  The extended end of Wind Chimes has a GV feel too.

My current solution to the side A/side B challenge is to split the Elements over the end of side A and the beginning of  side B with Good Vibes stuck in the middle.  So it would go Americana section, then Elements: Mrs. O'Leary's Cow/Vega-Tables (flip the record over) Good Vibrations/Wind Chimes/Holidays, then Childhood section.  I have been treating Holidays as the water section.  To me Da Da is too far removed to be part of the original Smile concept (despite the All Day demo).

[LostArt]

Look sounds like an experiment on themes from the Good Vibrations sessions.

It does, but didn't Brian take that bit from Look and put it into GV (that half time part of GV just before the tag, where the vocals do that ascending and descending scale thing).  Earlier incarnations of GV don't include that part.  Does anyone know the recording date for that section of Good Vibrations?  If he did cut that part out of Look for GV, was any work done on Look after that?

[The Song Of The Grange]

Look sounds like an experiment on themes from the Good Vibrations sessions.

It does, but didn't Brian take that bit from Look and put it into GV (that half time part of GV just before the tag, where the vocals do that ascending and descending scale thing).  Earlier incarnations of GV don't include that part.  Does anyone know the recording date for that section of Good Vibrations?  If he did cut that part out of Look for GV, was any work done on Look after that?

LostArt, I have considered this same thing.  The recording of Look/I Ran/Untitled Song does overlap with GV.  I guess the real question regarding this is knowing the date in which the ending vocal scale of GV was recorded.

[Bicyclerider]

According to many sources (books, web, interviews...), GV never intended to be part of SMiLE; it was a link between Pet Sounds and SMiLE, it was Brian's Rhapsody in blue; and once again according to many informations, Capitol put the pressure to have GV on SMiLE, because of the lack of hits in the project, as they did with 'Sloop John B' on Pet Sounds. And I never included GV in my SMiLE mixes, doens't make sense to me.

Share some of these sources with us - hopefully first hand sources.  There is no evidence Capitol forced Brian to put Sloop John B on Pet Sounds - it was on an early track list of PS that Brian made before the album was even named Pet Sounds.  This is a classic example of "retropectoscope" history - because many people feel the cut doesn't fit in with the other tracks lyrically, Capitol must have "forced" Brian into putting it on the album, ruining his artistic vision.

David Leaf  has fostered some of these notions when he was full bore into the anti Brian conspiracy theories - Mike was against Brian, the other Beach Boys didn't believe in Brian, Capitol didn't believe in Brian, Landy was evil (well OK, I'll give him that one) if they had all just let him do whatever he wanted then he wanted to, there would be world peace and Smile would have hit number 1 in 1967 and everything else.  That one sided perspective has given birth to all sorts of false impressions.

the only first hand quote I remember about Good Vibrations being forced to be on an album was from the Anderle interview with Paul Williams, and I recall if you look at the quote in context it's actually Smiley Smile he's talking about, not Smile.  And wouldn't we all agree that GV doesn't "fit" on Smiley with the lowkey minimalist production of that album?  It fits just fine on Smile IMO.