By Billy Florio
Feb. 20, 2004, will go down in history as the day hell froze over. It was the day the legendary album SMiLE was played in its complete version, for all to hear for the first time ever, the way it’s creators wanted it to.Brian Wilson’s masterpiece follow up to the Beach Boys 1966 SMiLE, has been considered the greatest unfinished non-released album ever. The project was abandoned in 1967 when growing pressures on Wilson forced him to shut down production, and reportedly burn the master tapes so no one would ask him if it ever would be finished.
But Feb. 20, at Royal Festival Hall in England marked the first of 16 shows on Brian’s SMiLE Tour of Europe in which he performed the completed SMiLE before sold out crowds. After 37 years, fans finally got to hear Wilson’s and V. D. Parks’ vision, and put an end to the speculation of SMiLE.
The history of SMiLE begins in 1965. The Beatles had just released an album called Rubber Soul, that changed the music scene drastically. Brian Wilson was in awe by this more “mature” music, and wanted to do an album just like it. In 1966, the Beach Boys put out SMiLE, their reaction to Rubber Soul. Beach Boy Mike Love and Wilson shook on an agreement that they would do one album of “Brian Music” and then go back to “fun in the sun” pop. Wilson teamed up with lyricist Tony Asher and wrote songs for SMiLE including “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “God Only Knows” and “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times.”
The Beatles heard SMiLE, and feeling the same way Wilson did, created their follow up, Revolver. Revolver took what was done on Rubber Soul and SMiLE and added to it, prompting Wilson to try and do better. He was planning to create an album that would top even Revolver. He was planning SMiLE.
At the end of the SMiLE sessions in April of 1966, Wilson finished recording a song called “Good Vibrations.” The songs vocal harmonies and weird psychedelic music were like nothing anyone ever heard before. The song was a precursor for what would appear on SMiLE. Tony Asher penned the original lyrics to “Good Vibrations” (the “She’s already working on my brain” lyrics heard on demos) but Wilson didn’t approve, so he asked a lyricist that he had met named Van Dyke Parks to rewrite them. Parks refused and Mike Love eventually wrote the lyrics everyone knows, but Parks became an important collaborator on SMiLE, co-writing the lyrics to most of its songs.
Around August 1966, Wilson officially started the SMiLE sessions. The original name of the album was “Dumb Angel.” Wilson changed it to SMiLE because he thought it sounded happier. He described this album as “a teenage sympathy to God,” which he had broken down into three movements (2 of which only came to be known with his completion of the album). The first is based around Americana. The second movement was focused around childhood and the final movement was considered the most legendary and genius part of SMiLE. It was based around the elements. Brian Wilson was to create a symphony based upon fire, water, air and earth, the four elements. It would be four songs tied together to finish the album.
The Americana movement (and album) begins with “Our Prayer,” a short spiritual opening to the album. It then goes into the song that was the centerpiece of the album, “Heroes and Villains.” “Heroes and Villains” was Wilson and Parks’ mini-symphony, with a theme that would repeat throughout the album in one form or another. The version that was supposed to appear on SMiLE is very different than the released version on Smiley Smile. Wilson used various harmonies and layers of music to parallel “Good Vibrations,” and give it the term the Jimmy Hendrix used to describe it: “Psychedelic Barbershop Quartet.”
There are different versions of “Heroes and Villains” on bootlegs. One is a nine-minute version that makes use of the Crows song “Gee” (a.k.a. “How I Love My Girl”). There is a demo version that has part of “I’m In Great Shape,” and there’s a rumored part two. According to the session musicians, Wilson was planning “Heroes and Villains” to be released as a double-sided single incorporating the “In The Cantina” and “Fake Barnyard” parts as part one, and part two to be a different arrangement of the theme with “Gee” and “Bicycle Rider” and grunting of the title line.
The next track(s) is the “Barnyard Suite,” four songs strung together to depict farm life. Animal noises, and hammer percussion were used throughout the four songs. These songs are allegedly titled “Do You Like Worms,” “Barnyard,” “Heroes and Villains” and “Bicycle Rider.” Brian claims that this suite was never finished. The next song was a short instrumental, “The Old Master Painter” and a dark past tense rendition of “You Are My Sunshine.” The movement ends with “Cabinessense.” The Childhood movement starts with “Wonderful,” and then merges through “Look/I Ran” (which plays on the “Good Vibrations” theme) into “Child Is Father Of The Man.” The movement ends with the song Leonard Bernstein called the most beautiful song ever written, “Surf’s Up.” “Surf’s Up” was Wilson’s “A Day In The Life.” During the recording of this a trumpet piece called “George Fell Into His French Horn” was recorded, but it’s doubtful this was meant to be used on the album.
The Elements movement begins with the song “I’m In Great Shape.” The only recorded version of this has never been heard due to a lost master tape, but serves as the intro to “The Workshop Song,” which incorporates Johnny Mercer’s “I Wanna Be Around” and “Friday Night,” and midway through, the musicians start playing hammers and saws as percussion. Workshop is the intro to the supposed Earth piece of the suite, “Vega-tables,” and features as the only percussion on the song, Paul McCartney biting into a carrot. McCartney had come into the studio to play “A Day In The Life” for Wilson from the Beatles’ upcoming Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
The “Air” part of the elements starts with the transition piece “Holidays” (also called “Tones/Tune X”). It segues into “Wind Chimes,” which along with “Vega-tables,” is listed separately on the album’s track listing apart from the Elements Suite. The “Fire” part is represented by “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow,” during which supposedly Brian forced the musicians to wear fire helmets. The song is also legendary because during the recording of it, a number of fires broke out around the studio, and n his LSD state, Wilson got frightened that he was causing them, and stopped recording it out of fear. The “Water” part comes last, starting with “The Water Chant” and going into “I Love to Say Da Da” (which some believe is suppose to be the Air part).
Other songs were recorded during the sessions but were questionable if meant to be included. “He Gives Speeches” is a segment that supposedly was part of “Wonderful,” but appears as the song “She’s Going Bald” on Smiley Smile. “Well, You’re Welcome” is an a cappella track that was used as the B-side to the “Heroes and Villains” single. “With Me Tonight” was a fragment that was later used as its own song, and “Been Way Too Long” was combined with part of “Wind Chimes” and changed to “Can’t Wait Too Long.”
Four-hundred-thousand album covers were produced, but during the recording, problems arose. Love as well as Bruce Johnson and Al Jardine didn’t appreciate another album of “Brian Music” being made. The Beach Boys sued Capital over royalties, and delayed the release deadline. Parks got into an argument with Mike Love over the lyrics to H&V, and walked out, and Brian started going more and more insane, and in May 1967, abandoned the project. Capital tried to convince him to finish it, but in June, the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Wilson gave up entirely.
As Wilson fell into the background, the other Beach Boys (notably Carl Wilson) salvaged much of his recordings and made Smiley Smile, an album that was nowhere near what SMiLE was. “Heroes and Villains,” “Vegetables,” “She’sGoing Bald,” “With Me Tonight,” “Wind chimes,” “Wonderful” and “Whistle In” all feature segments of material recorded during SMiLE. More and more reworked material appeared on later releases, such as “Mama Says” (a segment of “Vega-tables”) on “Wild Honey,” “Our Prayer” and “Cabinessense,” as well as “Do It Again” (Which uses the clanging from “Workshop”) on “20/20.” “The Water Chant/Cool Cool Water” on “Sunflower” and “Surf’s Up” with a “CIFOTM” coda on “Surf’s Up.”
Wilson retreated from producing, and refused to talk about SMiLE or when it might be finished. Finally, in June 2003, he announced that he and Parks have finished the album and will be performing it with the LA group the Wondermints on tour. The thing that no one ever thought would happen finally did… pigs have flown and SMiLE is finished.
Recently, Brian Wilson performed the previously un-heard SMiLE album in itsentirety before sisteen sold out crowds on his “SMiLE Tour” in Europe.