Best track on the Beach Boys' SMiLE

Love that Vega-Table anecdote. Just goes to show how lost he was.

Yerrrrssss......

that's a wind-up shurely?

another big difference (for me at least) between the BW2004 version and the sessions is that there's no "You're Welcome" on the former.
It doesn't seem to be an obvious part of the original Smile project (like "With me tonight" which is also great) but I love that "song".
and it's a good way to end the album since it kinda mirrors "Our Prayer" as a (almost a cappella) chanting thing.

"he gives speeches" doesn't sound like it was gonna fit anywhere, either, but dang do i love it (and i bet britt daniel's with me)

Yeah, I love "He Gives Speeches." Maybe it would have fit in by not fitting, like "Sloop John B" on Pet Sounds.

the second choice is implied in the first, in that in the 2004 smile (which was, perversely enough, originally put together for live performance) the songs all segue.

This is interesting, because I've only ever really heard it on the vinyl release (three sides), and don't recall any really awkward breaks that jumped out at me! But I should throw it on again and see. Totally correct that a three-sided album was clearly not in the cards in 1967.

The possibility that always lurks under Smile speculation for me is: what if he had gotten it together and released it in 1967, and nobody had much cared? I think it would have been admired in certain circles, maybe even celebrated by a certain kind of hep cat, but I really find it hard to imagine it would have been this barnstorming, generation-defining record. It's wonderful, wonderful music, but if Pet Sounds didn't really hit home in the US then surely this wouldn't have either. At best it would have been its generation's OK Computer or something like that - absolutely hailed and admired by a certain swath of listeners, way bigger than just an indie level of success, but probably not even registering as existing to most people. I mean, there were a lot of albums blowing a lot of minds in the late 60s - would it really stand out as a musical historic touchstone vs. Pepper's, Are You Experienced, etc. etc.? How would Brian feel realizing he'd been outpunched not just by the Beatles but by Jefferson Airplane? In the long run it was obviously incredibly beneficial to this album's legend/stature for it to go incomplete, even if that cut it off from contributing, live, to the emergent counterculture.

also for all the unfinished etc myth, when you think about it, most "main" songs were more or less finished (wonderful, vegetables, cabinessence, surf's up... with the notable exception of heroes&villains, of course).
so it's not like there was a lost huge "good vibration" hit or something.

xp - Pet Sounds was a hit record in the UK at the time IIRC

it would've failed imo. the lack of r&b as connective tissue - which was critical to where rock was headed - is just not there in the album, like, at all.

I mean yeah a small cadre (and the British/euros) would've loved it but it would've bombed in the U.S.

yeah, I agree it would have (relatively) failed to become a touchstone of pop.
maybe not because of the lack of r&b since 67 was still heavily psychedelic pop.
personally, I feel it's not really a pop album. it's closer to 20th century classical music like Saint Saens with elements of popular (not pop) music.

yup, agreed that it would have failed. And then the rest of the wilderness-era albums would have been even worse because they couldn't go back to the Smile sessions/songs for material.

I only just realised this but neither Smile 2004 or Smile Sessions has a version of He Gives Speeches/She's Goin Bald; or am I wrong?

― p:s nerds know (dog latin), Thursday, May 21, 2015 4:47 AM (3 hours ago)

it's on the Smile Sessions bonus disc.

maybe not because of the lack of r&b since 67 was still heavily psychedelic pop

that's true, but in America r&b was still at the center whether it was Nuggets-style or SF-style or Dylan or a lot of the LA scene - the blues figured largely in that music and there is zero of that in Smile.

xp

I mean the album just does not "rock" really - apart from a couple genuinely odd moments in Heroes and Villains etc. - and it's too weird and disjointed to function as more easy-listening/AM radio pop

yeah it definitely doesn't rock. and doesn't really pop either !
Hence my idea that it's not really a rock/pop album.
There are many parts and tracks that are not conventional pop songs in structure and instrumentation.
it's very different from Pet sounds or any other albums of that time in that aspect and closer to Saint Saens' "Carnaval des animaux" for instance.

yeah that sounds like why I've had such a hard time with VDP's Song Cycle, but I love Smile : it pops plenty.
this conversation is reminding me though that I don't know how much VDP had to do with the arrangements on Smile, I guess a lot !

really ? I'm not sure VDP had anything to do with the arrangements. wasn't he only involved with the lyrics ?

he had his hands in a lot of places. in his interview with the red bull music academy (lol), vdp said he came up with the cello part in good vibrations. heroes and villains has vdp all over it

yeah i think they worked on the music together, though obviously brian was the one steering the ship.

VDP was also dealing w the Byrds and Mothers of Invention at the same time period, so was probably in and out from time to time.

y'all seem convinced SMiLE would've tanked in the US, but lest we forget "good vibrations" was a billboard #1 (presuming accuracy of whatever source told me as much nearly a decade ago now, apparently the first US #1 to feature electronic instrumentation). it was a massive song. i agree that he had no other obvious hit in the tank, but had brian been able to follow it up in a reasonable timeframe, maybe its momentum would have continued (granted "vibes" came out in october '66, so "reasonable timeframe" is especially hypothetical here) and i don't think it's impossible that in the music market of the late '60s a single edit of "heroes & villains" or "vegetables" could've endeared as some kind of (surprisingly deep) novelty hit. it's not like the beach boys brand needed any introduction at the time, and the '60s were really the last time america had such a ridiculously open-minded market. (also hey, was it at all conventional to put singles on the album at the time? i know "strawberry fields" and "penny lane" weren't on sgt. peppers so i'm guessing not, but if i'm wrong then including "good vibrations" on the album could've helped as well.)

if i were pressed to guess, yes, i'd say it would have failed too, if simply because capitol and brian's own band/family seemed so reluctant to take the thing seriously any further than recording sessions. without a persistent and clever promo campaign, yeah, it wouldn't have worked. but barring that, i don't think this album selling enough to qualify as a hit was out of the question at the time. in the music market of the day it certainly would've sold a shit-ton more than smiley smile or any of their next handful of records, at least until surf's up (which sold in part because it had finished SMiLE material on it, right?).

I suspect that, at the very least, it would have become one of those '60s albums that grew in stature over time, like a 'Forever Changes' or those late '60s Kinks records.

Or Odyssey and Oracle

didn't Forever Changes bomb? those Kinks records didn't even register in the US. Odyssey and Oracle at least had Time of the Season

well I guess Sunny Afternoon did well in the US iirc

SMiLE was VDP's ticket to the career he deserved. seems like he never got over it. but we probably never would've gotten Song Cycle otherwise

the last time I tried to listen to Song Cycle it was just irritating, suppose I should give it a second chance

If you aren't into that, try Discover America.

his voice is just so ugh

Did people really buy LPs in 1968 when Odyssey and Oracle was released? Didn't people mostly buy singles then?

Song Cycle is my favorite album ever. No other single LP comes close. Just absolutely cracked and brilliant from start to finish. Something about the Looney Toons / Warner Brothers arrangements and lysergic menace... VDP's work is baked into my brain, he scored so many cartoons I watched as a kid (esp. The Brave Little Toaster). Song Cycle is the sound of a fading memory you never even experienced...ill stop now. the 33 1/3 book on it is superb.

What are the reference books about Smile ?

his voice is just so ugh

It has this kind of sleepy quality to it that may clash a bit much w the whirlwind hyperactive arrangements on "Song Cycle". I love that album but I've played it for many people I thought would be equally into it and they had the same reaction.

I think "Discover America" is a better use of his voice, with the slower and poppier and far more rhythmic songs, he comes across like a sly pop prankster. And it has way more prominently-featured backup singers.

What are the reference books about Smile ?

Dominic Priore "Look!Listen!Smile!Vibrate!" is the ur-text

Discover America is great but slight compared to Song Cycle. but it's the kind of album that works in pretty much every scenario

I agree that Smile could have been a popular album. It's hard to fathom what its possible influence would have been, though.

Listening to Smiley Smile now... my god does 'Heroes and Villians' sound so wrong without the "cantina" part.

and 'Vegatables' without the 'Mama Says' part, for that matter.

re: references to the pop canon- that sort of thing sounds fresh and creative to us today, but at the time of the original "smile" sessions it really wouldn't have. that era was the apex of the singer-songwriter cult, and to do a record with somebody else's song on it was seen as proof of your lack of creativity. see for instance david crosby's staunch opposition to the byrds doing a goffin-king tune on "notorious byrd brothers"- never mind that "goin' back" is a fabulous song, it just wasn't _credible_ to do that sort of thing. even the word "pastiche" had (has?) more than a whiff of opprobrium to it; it wasn't really until the '80s and guys like grandmaster flash that the situation started to change. the only time you really saw pastiche in those days was in a satirical context (see for instance _absolutely free_ by the mothers of invention, which band van dyke parks was a member of during that era), and wilson's use of pastiche is resolutely non-satirical.

what the public reaction to the record would have been we can't really know, but it is worth noting that good vibrations is "hooky" in a way that really none of the rest of the album was, that "cantina" section or no the released single of "heroes & villains" is reasonably representative of the essence of the song, that hendrix's dismissal of the single as "psychedelic barbershop" would probably not be a uniquely held opinion.

the smiley song that sounds most off-base to me is "wind chimes", lacking the entire "b" section (during the "wild honey" sessions wilson reworked that section into "can't wait too long", one of those songs that evokes "smile" in spirit but not in chronology)

ah damn "can't wait too long," so good

I'm not so convinced having non-singer-songwriter material was such a kiss of death in the mid-Sixties - maybe with a certain crowd, sure, but the Beatles had only just recently stopped having covers on every record, and the folk world was all about covers, the American tradition, etc., etc. This is the Monkees' chart-topping period also, though I doubt that's the audience we're imagining receiving Smile with reverent awe, and of course doing well with the kids would only further alienate the hipsters. It would be a matter of how it was packaged/presented I think.

I guess the point is there are several hypothetical audiences in play - I suspect Smile would have played okay to a subset of the (already diminished number of) American listeners who bought Pet Sounds (which had two solid hits on it), but one assumes it would have offered almost nothing to those who'd preferred Beach Boys Party! So the question is whether he could have carried through the massive, massive popularity off "Good Vibrations," or picked up some new audience of people whose ears pricked up at "Heroes and Villains," and said "woah, wtf is this, I'm freaking out, maan!" or what.

The thing is, very little about most of Smile is really all that much like "Good Vibrations." The recording method of bits and pieces awaiting assembly, yes - - - but actually, this is a really insane way to make pop records, and more to the point, it just so happens to play really well on "Good Vibrations" which is all about this building swell of teenage love, rushing and tumbling through the head and heart - it's an absolutely brilliant fit for this really ambitious train-wreck structure and these varied and gorgeous arrangements, and you can see why that combination of sounds and feelings would strike a chord. It was their biggest hit, ever -- well, "Kokomo" might have ultimately edged it out in sales, I'm not sure -- and yeah, that probably would have helped the album sell to some people. But "Heroes and Villains" is just not that kind of song. The only songs I can think of in this period that approach it for strangeness or narrative non-relatability all rock or at least have a "hard"/dissonant quality (Strawberry Fields, I Can See For Miles, White Rabbit...I dunno). Many aspects of it are headsticky, for sure, and I love its disjointedness, its weirdness, its vaguely sketched narrative.

Maybe that would have been enough! Draw in the right crowd, get them to spend time with the album and discover just how spectacular the inherent deep cuts are. "Surf's Up" would have been a mind-blower in early '67 and I can see the kind of radio station that would soon play Sgt. Pepper's in its entirety getting on board with that. The idea of "Vega-Tables" drawing in a different crowd entirely as just this odd little novely song is kind of plausible too. Oddly though I think their biggest potential "hit" in this period is probably "Gettin' Hungry" (with a very very different arrangement and performance). Maybe "Wild Honey"?

Not putting singles on albums was a British thing, I think?

Nope, I can't think of a single hit potential besides Good Vibrations.

flappy bird, I saw a reddit thread about what movie you could watch over and over again. After some thought I scrolled endlessly down the comments to find Brave Little Toaster. Those songs. I completely forgot it was VDP. But yeah, they were the main reason I picked that movie.

Hang on, "Heroes and Villains" was a hit.

xposts I think the thinking was that if a single was put on an album, people would stop buying the single.

I could have seen Surf's Up being a hit in the wake of God Only Knows.

I could see "Wonderful" cracking the top 20 anyway

I did:

29 Brian Wilson Wonderful Oct 2004

OK, top thirty..

Hang on, "Heroes and Villains" was a hit.

― Mark G, Friday, May 22, 2015 2:49 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Would love to know more about this - Wikipedia just tells me it peaked at #12 in the US (not a major hit by their standards) but not how long it was on the charts, etc.

Not to reset the goalposts, but I suppose with my probing of hitness/hit potential I'm more trying to get at the expectations/hopes/crucial needs Brian Wilson et al. had for this album. I don't think it would have been enough for Smile to eke out #15 on the albums chart or whatever, to be just another album some people maybe bought for a few weeks.

yeah he needed to top Good Vibrations, and that just wasn't going to happen with this other material