Smiley Smile vs. Smile

As much as I love Smile for all its groundbreaking nature, I prefer Smiley Smile because it's weirder and home made.

And also because it's sort of a self sabotage instead of what was originally planned.

I love weirdness in music.

 

I thought Smiley Smile was a lot of stoned fun...and then I heard the original versions of Wonderful and Wind Chimes.

Oh my God, my jaw dropped in wonder. SMiLE, without a moment’s hesitation.

 

For most every track that was used on Smiley Smile, if there's a SMiLE era version(s) then there's a Smile era version that I prefer. Certainly for what to me are three of the four really major new works, Surf's Up, Cabinessence, and Wonderful. I will go so far as to say that the Smiley Smile version of Wonderful sounds like an embarrassed jokey attempt at taking on the song, while the song itself is one of my favorite works of art ever created. Also, I just can't with having Good Vibrations on the album. I don't imagine that if Brian had been able to keep it together, he would have used such an old single on the LP when he had so much wonderful new material to choose from. Good Vibrations has always felt substantially less mature to me than what he (w/ Parks) was going for on the Smile stuff. Smiley Smile does have the great single version of Heroes and Villains, and other gems, and if it were all we had, then it'd be great enough.

The question of just what exactly is SMiLE (the boots, which boot, Brian's 2004 solo reconstruction, the eventual release from the box set, the box set, something else, something never…) remains.

Decades (!!!!) ago, pre-iTunes etc, using my Philips CD recorder, I took all the then-officially released sources for SMiLE and Smiley Smile tracks and compiled my personal favorites, called it Smiley While, and gave copies to a few friends, mostly all of whom were surprised or even stunned by how great this stuff is. I've held this personal collection dear to me ever since; it remains my "go-to" way to hear this material. Not many years ago, as my then girlfriend and I had just finished listening to the newly released official take on the Smile album (tracks 1 thru 19 of Smile Sessions box set) in a very Beach Boys setting (driving up the California coast) she says - I still prefer that compilation you made. She gave her reasons. I felt the same. My compilation relies mostly on disc two of the Good Vibrations box, which was such a treasure trove when issued.

So, a little off-topic, and definitely not an attempt to create an actual Smile playlist, but rather a thoughtful order of highlights, my selections are below for anyone who might enjoy a listen. A few years ago, I wrote a blogpost about how much I love this Smile stuff and golly even made a front and back cover, and after looking around web found almost everything on Grooveshark (which I otherwise did not use) and posted a playlist and found, at the time, every track for sale at 7digital & provided a link for every song for readers who wanted to buy the tracks and assemble the playlist. Grooveshark has long since shut down, and the 7digital links are broken, but Beach Boys fans on this forum probably have the actual CDs. Here's that blog -

Library Industries: Smiley While

and here's my decades-old personally selected and sequenced list of all my favorite officially released versions of Smile and Smiley Smile numbers prior to the 2011 box set which, it turns out, are still my favorites:

01} Heroes And Villians (demo w/ Van Dyke Parks) 2:23 from "Endless Harmony Soundtrack"
02} Fall Breaks And Back To Winter (Woody Woodpecker Symphony) 2:18 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer #
03} She's Goin' Bald 2:17 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer ^
04} Little Pad 2:29 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer #
05} Vegetables Promo 0:55 from "Hawthorne, CA: Birthplace Of A Musical Legacy" (Disc 2)
06} Cabinessence (Track Only) 3:58 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 5)
07} Heroes And Villians 3:37 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer
08} Wind Chimes 2:33 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)
09} Heroes And Villians (intro) 0:36 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)
10} Surf's Up (track only) 1:41 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 5)
11} With Me Tonight 2:17 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer #
12} Gettin' Hungry 2:27 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer ~
13} Whistle In 1:05 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer #
14} Our Prayer 1:07 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2) #
15} Heroes And Villians (alternate version) 2:57 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)
16} Heroes And Villians (sections) 6:41 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)
17} Wonderful 2:03 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)
18} Cabinessence 3:32 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)
19} Do You Like Worms 4:01 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)
20} Vegetables 3:30 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)
21} I Love To Say Da Da 1:35 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2) #
22} Surf's Up 3:39 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)
23} You're Welcome 1:07 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer #
all songs by Brian Wilson/Van Dyke Parks except # by Brian Wilson; ^ by B. Wilson/Love/Parks; ~ by Brian Wilson/Love

 

Best way to listen to SMiLE is on a hissy bootleg w/ several wrong-era tracks like Can't Wait Too Long, Water Chant, Indian Wisdom and With Me Tonight scattered throughout.

 

I love both versions, but I find the Smiley Smile version to be haunting and wonderful. It depends on the day which one I prefer. The Smile version is beautiful but I like the weird place that he took it on Smiley Smile. I feel the same about Wind Chimes. If Smile happened we would probably never have any of the Smiley Smile versions. I'm glad we have both. I also prefer Vegetables in its Smiley Smile version.

 

Shameless plug, but here me out. The best way to listen to Smile is to ‘roll your own’ and inadvertently empathize with Wilson by embarking on his task - creating a 12-track musical journey from Plymouth Rock to Hawaii. “Good Vibrations” would start the LP, being on the front-cover and a momentous single in late 1966, and “Surf’s Up” would close affairs just as Michael Vosse remembered. Here’s where things get complicated. By 1967, most of the material was in the can, say, for a few vocals; but the issue was how Wilson was going to sequence his ‘feels’. Obviously, he discarded that effort instead to focus on making “Heroes & Villains” the new single to triumph “Good Vibrations”, so we only have his activities in 1966 to look at. I looked at a tape he compiled December that year, acetates he distributed that were in the possession of Durrie Parks, and journalists’ accounts on his progress for the album. The result was a sprawl in sequence of ‘feels’ that are in no sense formulated, but sound cohesive when presented in my approximation, available in mono and stereo. Here is my track order.

1. Good Vibrations
2. Wind Chimes
3. Heroes & Villains
4. Cabin Essence
5. The Elements
6. Vega-Tables
7. Wonderful
8. Child is Father of The Man
9. The Old Master Painter — You Are My Sunshine
10. Do You Like Worms
11. I’m In Great Shape
12. Surf’s Up

Oh, yes. Smile is way better than it’s smilier cousin.

 

I think GV was included per Capitol's request. Actually, despite the credits, Brian was by then pretty much in charge of the sessions, as tapes show. He just retired from the competition with The Beatles. Ironically, SS would end up beign a highly influential album: a lo-fi pioneer. And like Smile, both SS and Wild Honey are modular records: pretty much everything was recorded in sections and then spliced togheter.

Neither Surf's Up or Cabinessence were finished by then.
Carl recorded his lead for Cabinessence and assembled the sections for 20/20. SU wasn't finished until 1971, although Brian recorded another piano and voice version during the WH sessions.

 

Mine is:

Our Prayer (20/20)
Heroes And Villains (smiley smile)
Do You Like Worms? (smile)
Vegetables (smiley smile)
Fall Breaks And Back To Winter
Little Pad
Surf's Up (surf's up)

Wind Chimes
I'm In Great Shape (smile)
Wonderful (smiley smile)
You Are My Sunshine
Cabin Essence
Good Vibrations (smile)
Well, You're Welcome

.

 

Does anyone know if the mastering on the 2011 assembly from the box set is close enough to any of the Smiley Smile reissues to produce seamless transitions between the songs without having jarring sonic differences between the songs? If so, I've got a project to dig in on.

 

I respectfully disagree. Brian was NOT "pretty out of it" at that point. He was very much in control and very much calling the shots. The "Produced by The Beach Boys" credit is in name only. Brian was trying to make some point, but Smiley Smile was produced by Brian Wilson.

 

Smiley Smile is my all-time favorite album. Been so since the early '70s. I prefer most of the versions of the Smile songs on it. But, they are the versions I heard first.
I sometimes think Smile would have been the best album ever made, had it been made. It is breathtaking in its scope, expansiveness and musical connectedness. Sometimes I think Smile is the best album ever made, but Smiley Smile will always be my favorite.

 

If we're gonna pit tomatoes against tomatos I gotta pick tomatoes... but I agree with this sentiment ^

as well as the idea of having "Smiley Smiled" versions of Cabinessence, Surf's Up, or Do You Like Worms?... that would have been a strange and wonderful terraplane...

 

I never thought of that. What a weird alternative universe. If only.

 

Yeah, the producer credit issue is so weird and it's tiresome to have to explain to people that it doesn't actually represent a changing of the guard, even though the new stuff sounds nothing like that old stuff. I see it as an unsolicited conciliatory gesture by Brian as he felt he'd reached a dead-end with studio hands and goofing around with the Vosse Posse, but who knows?

 

Maybe the real SMiLE was the friends we made along the way...

 

SS seems more psychedelic to me than Smile. Smile seems closer to prog rock. I also agree that Brian mostly produced SS. It sounds similar to his live in Hawaii album.

 

Like footsteps fading in the sand... each brush a waltz in a world of new, and seamless patchwork into view.

 

Brian Wilson Presents Smile is my go-to version. I saw him & The Wondermints perform it live in Frankfurt, and it was sheer magic, and that is why I have to choose that one.

 

You need both, really. I prefer BWPS. since it's complete. Maybe this should be an option.

 

Smiley Smile is such a strange sounding album that I've always thought that that could have been the legendary unreleased album. Smile sounds more conventional to me by comparison---like some cross between Pet Sounds and Smiley Smile.

 

Although I prefer the Beach Boys versions, without BWPS there's a good chance we wouldn't have the Smile Sessions. I was spellbound when I first heard BWPS.

 

Voting for roll-your-own-SMiLE based off of what might have actually been released in 1967

 

If anything Brian Wilson Presents Smile broke the spell for me.

 

I would make-my-own mixture of Smile & Smiley Smile.

 

Even in its unfinished state, I find SMiLE, both musically and conceptually, to be a far more satisfying listen by a wide margin, although I do prefer the Smiley version of Wind Chimes as well as Fall Breaks over O'Leary's Cow.