What version of "Smile" do you listen to?

I prefer soniclovenoize's "1967 Mix" in mono.

 

I mostly listen to my own 12-track creation, compiled from several different sources. I think the run time is about 35 minutes. I like the transition from Wonderful to Good Vibrations and having Child is Father of the Man between The Elements and Surfs Up.

I prefer stereo and used it unless the mono mix provided something I wanted.

Side 1.
(Our Prayer)
1. Heroes and Villains
2. Do You Like Worms
3. I'm in Great Shape (incl. Barnyard)
4. Old Master Painter (incl. You Are My Sunshine+Barnyard fade)
5. Cabinessence
6. Wonderful

Side 2.
1. Good Vibrations
2. Vegetables
3. Wind Chimes
4. The Elements (Mrs. O Leary's Cow+Water Chant)
5. Child is Father of the Man
6. Surf's Up

Sources:
1. Smile Sessions Box (most tracks, with a few edits and snippets flown in from other sources. CIFOTM is a personal mix from different parts provided on the box)
2. Purple Chick: Do You Like Worms
3. 20/20: Our Prayer, Cabinessence
4. Good Vibrations Box: Good Vibrations; Wonderful; Surf's Up (personal sync of part 1 orchestra/piano demo + 1971 coda)

 

Thanks! It's lovely to know it's remembered. It was really fun putting it together and I often think about doing another SMiLE mix since there's so much more material to play with.

 

Can I be impertinent and ask your sources for the stereo tracks? I have the ones from the box, MIC, Cabinessense from the GV box and Surfs Up needle dropped from vinyl.

 

All from the session box and side 4 of the vinyl, initially (replaced with the available stereo versions from "Made in California" now). "Good Vibrations" I used a fan made sync up of the stereo backing track from the 40th anniversary CD single and vocals. I suppose I should update my disc again and use the stereo extraction mix from the recent Smiley Smile CD, but the fan mix is still better, I think. I took the "Child..." choruses from a fan mix.

Some of the tracks I had to painstakingly piece together by hand since they were only available as bits and pieces or bastardized mutations on the Sessions box. "Heroes", obviously, had to be put together piece by piece, as each section was a separate session and track on the Sessions disc. And often on the sessions discs the master takes were edited down or faded early to conserve time (see 'Look', 'Holidays') so I had to extend those to get them back to the way they were supposed to be as well. What a pain in the ass.

 

Lately, I have been listening to BWPS. When I upgraded my turntable/cart, that was the first record I put on, and I was blown away--very spacious and dynamic. The cd version just does not have the same magic.

 

I still have my own mix of the thing. It does use some o' the stuff from the box set -- I've been meaning to upgrade with even more stuff from the box set for sonic clarity. The hidden track that's an H&V edit is actually, IMO, the best/most accurate H&V version out there right now.

 

Jon, is the version you're referring to found close to the end of disc 4?

 

This is me, too. Do Sides 1,2, and 3 line up with the Disc 1 that others seem to listen to a lot?

 

For me I always play Smile 'Second Edition' lp, especially Side 1. It has my favorite 'partially complete' session edits of Cabinessence, Do You Like Worms, Good Vibrations that I strongly prefer over the officially released versions. Also I love the completed unedited 'Can't Wait Too Long' session sequence. I know it's not a Smile era track but it fits right in with Smile material.

 

Yes. Each side is one of the three movements. Side four is bonus tracks (which I usually skip).

 

Absolutely - Gee actually misleads the listener into settling into a vintage '60s Beach Boys vibe, allowing Heroes and Villains to whack you over the head with something as un-Beach Boys-like as they had done up to that point.

You were messin' with our heads, weren't you, Brian?

 

Right, me too - I'm quite familiar with the vinyl, but the CD is foreign to me.

 

This assemblage of 'Prayer' into 'Gee' is not vintage. The "Gee" thing is a small piece of the chant variations recorded for the flipside of the "Heroes and Villains" single. It would have been helpful if the box set noted this and prevented these kind of misunderstandings from transpiring.

 

I usually go back to Brian Wilson Presents Smile. The actual Beach Boys 1967 vocals are certainly missed, but I just like being able to hear all of that additional detail that can be so hard to make out on the Smile Sessions. Especially on Cabinessence, which is a marvel to behold on BWPS.

 

I still like the version I cobbled together from various sources (primarily the Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys & the Smile box set). Current running order as follows: Our Prayer/Good Vibrations/Gee/Heroes & Villains/Do You Like Worms/I'm in Great Shape/Barnyard/My Only Sunshine/Cabinessence/Wonderful/Look/Child is Father of the Man/I Wanna Be Around/Vegatables/Holidays/Wind Chimes/The Elements/Love To Say Dada/Surf's Up. I'm always messing around with running order, but the three songs I keep consistent are opening the album with Prayer/Vibrations & closing with Surf's Up. I certainly understand closing with Good Vibrations, but it makes such a killer album opener to go from Our Prayer into Good Vibrations that I have a tough time letting that combo go. My go-to version of Surf's Up is still the stripped-down version from the Good Vibrations box set.

 

What I like about this "early version outtake sections" version is the way the "part 2" sections are tightly edited together. When they were presented to us elsewhere the gaps between the different chants remained. Here it goes from the first chant right into "clap clap- dit dit dit...heroes and villains". One of these days I'm gonna try and recreate this using the cleaner version of the sessions found elsewhere in the box. It's a more exciting, barnstorming kind of track without all the stops and starts.

 

I don't think he was referring to Our Prayer > Gee itself as vintage, but rather Gee giving off a vintage Beach Boys vibe, before an un-Beach Boys like Heroes and Villains.

 

No matter how Ive tried to fit it in, the song "Good Vibrations" really doesnt fit to me. Its a mini album all to itself. And when its laid in the middle of SMiLE (whether that be at the beginning, middle or end) it shows how unfinished even some of the finished songs were. Therefore, Ill be stripping down "Good Vibrations" and edit out the vocals. Ill make this work damnitt.

 

I'd like to think that Capitol would have exterted some influence over how SMiLE was sequenced (unless Brian really did beat Sgt. Pepper to the punch and present an album with crossfades from one song to the next), loading the start and end of each side with the hits - or at least what they intended to release as singles. With this in mind, here is my current personal tracklist:

SIDE A
Our Prayer*
Heroes And Villains
I'm In Great Shape
Barnyard*
Do You Like Worms?
The Old Master Painter
You Are My Sunshine*
Cabin Essence

SIDE B
Good Vibrations
Wonderful
Child Is Father Of The Man
Wind Chimes
Vege-Tables
Heroes And Villains (Intro)*
The Elements (Mrs O'Leary's Cow/I Wanna Be Around/Workshop/I Love To Say Dada)
Surf's Up

*Denotes unlisted track

Even then, I'm not happy that all the Americana-themed songs are lumped together on the first side, with the second having the elemental suite right in the middle of the spiritual tracks. Also, the second side is considerably longer than the first... I'm hardly surprised that Brian was losing his mind trying to compile the best of these extensive sessions into a 12-track LP!

As a compromise, I suppose Wind Chimes could fit somewhere on the first side, though it would probably best go before Heroes And Villains, ruining the idea of each side being bookended with the singles. On the subject of singles, I'd like to see He Gives Speeches, Gee, Holidays and Look used as b-sides, with You're Welcome joining them if a fifth standalone track was later issued.

P.S. Although my fan mix only uses hard edits, there are some clips from the "SMiLE party" recording sessions appearing between listed songs as brief link tracks, such as the vegetables skit between Brian and Hal Blaine, which I feel makes a perfect link track leading into the fire sequence, complete with the sound of burning wood. Maybe a clip of "George fell..." could serve as a prelude to the laughing horns of Surf's Up, too?

 

According to wiki, "Good Vibrations" was supposedly going to be the centerpiece to SMiLE.

Any confirmation as to the validity of this statement? Did Brian say back then that it was to be?

 

Believe me, your mix isn't just remembered, but is actually the centrepiece of an especially fond memory... You might be pleased to know that "back in the day" (about September or October 2003, I seem to recall - a good few months before Brian debuted his complete version of SMiLE in February the following year), I burned a copy of your mix and gave it to my tutor at Leeds College of Art and Design, where I was studying for a College Diploma in New Media. We were both members of bands who engaged in friendly competition, and we spoke about music on a regular basis. I'd been listening to your mix in the studio while busy working on a piece one day for an assignment that was influenced by several of my favourite album covers, including Frank Holmes' SMiLE illustrations, which is when my tutor revealed that he was quite the fan of The Beach Boys. In fact, he even wrote a song entitled Caroline Yes, though incredibly he'd never heard a single SMiLE bootleg, having only bought a copy of Pet Sounds because it came highly recommended in the music magazines he read. That same day in the computer suite before leaving, I burned him your fan mix and distinctly remember writing a note on the case, apologising because some of the tracks were meant to crossfade, also giving him a link to the DJ Mic Luv site and suggesting that he pay a visit to what was then still known as The SMiLE Shoppe. Unfortunately, I had to drop out soon after that for personal reasons, later graduating in a more business-oriented course and never getting to discuss the long awaited completion of SMiLE. These days, I'm a community support worker and aspiring author, having long since given up on my own musical dreams because of ill health, while my tutor's band soon underwent a change of name from Parva and received a record* deal. He just so happens to be Ricky Wilson ("no relation," as he often used to joke!) of the Kaiser Chiefs, and if you've ever read some of his earliest printed interviews about when he was still paying his bills as a part-time art college tutor, I'm the kid in a Radiohead t-shirt that he frequently mentioned who played drums in a s*** band. To paraphrase a SMiLE-era outtake, you're very much welcome.

*If you've ever heard of a Yorkshire-based label by the name of Demo Tape Promotions, you're speaking to a co-founder and 1/4 shareholder. However, for various reasons, I'd rather not disclose the name of the group I was in. That was a long time ago, and in hindsight my tutor might have been right!

 

My favorite way to listen to the album proper is on the 3 sides of vinyl in the Sessions box set, but I also frequently listen to the whole box. I find the sessions fascinating. I also have Brian Wilson Presents Smile, a live boot, and Smiley Smile. All of them are keepers and all get frequent spins.

 

You are of course correct sir. But Brian loved the combination when he did BWPS. Since it was never completed, and Brian had the Gee part recorded, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the connection COULD have been made in 1967.

The beauty of the ever-interactive SMiLE. There are not many hard rules.

 

Quoted for truth. Disc one of the box is, to me, simply one of the biggest botch jobs of all time. What were they thinking?