Brian Wilson's SMiLE vs Beach Boys' 2011 SMiLE

I know, right? lol

Another acceptable answer is "Our Prayer" ending the album, as Michael Vosse claimed in 1969: "As to Smile itself—well, you know about "Surf’s Up." It was going to kind of close the album, and then after it was over they were going to a sort of choral, a-men sort of thing."

Priore is pretty much asserting there is some sort of overarching concept or narrative to SMiLE, the precursor to the three-suite movement of Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE, with Side A as the "American Gothic" (containing what we consider the Americana and Life Cycle Suites) and Side B as the Elemental side. He seems to assert "Out Prayer" wraps up what we now think of as the Life Cycle Suite before circling it around back to "Cabin Essence", claiming: "After the masculine/feminine intuition suite, a spiritual union to bring the two forces together. The foundation, and it's acknowledgement, prayer."

Another problem is his inclusion of "Cool Cool Water", which simply didn't exist as being water-related during the SMiLE sessions. It existed as "I Love To Say Da Da", which was about a baby (and some theorize those sessions were not properly a part of SMiLE in the first place!); it wasn't assigned a water theme until SMiLE was dead and being reborn as Smiley Smile.

And, as you probably know, I disagree with his claims of an overarching narrative or concept of SMiLE in the first place.

 

They may have just decided not to list it-as if it was a part of H&V.

 

Except that it is listed, as the second to last track on side 1, just before Cabin Essence.
On 20/20, it ends side 2 along with Cabinessence. Maybe that's why Priore places it here, thinking that it somehow goes along with Cabin Essence/Cabinessence.

Maybe the "choral, a-men sort of thing" that was allegedly intended to follow Surf's Up is actually supposed to refer to the Child is Father of the Man ending that was used for Surf's Up?

 

This stuff never gets old, does it? It's endlessly fascinating to me.

 

This is exactly what I believe Michael Vosse is describing.

 

Does anyone know why Brian decided to end SMiLE with GV in 2004? Seems like "Surf's Up" ending it is the biggest no-brainer of the album's mystery tracklist/song order.

 

Since the Brian Wilson Presents Smile track sequence was intended as a live showcase, my guess is that he figured Good Vibrations would make for a great crowd-pleaser at the end of the set.

 

That makes sense, but also calls into question the whole reasoning behind making it the now-official SMiLE tracklist. I understand that, in 2011, it was much easier for the Beach Boys to go with something Brian already approved... There's a better, more 1966-ish tracklist out there somewhere, waiting to be found. If someone has it, let me see!

 

You mean you don't buy the Domenic Priore tracklist, which was supposedly confirmed by Brian? ;-)

From post 347:

 

Ahhh, but what is the correct running order?

 

See label for correct playing order

 

I knew you'd say that.

 

Has anyone actually played the songs in this order? Does it work?

 

Dom's list was based on his idea/belief that The Elements, rather than being one track with four parts, would instead be a suite of separate songs - this explains why Vegetables and Wind Chimes are listed separately on the Dec track list, rather than the more probable explanation that Brian just never finished the Elements one track suite, with Fire being the only completed Element. From this he went on to presume there would be an "Elements" side, and an Americana side.

In his book he criticizes the BWPS track order saying "one odd thing about the release of BWPS . . . was a change in the original sequencing of pieces." Interesting that somehow he and no one else is privy to the original sequencing. Because of Carol Kaye saying that Brian told her I Wanna Be Around/Friday Night was "rebuilding after the fire" he says IWB/FN should follow Fire as a coda. Session tapes reveal Carol mentions, and laughs, rebuilding after the Fire during the session, not Brian, and since the session was the day after Fire it may have seemed an appropriate comment but certainly not proof of any intention of Brian to link the tracks together.

Then he says it was a "historical faux pas" to put Great Shape (along with IWBA/FN) to lead off the Elements because Great Shape belongs with Barnyard as shown by the Humble Harv Miller piano demo on Endless Harmony. This was true at that time (Nov 66) but as there was no completed original sequence, Great Shape can go anywhere Brian and Darian decide it should go. And he says BWPS loses "some of its 1966 flavor" because Love to Say Dada had followed Workshop ( again, how he knows this original sequence is never explained).

Furthermore in order to include more material and to give credence to his claim that Smile was essentially finished, he argues that much of Smile was meant to be instrumental and Holidays/On a Holiday and LTSD/Blue Hawaii would not have had lyrics, so BWPS gives a false impression compared to the completed 67 album Dom believes would have been released.

 

Not really. I've read that's Carl's handwriting on the note, not Brian's. Forget where.

 

It's alright. It sounds even further from the Three Movement BWPS and as just a collection of 12 songs. It also seems to fall apart in the second half, because the first half are all the more completed/blueprinted songs and the later half were either in flux structurally or as-yet-unrecorded. It's an interesting listen though.

I will say "The Old Master Painter" with the False Barnshine fade is a really cool ending to SMiLE though. But then it's not on the ending of "Heroes and Villains", so one would have to accommodate that.

 

Prayer
Worms
Wind Chimes
works very well as an opening sequence. Good Vibrations/Cabinessence also works. Heroes and Surf's Up don't work in that order for me.

 

It isn't listed on the handwritten note, though, and I think it's due to the fact that it was going to be included as part of one of the tracks that was listed-whether it's H&V or Surf's Up, or whatever else Brian was thinking that day!

 

Also, I've always wondered about the parentheses that are around TOMP, and then scratched out.

 

It's interesting to think which parts would be used where. If Brian never finished "Good Vibrations," how many of us would have sworn he would have used the "hum-be-dah" part, a la the Smile Sessions version?

 

I've always liked the way the names of the different sections. "Bridge To Indians", "Bag Of Tricks", "Whistling Bridge". Especially back before I knew what any of them were.

 

Gotta think that if SMILE had been released in 1967 that GV would have opened side 2 as the big, popular, previously released single. That's as good a guess as any, so I like this tracklist better than ending with GV.

 

My memory is foggy here, but didn't Priore (or another BB biographer) claim that Brian Wilson asembled, or attempted to assemble, a side one reel at some point?

I also always think of the stories of the tape vault searches where stuff is cut out of the reels and unaccounted for. I wonder what light those missing bits of tape might shed on the Smile mystery if they were ever recovered.

 

Could be a crazy idea, but do you think Brian himself has a stash of tapes even he doesn't know about?