Mujan's Complete "Thesis" On Smile

Chapter 2: SMiLE Odds and Ends


In this essay, I'm going to look beyond the music of SMiLE and see what the auxiliary materials (including the "replacement" Smiley Smile) reveal about the album.


The Name

Personally, I prefer the title "Dumb Angel" to SMiLE. It's more thought provoking and sounds cooler to the uninformed. I know Ive tried to turn people onto this music before, and if the Beach Boys didn't turn them off, the name "Smile" certainly did.

Dumb Angel makes me think of a messenger of spirituality thats unwilling or unable to speak directly about their creed. And in this case, that means expressing the message indirectly via music and the subtle themes in the album. Alternatively I think of it as an angel that's seen Heaven, but is too stupid to find it again, so it's searching in all directions, symbolizing the many ideologies Brian incorporated into the album. In this interpretation, the album with all its contradictory influences, themes and moods is that journey back to Heaven/Enlightenment. I think that describes the music and its intentions perfectly. It's really easy to imagine all this somber music, Our Prayer, the references to Indian Churches and Surfs Up on an album called Dumb Angel.

SMiLE isn't a horrible title but it's not particularly great either. It's a simple and childish name for an album (half) about childhood innocence and humor. Besides Heroes, Veggies and (possibly) the Psychedelic Sounds skits, there's really not that much that's humorous about this music. Most of it is pretty melancholy, thought provoking, guilt inducing, and some (Fire) is downright scary. That said, SMiLE still works albeit as an ironic title. And I've always thought of it as a reference to Timothy Leary's psychedelia-inspired philosophy of S.M.I.²L.E.--Space Migration, Increased Intelligence, Life Extension. The first side is about white settlers migrating across the physical space of America, the second side is about the cycle of life, and all throughout are references to some intellectual figures or philosophies. In that context it works...if perhaps coincidentally. 

This is a BWPS-era Brian quote, so take it with a grain of salt, but Brian did also say the lowercase "i" was intentional. Supposedly it was supposed to be about ego death, making the "I" less of a focus compared to others. Ego death is a central component to the psychedelic experience, and therefore I find that fitting as well. The album is largely about how your actions effect others, perhaps in ways you wouldn't immediately consider. For example, the Americana tracks are about the effects of the settlers on the Indians and nature itself. Wonderful is perhaps the somber, girl's POV of the relationship in GV, where for her it wasn't always so lovely. CIFOTM could be about how children have a lot to teach us--and if not, that's certainly what Surf's Up is trying to convey. The album is about understanding the wider world, the perspectives of other people, and the deep body of philosophical thought out there most people don't bother to study. With all this in mind, I can say that the spelling "SMiLE" is meaningful and part of this project's identity, hence why I make a point to use that spelling throughout my essays. 


The Cover

My initial impression of the cover (from a low res picture on the wikipedia page) was disappointment. It was such a boring simplistic image, with nothing trippy about it. I felt the exact same way when I saw the Pet Sounds cover for the first time. However, unlike PS, SMiLE's soon grew on me and has come to be one of my favorite album covers ever. I found that the more I learned about the themes of this project, the more the drawing fit like a glove. How Brian wanted to appeal to younger audiences and Surfs Up ends with children as the justification for putting up with the bullshit in life.

Like the name SMiLE, I find the childish cover to be ironic and perhaps intentionally subversive of expectation. Imagine all those teen girls picking up this happy looking record and being exposed to Fire and Worms. Putting a symphony to God (even just a rock album in general) in this childish picture you'd least expect was supposed to take people aback and force you to think. I think it was supposed to make you question your preconceived notions of what rock music, and a "symphony to God" could and should be.

The cover works much better with the name SMiLE than Dumb Angel, which makes me wonder if this had an effect on the name change. The idea of a literal store that sells happiness is either a beautiful naive fantasy or a cynical critique on Capitalism depending on your interpretation. Considering this album celebrates childhood innocence while also challenging every other institution and belief in our modern society, it could go either way. In fact, I think it was supposed to work both ways, where you initially perceive it the previous meaning and only consider the darker implications after the first listen. I can think of no other album artwork which has provoked even half as much analysis.

Overall its an amazing cover, one of my favorites in any album, and the perfect compliment to this music.


The Tracklist/Booklet

I don't have the booklet handy with me, nor can I find a scan online so this section is going to be pretty general. I think all the pictures of the Beach Boys were meant to be off-putting with how we've known them up to this point. They're called the BEACH Boys, and up to now on all the covers (and promos) they've been at the beach and in warm, sunny climates. In the SMiLE booklet we see them in colder locales, which looks like fish out of water. It's once again all about subverting your expectations of what a Beach Boys album could and should be, who the Beach Boys are, and therefore getting you to open your mind to new possibilities. Michael Vosse confirms this intention in his articles, and you can see it for yourself in the results.

The Brian portrait by the mirror with black bars shadowing his face is my favorite picture of him that I've ever seen. I think it's the perfect visual metaphor for how he must have felt during the SMiLE Era--pulled in two different directions at once and imprisoned by expectations as well as self-imposed standards. I think on some level, even an unconscious one, Brian wanted that picture in there for this reason. Notice how in this crucial centerfold image, Brian isn't smiling--in fact he looks downright miserable.

The Frank Holmes illustrations are suitably abstract...by putting to picture the lyrics exactly as they're written on the page. Another interesting contradiction borne out of this project's material. On the surface level they're just some trippy pictures for a trippy album, however deep down it's communicating that you're NOT supposed to take the lyrics too literally. Everything has a symbolic meaning, is a pun, or is meant to evoke a mood. Now that's I've read a synopsis of The Little Prince, I also think they're meant to fulfill the same purpose as a drawing in that story. More on that below. 

The back cover has symbols of all the astrological signs on it, and because of this I don't think my theories about astrological connections (and Aquarian Age values) in the music are unfounded. Clearly it was important to Brian and he wanted that to be on your mind when you see the tracks. I love the way this grandiose symphony to God has so many silly or unexpected song titles like "Do You Like Worms." That humorous subversion of expectations (notice how often I'm using this phrase) was intentional. I got the opportunity recently to give my thoughts on the tracklist's viability in another thread. I'll just add that I believe while these 12 tracks represent the intended songs on the album, I do think the list order reads like someone coming up with them off the top of their head. They knew Worms was first for sure so they put that, then listed off the big tracks like Heroes and Surf's Up, and finally they got down to the less conspicuous ones. In short, the tracks themselves are genuine, but the list doesn't represent anything close to a true intended playing order. The explicitly clear disclaimer confirms this. 

The one and only fault with the entire SMiLE presentation is the shot of the group on the back. They should have went with the picture of Brian holding a picture of all the other members. Really anything else would have been fine. 


Smiley Smile

I personally get the impression from the sources that Smiley Smile was closely related to SMiLE despite their differences. 

I think the change between them amounted to abandoning the songs that were more VDP's brainchildren/couldn't be finished without him. Worms, Cabin Essence, CIFOTM, Surf's Up, OMP. Elements and IIGS, the two most mysterious SMiLE tracks, the ones Brian couldn't finish and which broke his focus on the album, are also gone. A lot of the intellectual themes and references are gone because trying to fit them all in is made SMiLE harder to finish. The new bridge in Wonderful seems to poke fun at those lofty goals by saying: "don't think you're god, just be a cool guy." Brian didn't want to be the Dumb Angel anymore, it was too much work for too much trouble. So he resigned himself to just do a regular, non-pretentious album. In that sense, Smiley Smile is the self-sabotage that the Catch a Wave biography and other fans have claimed it to be. 

But as several people on the old SS forum have said, the SMiLE sessions were trending towards a more stripped down approach anyway. I do think Brian, reluctantly or not, resentfully or not, took his bandmates' criticisms and reworked the concept beginning in January '67 at least partially in consideration for their concerns. Perhaps once that seal was broken, he realized that it would look like stagnation or incompetence on his part if he put out an album that had regressed from the complexities of Pet Sounds. Especially after all the hype. That's why Smiley Smile is so far in the other direction--it had to look like a deliberate and unflinching decision NOT to participate in the production race that Brian himself had started. All the SMiLE tracks that were finished and/or more Brian's than VDP's were kept along with some later '67 feels (With Me Tonight for example) plus some new stuff from Mike, to throw him a bone. 

I've heard some fans as well as Anderle claim that Smiley represented bridging SMiLE and the vague humor album together into one. Personally I think this "humor album" was creeping into Dumb Angel from at least November 4. It wasn't a clear break between "SMiLE had no humor, Smiley does" so much as "November had some humorous skits...then there was going to be talking in All Day...then 'you're under arrest'...then a sillier Veggies with humorous overdubs...then Smiley." I've been saying for the last few years online that Smiley and SMiLE are a lot more similar than most "SMiLE-fans, Smiley detractors" want to admit. I even once went so far as to say that if you don't like Smiley, you probably wouldn't have liked SMiLE as much as you think you would. 

With all that in mind, I wouldn't say it's the humor that separates the two, or (arguably) even the minimalist sound. It's the abandonment of modular recording and the Wrecking Crew. The stereo versions reveal the complexity of the Smiley productions, it's just that this time around it was the Beach Boys doing it in Brian's house. It's recorded among friends in a calm environment while having fun. It's still a trip, just in a more relaxed set and setting after a year of a stressful bad vibrations in the studios. Mistakes or idiosyncracies ("Good!" in WMT, laughing in Little Pad, pouring a drink in Veggies for example) are not just kept in but encouraged to capture that more friendly, nothing-to-prove atmosphere. It had to look like a deliberate, unapologetic counterpoint to Pet Sounds or else it would appear as though they'd merely failed to meet the challenge.

I understand people who would ignore what I'm going to say next, but I choose to interpret the Smiley tracklist as a significant. Heroes and Veggies and Vega-Tables* are right next to each other because they sounded so similar on SMiLE, had the most humor and were closely related during the '67 sessions. They're paired with the redone, calmed Fire (Fall Breaks) and redone sillier He Gives Speeches (She's Going Bald). I personally see this as a clue--as I've said before and demonstrated on my Romestamo mix, I think these tracks would have been on Side 1 of SMiLE. (While I don't think it ever would have made the cut, He Gives Speeches also pretty clearly would have been more at home on the Americana side than Cycle of Life.) I feel the same way about Side 2 of Smiley, which has Wind Chimes, Wonderful, Good Vibes and With Me Tonight. All the slower, softer, moodier tracks. I feel this also, is the way it would have been done on SMiLE, with a core of Wonderful/GV/Wind Chimes/CIFOTM/Surf's Up. I feel if Wind Chimes were really an element it would have been closer to Veggies and Elements/Fall Breaks on the Smiley tracklist, especially since other closely related tracks like Heroes and Veggies were put so close together. 

*Notice too how Veggies is renamed Vegetables from Vega-Tables, because Brian took out all the astrological/Aquarian Age symbolism and virtue-signaling in this new Smiley Smile framework. Vega, again, is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, an Eagle gripping a lyre, representing Americana music in the constellations. In Smiley it's just a funny weird song about vegetables with no greater theme or messaging to it. This crucial change is mirrored across all other tracks in the album.


The Singles

I got the opportunity to give my opinion of the singles earlier in the thread. I think Jason's chronology is perfect, and I talk about what I think Brian ought to have done instead. I'll just add that besides being easy to crank out and having the TV demo as free advertising, Surf's Up would have been great because it's the same subversion of expectations as the album as a whole. Imagine all the radio jockeys announcing "the hit new single from the Beach Boys--Surf's Up!" and the general public thinking "oh boy, like we haven't gotten enough of that before" and then being totally blown away by this new sound and far more provocative lyrics than ever before. That's the kind of thing that would have blown some minds and drummed up even more buzz on the album. It would have been the perfect counterpoint to GV which has simple lyrics but the most inventive music yet. Trying to make Heroes, a song with an uncommercial sound and structure into the flagship single was absolutely the wrong call. This crucial decision led to months of wasted effort, cannibalizing (and therefore destabilizing) the entire album and crushing Brian's confidence when it inevitably disappointed in sales. Remaking Wonderful and Dada for the B-sides was also a foolish, futile effort. Brian had two outtakes in the can with Holidays and Look. Why not just use them instead? 


The Little Prince

There's several literary works said to have helped inspire SMiLE. The biggest of these is supposed to be The Little Prince, written by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. So I thought I'd look into that and see if there were any obvious parallels in SMiLE. I found the description of a drawing in the beginning of the story to be very significant--a snake that ate an elephant, yet all adults perceive it to be a hat. Only the titular little prince identifies it correctly, and the narrator who drew the picture sees this as proof that children have an innate ability for perception which adults lack. I see this theme mirrored in the childlike drawings of Frank Holmes, both the SMiLE shop cover and the booklet illustrations.

The little prince himself has come from a distant planet where he cares for a rose, which I see as a parallel to SMiLE's love of nature and giving a voice to the delicate things and people whom our society continues to hurt. On the prince's journey to Earth, he stopped at several other planets, each parodying some aspect of adult society. Considering SMiLE also parodies or outright condemns so many elements of our society and history, I think the influence is obvious. Finally, the prince learns on Earth that roses are common, and thereafter feels downcast that his rose wasn't special. A Fox tells him his rose is, in fact, special because it's the object of his love and dedication--essentially "it has value to you and that's what matters." I think of this as another theme on SMiLE, that every individual person and especially every child has inherent value despite how numerous we are.  


The (Theoretical) Impact

Pet Sounds was top 10 in the charts and the sales were underreported so it did even better than we think. GV was a #1 hit record. The Capitol hype for SMiLE was huge and it was the beginning of the "Brian is a genius" campaign. The group was just voted best in the world by a popular British magazine. Surfs Up was demoed on TV where it was presented as the future of pop music. Yes, SMiLE is very abstract and far out but that was in vogue come 1966 and especially 1967. It was the kind of music that was literally perfect for the time. There is no way in hell SMiLE would have bombed, or even been a disappointment. If released in January, or even as late as early May, I think it had a solid shot at going #1. At least as good a chance as any previous Beach Boys album. Probably better, given all the unprecedented preamble. 

Saying it was "too weird" just doesn't make sense to me. People would have bought it on the Beach Boys name alone--this was before their name became toxic for a few years. (In fact, it was SMiLE's non-release and the no-show at Monterey which ruined their reputation in the first place.) Any old fans turned off by the new sound would be replaced by those that loved it as was the case with the Beatles. Pointing to Forever Changes or other arty albums as proof it would have flopped is misguided. In this case, Love was unknown outside of Southern California. They almost never toured. Other underground psychedelic classics have similar stories--they had no built-in audience or massive marketing campaign as the Beach Boys enjoyed. 

Pointing to Smiley is also misguided. That came out in September, long after the GV boost had died, the Capitol hype ended, the Boys no-showed at Monterey and ruined their reputation and so on. Smiley was also rerecorded in a really weird, stripped down, stoned style that was completely against the trend of big psychedelic extravaganzas. The people wanted wild psychedelic arrangements and burning guitars played by cool, vaguely dangerous men like Hendrix. Or sexy bad boys (girls) with an air of mystery to them like Jim Morrison and Grace Slick. At least by that point they did. Smiley wasn't cool in a way that SMiLE would have been, and came out at the worst possible time where SMiLE had everything possible going for it.

As for the argument that SMiLE would have flopped because vocal groups were going out...I'd agree. Post Monterey. Honestly I think the turning point was Hendrix and Janis Joplins debuts there. Before that, I don't think it would have mattered much. They still could've gotten away with not playing on their own album/not having that badass guitar shredding on their album in the first half of 1967. The Beatles managed just fine with the same "handicaps" in May. And yes, I do actually think the Boys were about on the same level of respect at the time that they too would have pulled it off. 

I think SMiLE's immediate success depends on when in 1967 it's released. If in January 1967, I think it would have been huge. Like, #1 a million units shipped, huge. If it had taken until April, May or June then the answer's a bit less definite. I still think it would've been a great success, but probably not the unprecedented smash hit it could have been. In this scenario, many other bands would've already released their great psychedelic opuses, and the competition with Sgt Pepper would be imminent and fierce. I think Pepper would've outsold it for the simple fact that they're the Beatles and because Pepper is dumbed down crap (oh, excuse me, I mean uh... "more easily accessible") but SMiLE probably would've still been a top ten (at the very least top 20) record. 

If it came out when, say, Smiley did in real life (September) THEN I think you'd have the overlooked gem that a lot of people say SMiLE was doomed to be had it been released. In this scenario, the Beatles would've been seen as the clear victors in the "production race" rightly or wrongly. The Boys would've missed Monterey still, which was a HUGE blow to their reputation in the US. New up and coming giants like Hendrix, Joplin, the Who, the Doors and many others would've rendered them irrelevant. In this scenario, I see SMiLE being largely overlooked by the contemporary press and selling at #30 or so on the charts. Just a rough guess. 

In any case, the long term success is the same. Initially somewhat overshadowed by Pepper but comes to be regarded as THE great album of the year and the best psychedelic statement. Think Pet Sounds, and that growing appreciation and eventual enduring legacy which we associate with that album.

Chapter 3: Commentary & Reaction to the Psychedelic Sounds

The PS bootleg is an invaluable peek into the themes running thru Brian's mind during the height of the SMiLE Era, and in my opinion contains some rough working concepts for SMiLE. I'm going to do an instantaneous reaction and analysis as I listen to it again, in the same way I analyzed all the SMiLE tracks individually in Chapter 1.

Some background information (Liner Notes)

Recorded Friday November 4, 1966. Keith Badman’s “Beach Boys Diary” provides tons of details about this productive day. (see pp. 156-158) From 2:00 – 6:00 PM Brian supervised the first tracking session for Surf’s Up. Sometime after 6:00 Brian gathers Van Dyke Parks, Danny Hutton, Michael Vosse, and “Bob” to record some hip hippie hilarity. Sound quality is very good. (Apparently other versions of this collection w/ a few musical tracks are circulating.)

The discs we reviewed contain the above list of titles and the following notes:

“This double CD gathers all the spoken word recordings made by Brian Wilson during the SMiLE sessions of fall 1966. His main partners in crime are the gang of hangers on affectionately known as the ‘Vosse Posse’, the underlying insurgent intelligentsia that spurred Brian on to greatness and cleared the way for unchecked imagination. Of course, they were also just plain high. The main characters are David Anderle, LA scenester extraordinaire and head of the nascent Brother records label, Brian’s lyrist Van Dyke Parks, Anderle’s friend Michael Vosse, and journalists Jules Seigel and Paul Williams. Disc One (tracks 1-21) features a series of chants and vocal exercises that were found by Alan Boyd on a reel labeled ‘Psychedelic Sounds’, recorded Nov. 4, 1966. Some extremely short clips were included on the Hawthorne, CA release on Capitol Records, but now you can hear the entire reel for the first time. The recording dates for the remainder of the tracks here remain unknown, as does their purpose. ‘Taxi Cabber” (a title coined by the compiler of this CD) is a field recording that has long been rumored to exist and is available here for the first time. Other obscure pieces, such as the ones referred to as ‘Bob Gordon’s Real Trip’ and ‘Basketball Sounds’ also make debuts here.”

On Nov. 4, 1966, Brain was at the zenith of his creative utopia. Unfettered from all constraints, he pours open his ego completely; passionate music like Surf’s Up spews forth. He’s also at a commercial peak- the single Good Vibrations is a world-wide smash. This high continued for the next few weeks. However, his boys blew back in town on Monday, Nov. 28. The result of the boys’ return? Brain cuts the track Fire. Burn baby, burn.

Now, looking at the tracks one by one...

1. How's Your Foot

Not much to say about this one--you can definitely skip it. The idea of stomping on things, be it someone's foot or vegetables will be explored again later in the compilation with the Vegetable Arguments.

2. Brian Falls Into The Piano

This one is a lot more iconic for its inclusion on the boxset. This is the first and probably best of the "falls into an instrument" skits on this bootleg. The improv between Brian and Vosse is surprisingly on point. The rest of them just make idle comments on what Brian and Vosse do. You can tell Brian's trying to prolong and guide the conversation to explore as many different comedic elements this scenario could conceivably offer. It's charming but hardly something you're going to laugh out loud over.

During my time on SmileySmile, around when I made the Olorin mix (which used the PS skits extensively and between each track) I took the position that everything in the PS were working concepts for SMiLE. I thought that maybe these "falls into ___" skits might be humorous takes on what it's like to be a musician and "become one with the music." Since then, reading some of the primary sources' insistence on the idea of a separate "comedy album" I'm convinced now that was probably an extreme position on my part. It's not that the PS skits are Brian doing his own version of "We're Only In It For the Money" a year before WOIIFTM was released, as I'd wanted to believe back then. I now think the PS skits would probably be used sparingly on SMiLE. It's also important to note that the PS itself does not and was never meant to represent final completed tracks or pieces that would be mixed in with SMiLE. It's the working concepts Brian intended to refine with the Beach Boys and Wrecking Crew musicians later.

This "falls into ____" skit idea would be worked on with the Wrecking Crew during a professional recording session for Surf's Up just 3 days after this Nov 4 series of demos were taped. That session produced "George Fell Into His French Horn" which I personally like to include on my SMiLE mixes as an unlisted bonus track. Considering the Beach Boys inarguably included playful tracks in a similar vein to George Fell on all pre-Pet Sounds albums, it's hardly inconceivable to think they might do something similar on SMiLE. The "you're under arrest!" in H&V as well as Brian saying "we'll have a lot of talking in the pauses" during an All Day/Dada session also lend weight to the theory that at least one or two spoken word tracks or moments would appear in SMiLE.

3. Michael Falls In

An alternate take where Brian is the one speaking to someone else who's in the piano (Michael Vosse.) I suspect that this was done so Brian could explore possible improv lines he couldn't use as the person inside the piano. It's very short and no new comedic lines or scenarios present themselves here. You can definitely skip this track.

4. Look, It's Mary Poppins

The one guy's improv "look there's mary poppins!" is so random it's hilarious, though pretty much unusable in a SMiLE context. They appear to just be saying random things in vain attempts to get some decent improvised conversations going.

5. Brian Falls Into The Mic

Trying once again to make the "fell into ___" concept work. Cuts off quickly. This is another incidental track on the boot that you can skip.

6. You Just Wiped Out My Eardrum

The majority of the "Brian inside a microphone" skit actually occurs here. It's unclear if Brian just really loves the "falls in ___" setup or if, after the previous few tracks amounted to little, he decided to return to the only thing that netted good improv thus far to try to get something going again. It's also unclear whether the non-Vosse guys are supposed to be talking among themselves or if Brian's (in-character) observation is genuine hurt that they aren't playing along with this skit as he wants them to.

This skit is pretty successful at being funny because it takes an alternate approach where they can't tell Brian's in the mic, while in the piano they could understand and properly interact with him. Two interesting takes on the same idea.

7. Ice Cream Man's Good Vibrations

This skit seems to occur spontaneously as a result of someone tapping away at the piano, which prompts another person to exclaim "it's the ice cream man!" It's unclear whether the other skit setups, like the previous "someone falls into an instrument" series were born of improv as well. The fact that in a later track Brian will goad them into fighting and they don't want to is a clue that the other skits probably kernels Brian already had in his brain before involving the others and that makes Ice Cream Man the lone exception, the lone concept which the Posse invented on their own. Further evidence to this theory is that Brian recorded the "falls into instrument" idea with the Wrecking Crew 3 days later in the studio and the "humorously exaggerated petty argument" concept with Hal Blaine as well. Ice cream man was left completely on the cutting room floor.

That said, there's something about this setup I find appealing, even though it doesn't build to any big payoff nor is there any great improvised lines (just what I can only assume is a gay/dick joke that one of them wants something with a stick in it.) But the idea of some grown men running excitedly after an ice cream truck is funny in itself, especially with the implication that they're stoners and probably have the munchies. Trying to think of this in a SMiLE context, it could conceivably work well with the "Cycle of Life" tracks to illustrate innocent childhood excitement over the simple pleasures out there. Or maybe it could humorously express the idea that some things are forbidden to you when you're an adult. For example, when you're a kid you can't wait to be older and drive, drink or get in relationships...but nobody talks about how many adults would love to be able to go on a swing set or buy a fudgesicle from the ice cream man without people staring. If it had been explored more fully, I think this idea might have warranted being redone professionally in the studio as well.

After VDP takes the skit into unnecessary racial territory and gets called out for it by "David" (Anderle?), Brian once again tries to restart the "falls into a microphone" setup. Clearly he's not very interested in this idea the others spontaneously jumped into. For his part I think this was bad form. You invite a bunch of your friends to do a series of weird and (to their knowledge) unfocused improv sessions, so the least you could do is try to work with the idea they've established. This is another example of Brian and his friends not being on the same wavelength (we'll explore this more as it comes.)

8. Lifter, Leg and Poker

I saw this one as like a play on the klondike bar commercials (what would you do for one? would you jump up and down?) I like how it evolves from humorous vegetable conversations to chanting. This is the most unified and warm sounding track yet. I really wanted the conversation to continue--it's genuinely funny and I'm surprised it hasn't been used in any fanmixes yet (at least to my knowledge.)

9. It Was Brian In The Mic

If drugs were truly consumed during the creation of these tracks, this is when they started to kick in. It's also when the group really starts to get enthusiastic. That said, there's still a noticeable disconnect between Brian and the others. He openly mentions the idea of getting them to do a vegetable fight--he says those exact two words. And then someone immediately talks over him "let's do a rhythmic vegetables thing" and lo and behold, they go in the latter direction.

10. Gotta Have A Cabbage

Brian doesn't object to the idea of doing vegetable chants, and even purposefully directs the group to stay in rhythm with each other. I'm noticing a pattern here I did not before. I was always under the impression that Brian changed his mind or didnt get around to having the Beach Boys or Wrecking Crew record all the setups found in this bootleg. Now I'm noticing that the things that are in PS which were never refined with the professionals later, are all the ideas Brian himself did not introduce. He wanted to do a "falls into ____" skit and he explored that idea later during a professional session. He wanted to do a veggie fight and he did one later on with Hal. He did NOT originally want to do an ice cream man scene nor veggie chants, and that's why these concepts were never explored again. In short, Brian wasn't inviting the Posse along to get ideas from--he wasn't interested in the unique new directions they might bring to the session--he was using them as guinea pigs to work out his own ideas.

11. Prune Time

After deciding the other chant wasn't working, they go back and try again with different phrases/timing.

12. Beets And Carrots

Here they finally get it right. This is one of the versions that plays on the Hawthorne collection. I could be looking too much into this, but the fact that Brian's lines are "where's my beets and carrots"/'someone took my beets and carrots and smeared em on the wall' could be his way of exploring what he wanted to do originally with the fight in this different format. What I mean is, in the veggie fight, the drifter character played by Vosse (and sometimes Brian) throws and stomps on Hal's garden ("there's tomatoes all over my gate!"
) If I'm interpreting it correctly, that further enforces how singleminded Brian actually was in terms of getting his specific ideas on tape as a reference for later.

13. That's Right, Vegetables

Another extremely quick throwaway, just saying silly things about veggies.

14. Big Bag of Vegetables

This is the other more well known version of the chant that was on the Hawthorne rarities compilation.

15. Toot Toot Dot Dot

Here for the first time, VDP takes the lead and offers an idea. It kind of shows how secondary VDP was to at least this humor aspect of SMiLE and/or how impromptu this gathering was. Brian did not seem to communicate what he intended with these skits to Van or Van was told to be hands-off or Van was disinterested in this session and decided to let Brian run the show. Maybe Brian wanted genuine improv from everyone including Van himself, or maybe this whole session was a quick impulse of Brian's like the airport photo. I just find it odd that it's Brian and Vosse who've dominated this recording up to now, leading the back and forth in most tracks, while VDP the collaborator has been a tertiary presence. I'm curious why this was the case.

It's also interesting to see the two's difference in leadership as well. Brian tries to lead by example. He doesn't really establish a scene and delineate tasks, instead he just jumps into the scene and expects them to follow (based on what we can hear off this recording anyway.) With the chants too, he tells the guys to stay in rhythm but as far as we can tell the choice of vocalizations was left up to each guy individually and they settled into a groove organically. With Van, he gives specific instructions of what he wants each person to do. He has a surprisingly delicate, quiet voice. I could totally see how if he was confronted by a more domineering figure as Mike he'd be easily talked over.

I'm personally not a big fan of this chant, however, in comparison to the previous two.

16. Let's Talk About Swimming

Brian is the one who moves the focus along to swimming. Otherwise not much to say here.

17. Side Stroke

Evidently nobody could really think of anything to say to join in. because those two words are practically all you hear.

18. Swim-Swim

The focus organically shifts from strokes and human swimming to ocean life and fish swimming. This chant is a lot more filled out and interesting than the previous one on the same topic. I think this chanting would have been fitting dubbed over Cool Cool Water or the Water Chant perhaps.

19. Down On The Ocean Floor

This is my favorite of the chants/vocal experiments. It's kind of amazing how they're able to make you feel as if you're in the ocean just by using their voices.

Brian specifically directs them to make it sound like the bottom of the ocean. Whoever came up with the idea of "little fish darting around" did this track a great service, as that really adds a lot to the atmospheric nature of this experiment. I get the sense that perhaps this is why Brian is using these guys first to try out ideas like this as opposed to going directly to the Wrecking Crew or Beach Boys. Because, while sometimes maligned, the Vosse Posse were creatively minded people who were not only willing but able to improvise and add helpful tips during this sessions. I really can't see something this beautifully picturesque coming from the Beach Boys or Wrecking Crew so organically.
I know that contradicts my earlier point about Brian being single-minded, but perhaps by this point he'd loosened up and decided to accept their input. 

Was this an early attempt at a Water element? Possibly. If not, it was certainly Brian trying to get inspired for what his Water was going to be by putting himself on the Ocean floor. The only other big contenders we have for Water are the theoretical song Brian could have (but never did) created using Vosse's water sound recordings and Dada. However, between the three of these I give the edge to this Undersea Chant as being closest to what Brian was probably formulating for his Water. The reasons for this preference are:

1) As I recall Vosse admits in his articles that recording water sounds was his idea and Brian only mentioned offhand that he could write a whole song with them if he wanted to. He never did, even years later.

2) Brian did record an a capella water-themed chant with the Beach Boys if a year later. It's called the Water Chant. Now, one or two people have argued that Undersea Chant and the Water Chant are completely unrelated. They're certainly very different--one is an impromptu experiment by some friends and the other was a deliberate, professional recording by a band in the studio. One tries to put you inside the ocean and make you feel like you're there. The other tries to imitate the distorting effects water has on your voice if you were to speak thru it, and it's more melodic. Both instantly make me think of water with zero hand-holding or forced interpretations. Both are very atmospheric and trippy using only vocals. I think arguing the two have nothing to do with each other is as deliberately obtuse as saying Cabin Essence and Worms, or He Gives Speeches and She's Goin' Bald are unrelated. They're clearly about the same idea, and one clearly morphed into the other. The people who said these things were arguing for other recordings as most plausible candidates for Water, and I strongly suspect they were being disingenuous in order to win the debate rather than searching for the truth in good faith. 

3) The Undersea Chant was placed on the boxset. At the expense of a CIFOTM test edit from Brian's own hand, countless riffs and takes from the sessions that as a result can't be heard in studio quality anywhere, other pseudo-SMiLE songs like Cant Wait Too Long (not a stretch if they included Cool Cool Water) or Little Red Book (not a stretch if they included Three Blind Mice) and other iconic PS skits like Smog, Taxi Cabber, the Veggies chants, etc. That, to me, shows its importance in Brian and the compilers' minds. They wanted this to be heard, because it's the closest thing to a SMiLE Era water there is, and the clear genesis for Water Chant, which itself became half of the Water track in BWPS and the boxset Disc 1 sequence.

4) Dada was clearly an unspecified "feel" same as Look, Holidays and He Gives Speeches (you could debatably include I'm in Great Shape and Barnyard on such a list too). A little piece of music longing for a place to go, juggled between various tracks as the months went by. It either started as a Heroes fragment or became one (called "All Day") as early as December '66, where Brian can clearly be heard saying "there's going to be a lot of talking in the pauses." The title "Love to Say Dada" is a reference to an art movement, initialism for LSD and possibly a pun about babies and how their first word tends to be Dada since it's easier to say than Momma. There's the anecdote about Brian drinking chocolate milk from a bottle and a CIFOTM section that's cut off during the sessions which also suggest a connection with the cycle of life (Wonderful, CIFOTM, Wind Chimes, Surf's Up) songs as opposed to being part of The Elements. Its alternate version from mid-'67, now called "Second Day" features woodwinds and clearly sounds more airy than watery if it had to be either. It is very clearly a "feel" Brian wanted to use but either couldn't find a place for. I've even described it as "a stem cell SMiLE song" before.

The only reason Dada's considered the Water element now is because of bootlegs and Dominic Priore's speculation in the 80s that wanted a "water" for their mixes but ignored the fact that the Elements wasn't a suite it was a track. A single, unfinished, cross-fading track. The decision in the 80s and 90s to arbitrarily assign Water and Air to Dada and Wind Chimes eventually created a feedback loop--Darian was a boot collector who probably followed that general outline. I'm not saying he pushed his interpretation on Brian, but my understanding of the BWPS sessions is he played back his mixes to Brian who then was re-inspired on a new track order himself. There's that famous anecdote of Brian hearing Look come after Wonderful and saying "that's how we'll do it!" for example. Brian liked this 4-song elements that had developed since the bootleg days enough to go with it in '03. He even says "we added a third movement" when asked what was different between BWPS and SMiLE. Now people use BWPS/TSS to retroactively prove that Wind Chimes and Dada were elements all along even though there is zero evidence from the sessions themselves to back it up.

Just so it's clear, I could care less if people prefer to do a 4-song elements suite in their mixes. I can totally understand the appeal of that over using some half-finished vocal experiments in an awkward cross-fading track. All I'm saying is there's no evidence for this being Brian's intentions in '66-'67. The way The Elements are listed as a single track, how Fire is credited on the tapes/sessionography as "The Elements: Part 1 (Fire)" but WC and Dada are not is pretty definitive proof alone even if you discount everything else I've said. Now factor in the descriptions Anderle and Vosse give for the elements of combining fitness/biology components to them and ask yourself...how do Dada or the Wind Chimes tag fit this theme? They don't. But chants about swimming, an atmospheric sound-scape that makes you feel like you're scuba-diving underwater, harsh breathing as if after a workout (see next track)... Those are very obviously fitness-related as far as I can tell. I've seen the arguments for Dada and Wind Chimes Tag before, but I don't think they're at all compelling. They require a lot more speculation and suspension of disbelief in order to work, and they are flatly contradicted by the same articles I was bullied into reading by proponents of this theory back in my time on the SS forum.

20. Breathing

Another favorite. It's hard to tell from the recording here, but it sounds like Brian who starts off this chant with the first breath. Assuming he didn't explain his intentions while the recording was paused, it's really really cool how everyone instantly got it and they did this totally impromptu. I think it's interesting how this track explores the air humans can make going in and coming out with breathing and laughter respectively. Also pretty cool how, for an album based around the healing and spiritual power of laughter (even named for it) this is the one time we hear laughter on any SMiLE recording (unless you count Swedish Frog or Little Pad.) Like the previous session, I personally believe this is either a rough working concept for the elements (specifically Air) or at the very least Brian trying to inspire himself by getting into the headspace of air. Either way, it's the closest thing to a '66-'67 Air as we will ever get.

The next most popular theory of air is that it was the tag of another song, Wind Chimes. As far as I can tell, this is based almost solely on a vague quote from the 70s ("Air was going to be a piano piece"). That, and retroactively using BWPS to understand the original sessions, an approach I just debunked above. People are free to believe what they like, that's half the fun of SMiLE. However, my problem with this theory is it relies on a one-off quote from a decade later. This is compounded by the fact that Brian is a notoriously bad interviewee and usually when SMiLE comes up he gives conflicting evidence or just says whatever he feels like that will shut the conversation down. I place a lot more weight on his quotes from the sessions themselves, especially what he says on-tape.

Possibly even more than Brian, I place a great deal of emphasis on Vosse's accounts. He's by far our most in-depth description for what the sessions were like, from recordings of the main tracks to the lesser acknowledged stuff like the Psychedelic Sounds. He goes on to describe the exact Wind Chimes tag himself and at no time does he call it the Air element, nor does he even describe it in "airy" terms. It'd be one thing if he said "it sounded like a cool breeze on a pond"/"it felt like a gentle wind blowing some leaves"/"it made me think of the gentle air in a meadow"/"it transported me inside a tornado in Kansas." But he doesn't do that--he compares the Wind Chimes fade to a music box. Notice how Fire could not be described as anything else but a raging inferno with engine sirens careening down the street to put it out? You could hardly describe Fire as anything else even if you purposefully tried. Notice how Vosse describes the previous track (Undersea Chant as its called on the boxset) as being inside Atlantis...because again, there's no other possible way to consider that song. It's water, and it instantly puts you into that imagery without any handholding or relying on some forced interpretation. I think this Breathing skit accomplishes the same thing--it's air/breath/wind sounds. There's absolutely no other way you could interpret it or describe it or break it down because that's all it is. I think the elements pieces should and were supposed to have this resolute clarity to them.

I recall even in the Catch a Wave biography, author Peter Ames Carlin felt the same way, that the makeshift "elements suite" that emerged in the 80s and became cemented as canon in BWPS did not represent the same picturesque quality or imagination as Fire or the idea of making a whole song out of water recordings. This is the man who listened to every Beach Boys album and wrote reactions to them in his book, who's studied Brian's life and knows him better than most people today. If he doesn't think Dada and Wind Chimes are up to snuff with what Brian had already done for the Elements I consider that a significant point of contention against that theory.

Finally, how ridiculous would it be for one section of the supposed Elements suite to be the last 40 seconds of a completely separate song? I mean, doesn't that sound implausible or forced to anyone else? Now once again I'll reiterate that I don't care what someone chooses to do with their mix, and if they want to use just the WC tag as their air, that's cool. All I'm saying is, if you're going to argue that it was Brian's intention all along I think you need a stronger case. Pitting one quote from a decade later above what's on tape, what our most reliable source has to say, what Brian's best biographer has to say and common sense reeks of cherry picking the one thing that supports your desired outcome.

Also for the record I'm not saying Air couldnt be a piano either--maybe Brian had a composition in his head that may or may not have ever been finished/recorded at all and may or may not have gone along with breathing vocalizations from the Beach Boys. Personally I think that could be a really cool Air. However, there is absolutely zero reason to believe this piano piece was the tag for Wind Chimes except that it has Wind in the title. If Brian and Melinda had bought a pair of pants that day and wrote a song with the same melody about that, this theory wouldn't even exist. I guarantee that if the people pushing this "WC tag is Air" theory saw someone else arguing that the Heroes Part 1 Tag was Air, or Wonderful Version 3, (also piano pieces) they'd disregard it as too speculative/lacking evidence without a shred of irony.

21. Torture

I'd thought up to this point that the recording was continuous and one track flowed seamlessly into the next, but the question "are we recording?" breaks that immersion. This is far and away the least focused track yet--up to now Brian clearly had a few ideas he wanted to get on tape and tho sometimes he'd lose control (the unprompted ice cream man skit and doing veggie chants instead of the argument) it was only temporary or he'd work with it. At this point it does in fact sound like stoned goofing off. Brian in particular doesn't sound as clear-headed anymore. He gets them back to doing a brief funny argument by pretending his foot was stepped on, and we've come full circle. Very quickly tho it descends back to an aimless stoned conversation.

It's interesting to hear Smog and its bad effects on mental health brought up here, foreshadowing Smog the track later in the bootleg. I also think the "it's dark isn't it? No, I'm the one with the beard" was a funny line.

22. Psychedelic Talk

We continue with them saying whatever random things come to mind, obviously under the influence of weed or something else. Things get real when one of them appears to get annoyed with Brian ("what do you want from us? You drag us here in the middle of the night to this dingy place...")

I do think the "is there a joint in the lounge" one-liner is funny.

Brian really seems to want to get that comedic argument skit on tape since he brings it up again here. He tries to get them into it but they very vocally shut him down. The sessions have descended into stoned, resentful chaos. I actually do think Brian sounds hurt by this turn of events. He stops trying to corral the guys, talks in a much lower and quieter voice, and says "it's always good to know that you can be so down you can at least look up." That's pretty significant I'd say. In fact it's interesting how if you look at the Psychedelic Sounds disc 1 as a whole (it was all recorded in one night) it's a bit similar to the Lifeboat Tape (more on that later). Brian seems to be the friend nobody really likes in this group, and he seems to feel that way both times as the session wears on. In each, he becomes despondent and isolated by the end.

We also hear Brian say that asking "what time is it" is a phrase that brings people down. He asks the little girl in the Basketball Sounds track (more on that later) this question, so whatever that says for his intentions with his conversation with her is anybody's guess.

Towards the end, I honestly don't know what's happening. When they start talking about how it's 1 AM, 2 AM, 1:30 AM it's hard to tell whether it's seriously that late or not, and when they start saying they want to go/gotta get up early/gotta do something with the dog it sounds like it could either be serious or continuing the motif of things to say which bring people down.

1. Taxi Cabber

We know this was an impromptu recording of an unsuspecting Taxi driver whom Brian thought had a humorous manner of speech. It's truly not hard to see why when you listen. Something about him just seems so innocently self-important as he confidently gives them directions at length, even pointing out the precise amount of minutes they've been in the cab. He reminds me of a character from Fargo (1996) or a one-off Seinfeld character. I say all this not to make fun of him--I think his voice is adorable in fact. You can tell Brian wants to keep the guy talking, since several times he will interject a single comment knowing the driver will be compelled to respond at length. It shows a subtle yet effective way Brian could indirectly manipulate people into doing what he wanted, which is an aspect of him I've seen brought up several times on these two forums. Whether it was intentional or not (I'm leaning towards yes) I love Vosse's pun "this is a good trip."

I like to include highlights from this conversation in my mixes, usually with Worms and/or CE. I like how the Taxi is yet another form of transportation along with the trucks, trains, possibly planes, bikes and ocean liners mentioned in those two songs. I like how the taxi driver represents a little slice of Americana, with his good-natured, aw shucks persona and his northern "Fargo/Ya" accent. I love the humorous subversion of expectations it represents--the whole "journey across America" theme is probably the most widely advertised concept within SMiLE. When you hear something like that, you imagine a serious, Odyssey-like, purposeful trek by some worldly adventurer. Instead, you got two absent minded stoners with no clue where they're going, playing it up like they're high, and this borderline caricature of a cabby who is the perfect secondary character and travel guide. It fits so well with the "teenage symphony to god" coming wrapped in a childish drawing of a corner store with song titles like "do you like worms" and "surf's up." Or the Beach Boys freezing cold in a little boat in Boston. It fits perfectly with the subversion of expectations and questioning of identities that Brian clearly wanted to be a theme in SMiLE.

If I'm being honest, I doubt this conversation ever would have made the album but it fits too well with the spirit of it to pass up, as far as I'm concerned. If this were another band, or the sessions started later in '67, I could see Brian playing the highlights from this conversation backwards or slowed down over Worms or Cabin Essence perhaps. Think "Third Stone From the Sun" or several other tracks from this year. I'm not sure if Brian had it in him to be *that* out there, however this is SMiLE we're talking about afterall...

2. Bob Gordon's Real Trip

This is one of the most WTF parts of Psychedelic Sounds. As it wasn't part of the Nov 4 "session" which produced the Disc 1 tracks, I am utterly at a loss for the time, place or purpose of it. I do not know who Bob Gordon is/was. I assume from the title this is supposed to sound like a psychedelic trip and it succeeds. It's essentially an audio collage of what sounds like splashes or rattling beads (probably an audio trick) and then ghostly whistling and barking (?) enhanced by echo effects. I will admit I find this track somewhat disturbing and I don't know exactly why. If I had to guess, it's probably because so little about it is certain and the fear of the unknown is primal. I recall working on my Aquarian SMiLE mix during a summer semester at school, alone in the computer lab at night, and my Olorin mix late at night at my parents house with no one else awake and being a little unnerved as I combed thru this track for usable highlights.

My guess is this track is just experimenting with audio tricks. It's possible but also coincidental that the echo-explosion in IIGS/H&V as well as the rattling "it sounds like jewelry" percussion in Surf's Up were tested or even outright discovered in the process of making this recording. That's just pure speculation tho.

3. Basketball Sounds

This flows seamlessly from Bob Gordon, and seems very similar to the preceding two tracks. Like Taxi Cabber, Basketball Sounds involves covertly recording an everyday conversation (and basketball game). Like Bob Godon, it uses a lot of unsettling audio effects like the explosion sound after the conversation with the little girl and echoes/reverb of the game. This and the previous two tracks make excessive uses of echo effects and my guess is Brian wanted to try that out especially. Just the fact that it's a basketball game potentially ties this to the fitness theme of SMiLE. Perhaps Brian was there for inspiration of how to work fitness into the elements/album, listing to the sounds of the game to try to know what to do later in the studio. Maybe he was going to a game anyway and thought it'd be a good opportunity to try out these audio experiments. Maybe both.

While I doubt anything from this track would have been on the album, I sometimes like to use the conversation with the little girl as an intro to Wonderful. That adorable voice seems to embody the young woman in the song very well, and while her conversation with Brian is completely benign, that terrifying sound effect that cuts it off makes me feel the foreboding of what the young woman in Wonderful is in for. I might just have my mind in the gutter, but I wonder if Brian wanted her to say 4:20 when he asked what time it was. 4:30 just seems way too coincidental, but I'm probably just looking for psychedelics/drug references. Either way having an innocent voice saying 4:20 would have been pretty cool/funny.

4. Dick [Lifeboat Tape]

By far the least interesting segment of the bootleg. There's no illuminating glimpses into SMiLE's composition or Brian's intentions. However there IS a rare insight into him and his "cool" hippie friends interacting together. I remember when I first heard this recording, not knowing who anyone was or any context, my overwhelming thought was "Brian seems so sad and isolated here, even when surrounded by supposed friends." It reminded me of myself with some of my grade school and even some college groups I knew, where I'd chill with them but it always felt like I was the odd-one out. I've since learned that it's better to be alone than with people who make you FEEL alone, as the Robin Williams quote states, and I've seen it argued that this is the lesson Brian learned as well during SMiLE.

Jules Siegal is the one with the annoying voice who describes the game by which this track derives its name. The game sounds sort of interesting but also not. I mean, why do I want to play a game if I have to leave the room and am thus cut out of the social gathering? When and how frequently must they vote someone off? Is it just a popularity contest or is it about something else? I think it could be an interesting game if the rules were expanded upon. For the purpose of a recording it could be interesting as well, to see how the conversation and interplay between the personalities involved determines a survivor. But since these people are all random nobodies...and Brian fucking Wilson (and VDP)...well, it doesn't seem like an even matchup. Give me a game of Lifeboat with Brian, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Syd Barrett, Grace Slick, Arthur Lee, Joseph Byrd, Frank Zappa, Bob Dylan and Brian Jones.

There's some interesting looks into the people involved, though it's frustratingly hard to hear with everyone talking over each other. You get the feeling Jules is pretty full of himself and the others like to rib him based on the discussion of his article on Bob Dylan. You get the impression Brian favors Vosse, or the two are in on the setup since Brian asks Vosse to join him elsewhere for a minute. Diane Rovell seems sweet and conciliatory. You can also hear Brian and Vosse argue as the latter takes offense at being ordered around and left out of the group (tho it's ambiguous over whether this is genuine anger or a planned setup.) At least at certain moments tho I feel like Vosse is genuinely annoyed at Brian.

Diane says "this is supposed to be an argument" so that was the tipoff this was another setup from Brian similar to the Vegetable Fight. But like with the Disc 1/Nov 4 session, he doesn't give clear instructions and just expects everything to coalesce on its own. This time there's also just too many people and too convoluted a setup for it to work like in Nov 4. I also feel like some of them (Vosse) take the "argument" part a bit too seriously. He keeps shouting down the others every time they begin to say anything interesting. Meanwhile Jules seems very tongue in cheek and puts down Vosse for his own enjoyment. The others try to have normal conversation among themselves but there's too much yelling and clashing personalities for anything interesting to happen.

"Why don't you want to laugh? Why don't you want to SMiLE?" around 9 minutes in is a great quote. Someone could pull that out of context and put it somewhere else if they were going for an AlternateBWPS type mix.

Throughout the recording, they keep mentioning random mysterious figures that are supposedly in the corner of the studio but it's unclear if they're serious or joking. At 13 minutes in (roughly) you get another great out of context quote "I'm too down to smile!" And you also hear someone asking aloud why they're here and what the point of this recording session even is. Brian, whatever his talents as a musician, is a horrible people person. He doesn't give these people any direction whatsoever, just puts them in the studio and either leads by example (Nov 4 session) or tells them "its an argument" and just hopes they get it and do what he wants. Brian tries to get them to stop recording, wants someone to act depressed, and wants Vosse to cheer everybody up at various times. You can hear Jules asking bemused "so what is it like $100 an hour" (I presume he's talking about how expensive it is to rent a studio recording room.)

Eventually Vosse it seems, plays the outro of Worms in an attempt to corral the others. Someone basically dumps on it, (sounds like Brian but I cant be sure) while Vosse defends it as "groovy." Honestly, it's possible Vosse loved SMiLE more than Brian even. We get Vosse saying "fade Jules out" which is another indicator that he wasn't well liked by the group. But the thing that's so frustrating with this recording is everytime the people involved start to go in a certain direction, someone tries to pull them back. They set up a potentially interesting elimination game, but then it's ruined by Vosse yelling at everyone to shut up. Everyone's dreary and annoyed, understandably, but then he starts telling them to smile and laugh. They start laughing and then someone says "who told you to laugh?" and kills it. This recording/group cannot settle on what it wants to be, so it's just chaotic and stupid.

Brian begins to lose heart and clearly wants to abandon the idea/leave the studio. Evidently whatever vision he had for this recording did not pan out and he's lost the will to try to get it to be what he wants. Jules also sounds pretty done with it ("really Michael (Vosse), it's getting boring.") Only Vosse seems to want things to continue, and Diane encourages him. Jules makes a stupid "joke" about how easily amused girls are, that they have no mind, "you're just a girl." Not a fan of him for that. I can’t see how a “hip intelligentsia” as he fancied himself could be so backward to really believe that, or so immature to think it was funny.

Multiple times during the recording Brian tells people to stop laughing. It could be part of the setup (with it apparently supposed to be an argument and all) but it doesn't always sound joking or like a director trying to get everyone to stay in character. He often sounds genuinely annoyed, and in kind of a "If Im not having a good time, nobody should be" funk. Then somebody (Brian?) just plays piano and ignores everyone else. It sounds like the others are still there but too far from the mic to really be heard at this point. You can hear somebody (Vosse?) say "that's what he's after" so I presume they've been discussing Brian and his intentions while he's banging on the piano. It's frustratingly hard to hear. I could barely make out Jules saying "that's the nature of it" and someone else saying "I gotta come all the way here just to get in this kinda conversation." Presumably they're complaining about the whole thing, and it's my intuition that even Diane agrees, tho it's hard to say for sure.

This recording is just an absolute unholy mess and a waste of time for all involved. Listening to it again tho, I don't think it's that the Vosse Posse were being bad friends so much as Brian was too impulsive for his own good. He's not really a people person or a good director, he just seems to expect everyone to read his mind and then gets mad when they can't. I don't hold it against the others for being annoyed--so would you if you were asked to come out and do something like this without understanding what it was, why, or anything of that nature. The fact that Brian just sort of shuts down and will not even try to salvage the session is frustrating too--if you're going to force your friends to do this cockamamie act for your amusement you at least owe it to them to explain what you expect rather than give up after 15 minutes. You could legitimately use the dialogue from this thing for an absurd play without having to change a single word.

Without having any background on what the goal was (Vosse evidently broke down and told the others at the end but

Brian playing piano completely drowns it out, almost as if it's deliberate.) It seems to have been an alternate take on the veggie argument and the "we've got to fight and then make up" mentioned in Psychedelic Talk. How the Lifeboat setup fits in, or if that was just something Jules brought up unprompted is unknowable. But if Vosse acting like a jerk and telling everyone to shut up after everything they said was supposed to start off an argument, that was a bad miscalculation on both their parts. If I'm being dragged into something like this for a friend and then I'm being told to shut up without knowing why, I'm going to leave, not start some dramatic and humorous fight.

More than anything, this recording is a glimpse into Brian's illness and self-alienation manifesting itself.

5. Smog

This is my favorite track from this bootleg, bar none. Because of this, I've included it on my last three mixes even though I doubt it would have made the album. I absolutely love Brian's delivery. Intentional or not, his voice makes it funny even though the subject is genuinely serious. The longer it goes on, the more overtly funny it gets too. Brian has a really earnest, cute voice that sells the material where if it was Mike, Vosse or just about any other human being talking this would come off as lecturing, phony or virtue-signaling instead of endearing.

The quote "in order to function, in order to live be happy and be able to think clearly, you've got to have the elements. You've got to have good air to breath." is probably an accurate depiction of Brian's worldview and more evidence for the fitness/biology undercurrent of the elements track. To Brian, the elements is very clearly intrinsically linked with the health and well-being of the individual. It's further proof that the Breathing skit from earlier was a rough working idea for air, seeing as how closely Brian equates the elements and "good air to breathe." This is why I do not for one second believe the theories that Wind Chimes, Dada or Surf's Up are elements. It just doesn't jive with what Vosse/Anderle say in their interviews (that the elements would incorporate fitness) and Brian's own words on this crucial track. This recording is thus a very rare and invaluable insight into one of the two (along with IIGS) most mysterious songs from the SMiLE Era.

I theorized once that not being able or willing to complete The Elements track was the event (or one of them) that broke the back of the whole album. Brian couldn't just scrap that one track and move on, or flesh out Fire into a standalone song as Mrs. O'Leary's Cow and leave it at that. The entire concept of the Elements was very clearly ingrained in the album as a whole and expressing it was crucial as far as Brian was concerned. I think Smog is proof of that, anyway. I also think Smog provides some clues for why this is the case. Brian is talking at length about how we need the elements, specifically good air to breath, and how not having this makes people physically and mentally unhealthy. Considering so much of the Americana tracks are about the white settlers destruction of nature, I think having a track about why this is bad not only morally but for our own biological well-being would be a fitting capstone to this theme of the album. It ties the two "suites" of nature/America and innocence/Individuality together, that one cannot exist without the other.

I see the fact that Brian ties "the elements" and "good air to breathe" here as another clue, along with the previous Breathing skit itself, that his working concept for Air was rhythmic breathing. I got so much pushback on SmileySmile for arguing this point it was unreal; I was among other things accused of being a bully, of being afraid to consider other ideas, of misleading other people, of "hobby-horsing," told I couldn't comment until I read an entire book (while I was in college and working a job, mind you) and all but harassed off the forum. But it's so obvious that was the concept Brian had in mind in Fall '66 that you'd have to be blind or willfully obtuse not to see it.

What's more, his quote about "the way we can help is to make a record and present the facts in some interesting manner so that people can retain them" is a perfect summation of what SMiLE was, straight from the horses mouth, right in the middle of the ongoing sessions. Brian was trying to take all the ideological and philosophical concepts he thought could lead to a spiritually and biologically healthy life and put them into this one album. Humor, astrology, numerology, the elements, I Ching, physical fitness and longing for childhood innocence are undeniably the big components of that. Depending on your interpretation, the Side 1 Americana songs are also a condemnation of larger than life institutions (nationalism, organized religion, etc) while the Side 2 cycle of life tracks are celebrating individuality. 

6. Vega-Tables Arguments

By far, my favorite of the comedic skits in the SMiLE canon. I also think this is the best evidence that Brian intended these comedic sketches for some kind of official release. He would not have wasted Hal Blaine's time if these PS experiments were truly just the "oh he and his friends were just stoned and someone recorded it, nothing to see here folks" waste of time as most claim. During the Nov 4 session we saw Brian spearhead two major comedy setups--falling into an instrument and a Vegetable fight that never got started (the others were just his friends doing improv but he didn't seem interested in building off what they were doing with those.) Both of these outlines were then expanded upon, presented to professionals he'd worked with before, and recorded in the studio on his payroll. If anyone out there wants to pretend that means nothing and these sessions were wholly irrelevant to the big picture, that's their delusion. Even if only for a month or two, these sessions were a piece of the puzzle vital enough to be revisited later and recorded professionally and included on the boxset.

The difference between this and the Lifeboat Tape (which was apparently supposed to be an argument as well) is night and day. Instead of just expecting everything to click, Brian actually gives clear instructions to everyone involved, and seems in good spirits. I think that speaks either to how much more he respected Hal and the professionals over his supposed friends, or else how much more capable he was sober vs stoned/drunk. It's pretty clear that drugs were consumed during the Nov 4 session (compare how everyone sounds and interacts in the first tracks to the last two.) The Lifeboat Tape is less clear but I wouldn't be surprised. The only other reason I can think of is maybe this was recorded after Lifeboat and Brian realized (or Vosse told him) that a social experiment where you try to covertly force a fight to happen is a bad idea.

I'm curious if we're missing anything important in the setup of this skit, since the beginning is so sudden. Still, the first minute and a half is a great in media res opening. Right away you can tell we're dealing with two (sometimes three) characters, the nonchalant intruder and the furious gardener trying to defend his vegetables. Hal is an absolute genius at improv--all but one or two of the funny lines in this session come from him. For better or worse Brian's character is pretty unemotional and content to just shrug off every insult or threat Hal launches at him.

They do another version of the skit where Brian and Vosse are trying to buy some veggies from Hal, who is sort of made out to be something of a drug dealer/shady hustler. They start by eating bad vegetables and then buying the good stuff from Hal. I'm not sure what was going on with Vosse constantly repeating "eat your spinach." That didn't seem funny or melodic to me, just weird. But Brian seems to know what he wants to get on tape ("we're gonna sound happier, then we're gonna go in a whole new direction"/"there's gonna be a part on here where we laugh.")

After too long they take a break and begin discussing a meteor shower that's supposed to happen the next day. Assuming this is the Leonid Meteor Shower, that means this session occurred just before November 18, 1966. So two weeks after the session that spans Disc 1, and about ten days or so after George Fell. The dates for the Disc 2 stuff are unknown, but it's my gut feeling that this occurred after the disastrous Lifeboat Tape. I don't think Brian would have bothered with that if he already had such a fantastic argument series to splice highlights from.

When they start talking about the coming meteor shower, Brian launches into an almost certainly made up story about his dogs getting stiff and facing west and east. I don't know whether that was just a private little joke to himself or if he expected the others to be more interested and ask funny questions or something. I think it's interesting he's telling a story about dogs sensing things people can't since that was the inspiration for good vibrations.

You'll notice that once they get back to work, Brian actually takes the time to establish a clear scene and motivations for Hal. Now you kind of get the backstory for why Brian (and/or Vosse depending on the take) is supposed to be in Hal's garden. They're stoners, or absent minded vegetable lovers and one has been told Hal is the man to see about some good veggies. He then enters the garden without permission and hilarity ensues.

In this new take, Brian and Vosse are in the scene together and are a lot more mean-spirited. They purposefully destroy the garden and seem to be deliberately getting a rise out of Hal. I love how Hal keeps it going even after Brian/Vosse break character and laugh. Hal is so much better at this than the Vosse Posse was--he's the kind of person whom Brian ought to have been doing stuff like this with from the beginning.

Brian sounds satisfied with what they've recorded but tells Hal he wants him to get even madder than he was in the previous section. After a bit of this, Brian switches the scene to Vosse acting alone and being a lot more innocent/unassuming. This ends up being one of the better takes--with three people trying to improv at once it gets a bit cluttered, and the last take was too acrimonious to where it wasn't even funny anymore. But when it's Vosse alone and he's more innocent, I think that's a lot funnier. Here the joke is in how Vosse is unaware of how much he's pissing Hal off. I love how they start arguing about the pros and cons of using chemicals in gardening. I'm not sure if that's what Brian had in mind but it just shows how with improv, anything can happen.

Where Hal starts to question Brian's vision a bit is where he wants Hal and Vosse to throw vegetables at each other. ("Wait a minute, is this to be used in conjunction with those pictures of you? [...] But that's you! It's your voice.") Brian doesn't seem to acknowledge this, or if he does he stopped the recording to do so. That said, when we start the next section, it's Brian who's recording with Hal, not Vosse.

The next take is the most iconic section of this recording. This is where the quotes from the Hawthorne release and boxset snippets come from. This is where I take my extended Vegetable Fight from that I've used in my last four mixes. I also think it's the best take by far. Hal isn't yelling so it's the most pleasant to listen to--especially in conjunction with music. There's only two of them so the back and forth is more natural. They don't start to bond and have a good-natured debate on pesticides (that was charming, but hardly very funny in the way Brian clearly intended.) I think if you took the highlights from this section and spliced them after the second take where Vosse tells Brian he knows where to get the best vegetables you'd have a fully developed and pretty humorous standalone skit. That said I think opening cold with just Brian and Hal arguing is a lot more fitting if you're just trying to overlay the fight somewhere on SMiLE.

Unfortunately, this track ends as abruptly as it begins.



Conclusions/Summary

After this more in-depth "reading," my understanding of the PS skits and their place in SMiLE remain largely unchanged.

I still think Undersea Chant and Breathing were rough working concepts for the missing two elements. (We know definitively what Fire was, and there's enough compelling evidence for Veggies as Earth that I can acknowledge that was probably the plan at some point even though I personally don't think it's a very good Earth.) I don't believe these two would have appeared on the album exactly as they appear here, rather I believe they would have been redone by the Beach Boys in some manner, perhaps paired with some kind of music--like maybe a piano arrangement during the air segment. 

I don't think the Veggie chants would have been on the album. Upon closer inspection that was someone else's idea and Brian just ran with it. It's possible he liked the chanting aesthetic and it inspired the later Mama Says, Whistle In and With Me Tonight, or maybe he would have done those anyway. But the vegetable themed chants themselves were either just placating his friends or trying out the idea of chanting itself and that's it.

Brian absolutely, undeniably wanted to get these two clear "falls into an instrument" and "argument and make up/vegetable fight" skits down somehow. The former is the very first thing he launches into in the Nov 4 session. He does 3 different variations on it until he's gotten every scenario he could possibly want (inside and people acknowledge him, someone else falls in and he reacts, inside and nobody can hear him). Three days later he had the professionals record a "real" version of this idea with George Fell Into His French Horn, during a recording session for Surfs Up. The latter is something he tried to get going on Nov 4 but was overruled, so he tried again at some point with the Lifeboat Tape and then at some point before Nov 18 he did it with Hal Blaine. I think these two would have appeared on the album in some fashion, either as intros to Veggies and Surf's Up, or bonus unlisted tracks at the end of each side, or maybe buried deep in the mix somewhere like Truck Driving Man to Cabin Essence, or slowed down/backwards over the music somewhere like "Third Stone From the Sun."

I think Bob Gordon, the Basketball Sounds and to an extent Taxi Cabber represent attempts to try out some audio trickery (mostly echoes) and not much else. Taxi Cabber was, to my understanding, an impromptu recording of an unsuspecting man with a charming manner of speech who represented a slice of Americana. The Basketball Sounds maybe represents another attempt to record a funny or interesting conversation with an unsuspecting stranger, this time someone who represents the innocence half of the album. Whether either one would have made the album I can't say, although I do like to include them both.


Then there's the failed tracks, like Torture, Psychedelic Talk and especially Lifeboat Tape. The first two are from that Nov 4 session, as the drugs started taking over and the others get sick of placating Brian's impulses, the night descends into lethargy and perhaps even conflict. Brian sounds more than a little hurt and subdued in those last two tracks on Disc 1. Lifeboat Tape was just a misbegotten experiment from the beginning, and Brian taps out completely barely 15 minutes into it. Who knows what he was trying to do (an argument according to Diane) but all that happens is everyone telling each other to shut up every time a conversation that could be interesting gets going. These tracks are interesting to hear for the peek at how Brian operated with other people (not well) and the interplay between him and his stoner friends. But that's about it.


Finally that leaves Smog, alone, as a humorous diatribe from the man himself, as well as an invaluable insight into the true nature of the Elements and SMiLE itself. This is my favorite track on the whole boot, and I think it's the most honest you'll ever see Brian about or during the SMiLE Era. What starts as a humorous yet earnest public relations speech on smog becomes a stream of consciousness. I wonder if he really did slug walls and throw things around the house, and if so I think a lot of what he has to say on Smog is actually him inadvertently describing his condition and its effects.


There is a lot of talk in our primary sources about a comedy album and the supposition is that these Psychedelic Skits represent the recording of this separate project on the side. I cannot say for sure whether that's the case but I can say that if separate, these two projects were still remarkably interconnected. They were both worked on by the same people--including the Wrecking Crew at official SMiLE sessions for example. And they utilized the same subject matters (veggies, a trip across America--in a taxi, destruction of nature and the need for elements, etc). If these were separate projects, they were either companion pieces, or Brian was so consumed by the themes present in SMiLE that he couldn't help but bring them into this new project.

Delving into speculation on this topic, I'll say that if Brian did intend for a separate comedy album, I truly think he was out of his mind. I mean, this bootleg is interesting to me because I love SMiLE and theorizing about it. But if I was Joe Schmo, listening to these scattered off-beat comedic conversations would never be my idea of fun. Besides the "WTF" factor I wouldn't find them that funny either. I've heard many other Brian fans say similar things. Besides this, Brian didn't seem to have that many ideas--certainly not enough for a whole album of skits. He only has two in mind in Nov 4, and if you generously include Smog, Taxi Cabber and Basketball Sounds you have five skits. Each of these has only a few minutes of usable dialogue--Vegetable Argument is the longest and you can only maybe get 5 minutes off it, if even that. So either this whole idea was a big impulsive thing Brian jumped into without having a full plan, or we never heard whatever other ideas he had kicking around. 

Personally, I think it's at least plausible that this whole comedy album is a red herring. I wonder if maybe Vosse and whoever else mentions the concept maybe misunderstood, or perhaps the two ideas melded together around November/December when the name changed from Dumb Angel to SMiLE. In the first place, all the albums prior to Pet Sounds had some kind of conversations or tongue in cheek humorous songs on there. I don't see how George Fell would be out of the ordinary with this in mind. You hear that "a lot of talking" quote from Brian on a Dec '66 All Day session, as well as spoken word humor working its way into Heroes with "You're Under Arrest." Is it then so hard to believe the Veggies Argument might be somehow working into the Veggies track on SMiLE? I think I've talked up the case for Undersea Chant and Breathing as proto-elements enough by this point. I'm not so certain of the recorded dialogues or Smog rant being on the album, but considering it was fashionable by this point to hide backwards or slowed down talking in rock music at this time I don't think it's a crazy idea. You have the Truck Driving Man chant/proto-rap hidden deep in the mix on Cabin Essence which lends some credence to this theory as well.


At the end of the day we don't know Brian's true intent. But we know these tracks were at least tangentially (I'd argue strongly) related to the SMiLE music and themes. It's perfectly valid to use them in mixes.

@iluvleniloud: Ah--that last one was originally called "Oil & Water". I had a bunch of these with me when I visited the UK last June! I particularly enjoyed your review of Psychedelic Sounds.

In fact I recently retrieved them using time Time Machine so if you're missing anything, give a shout.

Chapter 5: The Four Gospels of SMiLE


In this Chapter, I'm going to analyze what the members of the so-called Vosse Posse have said about the album in retrospective interviews.

Initially, these commentaries were written in response to a user named HolyBee on the SS forum, who told me I had no right to offer my theories on SMiLE as I had not read Look Listen Vibrate SMiLE yet. As it happened, I owned the book I just hadn't gotten the opportunity to read it yet since I was in college, working a job and dealing with some massive personal hurdles at the time. To try to compromise, I set aside the time I could spare to read the four articles most commonly cited as the most important--the Vosse Fusion interview, Anderle Crawdaddy interview, Siegal's "Goodbye Surfing, Hello God" and the Teen Set promo written by Vosse. Because he'd made such a big deal about how crucial they were, I started referring to these half-jokingly as the four gospels and I kinda liked the name ever since. I'm bringing up this context because I'm going to harp on some specific details in these commentaries which he'd disagreed with and led me to believe these sources would prove wrong. (As it happens, after writing these commentaries I was accused of trying to mislead people.) 

Thereafter, in the process of compiling these essays into one body of writing, I started looking through the other people in the airport photo to see if they had ever offered their perspective on the sessions. I could only find interviews from Danny Hutton and Mark Volman besides the aforementioned Anderle and Vosse pieces. So I think it's more appropriate to group these together as the "four gospels" since they're retrospectives trying to accurately sum up what happened for posterity. The Siegal and Teen Set articles I will discuss in the next Chapter. 


The Testimony of Michael Vosse

I got around to reading the Fusion article today. I was always meaning to read it and I'm glad I finally forced myself to do so, but I think I heard most of what's in here before through quotes on the SmileySmile board and corroboration by other sources, so aside from one or two factoids I didn't learn much. Still a great read and I agree with Guitarfool that Vosse seems like the most comprehensive and reliable source I've seen. Most of what's presented here seemed to support the theories I had had already. Namely:

1) Humor was a very big part of the album as well as its inspiration. Brian equated humor to religious epiphanies and thought that if you were laughing you were vulnerable and thus more open to be enlightened or taught. This doesn't necessarily mean humor skits on the album, but with the other evidence I've cited ad nauseum it adds up to a bigger picture. He also says sound effects and other experimental oddities would be on the album, and you can hear Brian exploring those on the Psychedelic Sounds bootleg as well.

2) Going off that, he mentions the cover and booklet photos being intentionally badly done, that is to say, very simplistic and crude for the former as well unflattering and "out of their element" for the latter. I've brought this up before, how the cover ties the whole idea of the music and PS together. It's that idea of subverting expectations, hearing about this great new experimental album, this symphony to God...and it's bundled in a drawing your 8 year old could've made. These guys who are synonymous with the hot beaches...are now floating on a boat in the chilly rivers of Boston, the last place you'd expect. Aside from the obvious tie-ins to the climactic "children's song" at the end and Cycle of Life themes, Vosse mentions Brian specifically wanted people to laugh at them. I propose then that if he wanted people to laugh at the cover and booklet, it stands to reason he would want people to laugh at certain points in the music too. For the hundredth time, the Cantina Edit, Smiley Smile and contemporaneous quotes from the man himself corroborate this. The very existence of the Psychedelic Sounds skits themselves is pretty strong evidence too. Combined with Vosse's insight about the packaging and Brian's intent at self-deprecating humor it really isn't as far fetched as some of you make it out to be that some comedy skits, or funny elements of some kind, would be worked into the music itself.

3) According to Vosse, the album existed as a fully conceptualized entity in ~November '66 or so. I tend to lean the same way. Obviously specifics were changing week to week, month to month, and as I said in a reply to Guitarfool before, there's unanswered questions about every single track much less the sequence or inclusion of Psychedelic Sounds. But there was an *outline* a general "skeleton" which had only to be fully fleshed out and put to tape, before late December and 1967.

4) He specifically mentions Elements as a four part suite, but the implication is clearly that it was all one song. He also mentions the Tag of Wind Chimes very specifically but as its own thing, outside of the Elemental context. Again, as with Anderle, I have to believe that if Wind Chimes--even just the tag of it--was Air, Vosse would say that. More especially since he goes out of his way to talk about both and STILL doesn't make the connection/distinction.

5) He mentions Brian and Van fighting, Brian asserting dominance over Van and the latter resenting him for it. But he also specifically mentions Mike and Brian fighting often, and the band in general in a sort of fragmented state with two camps complaining about the other here and there. This, to me, proves that while the band didn't kill SMiLE (which is pretty commonly accepted now) the tension was still very real. Far more than the revisionist "all Mike did was innocently ask about CE one time" position would have you believe. THAT BEING SAID the arguments between BW & VDP were almost certainly more significant than most have been lead to believe. (Beautiful Dreamer certainly didn't go into that...) And it seems according to Vosse that the others only felt comfortable bashing VDP openly because Brian more or less already was.

6) The songs were very fluid, and CE/Worms were originally pieces of 2 or 3 "feels" each that were finally combined. This shows that the same was almost certainly true of Heroes and IIGS too. If two fragments called "Who Ran the Iron Horse" and "Home on the Range" could be cobbled together into one song, who's to say the same isn't true of H&V, IIGS? BUT...would that really mean just straightforward one section/another section/another section structures? What I mean is, those two CE fragments REPEAT. One part became the verse, the other the chorus. Another section, "Grand Coulee Dam," became the fade. Now this is more speculation that anything, but I think this lends precedent to my earlier idea about IIGS: that Do A Lot was originally the chorus to that song, and IIGS as we know it would be the verses. Maybe Barnyard would've been the fade? Can someone more talented than me try that? An IIGS track that goes maybe: Do A Lot/GS/Do A Lot/GS with tape explosion/Barnyard.

7) Piggybacking off that, if the pieces of Americana were so undeniably fluid that they shuffled from one track to the next, that to me is further evidence they were meant to be together on the album. OMP, Barnyard and H&V were all together too at one point. IIGS is part of H&V, then its own track, then (if you buy my earlier hypothesis) part of that track goes into Veggies just as part of Worms goes into Heroes. This paints a picture of a very interrelated set of music, what we now call the Americana songs. It seems hard to argue against my assertion that these tracks should be placed together on the album when, ignoring the instrumental/thematic/lyrical/conceptual connections I've been harping on for a year, each one was part of another song in that same group at some point or another.

Anyway, I'm not sure if the same can be said of the Cycle of Life tracks, but even so it's irrelevant. If you put all these tracks which shared pieces at various points on one side...what remains on the other are the Cycle of Life songs plus The Elements anyway. I strayed from this structure with Romestamo but this is how I did it in Olorin. And now with this reasoning, and the numerology and astrology interpretations Ive put forth in the recent past [which will be presented in later Chapters below]...I'm becoming more and more convinced I had it right before with that earlier mix. Perhaps just dial back on the Psychedelic Sounds and maybe fine tune the exact order a bit.

8) Vosse mentions the water recordings were his idea. Again, while he talked about the Elements before in his article and undeniably spoke a great deal about these Water recordings with Brian (since it was his idea and hes the one who made them) he makes NO MENTION of this being the water element. He does mention Brian saying they could make a song out of them, since every musical note had been represented by the various water sounds in these tapes. But again, no clear indication this is water and it sounds to me like another off-the-cuff Brian idea that never panned out, much like his silverware symphony. One gets the impression that "I should put this on the album" was probably a common phrase uttered by him in those days. It's what he actually committed to tape that we ought to focus on.

9) The scene he describes with the I-Ching sounded like something out of a movie. Insanely prophetic although he himself didn't believe it to be so. Similarly I loved the idea about meetings in the swimming pool and I didn't know Brian wanted to have a slide that went to his bed or that he painted his house pink.

10) It seems this idea of the album [that was popular on SmileySmile at the time] coming apart because "using the Wrecking Crew wasn't cool" and wanting the band to play on their own album might be overstated. Sounds more like Brian wasn't satisfied with their vocal performances and kept rerecording all the parts himself. This could explain the "lazier" or if you prefer, "laid back" production on Smiley, where they're all a group again and mistakes are intentionally left in. Seems possible SMiLE was a very personal album for Brian that had to be just so, and when he realized they couldn't do it--or his expectations were too high and it was killing the group--he decided it was more important to make a fun album with his band, imperfections and all. At least that's the feeling I get reading Vosse. "Dont think you're god, just be a cool guy"

11) Very interesting to hear there was more to the Inside Pop demo, with the gang all around a pool. I would literally kill to see what that was supposed to be. I loved the anecdote too about Murray trying to hog the spotlight by diving and badgering Brian to say good things about him to the cameras. Classic Murray.

12) He does mention a two sided, 6 minute H&V single. As I recall tho, he never said that was the intended edit or the one Brian really wanted, just that it was his personal favorite. He claims it was one of a dozen or so. I personally don't really have a stake in this single sided vs two sided H&V single debate. I'm far more interested in the album, personally, and my thoughts on the H&V single basically amount to "waste of time; should've used a stripped down Surf's Up as heard on TV." I do recall reading a quote from Brian during the sessions where he said he didn't want to reveal too much in the next single. Where he said the B-side would probably be something simple like himself at a piano. Obviously a H&V sampler B-side would be the exact opposite of that, and even without the quote it seems crazy to reveal so much to people before they buy the album, and to your competition during a virtual arms race before you've actually won.


The Testimony of David Anderle

These are my musings on Part I of that interview. The "up arrows" indicate a point later in the article which reinforces a point I'd already written.

1) Its so sweet hearing him fawn over Brian in the beginning. I agree with him, about Brian being ahead of the curve, the forerunner of Rock music, and SMiLE being one of the great albums of all time. What's significant is Anderle too specifically mentions the band not believing in Brian, fighting about the album, and Brian nervously awaiting their return, knowing they'd give him grief for what he was doing. I reiterate, I don't believe in the old "Mike killed SMiLE!" smear campaign, but I've seen the pendulum shift too far the other way lately. Clearly their animosity was a factor, if an over-emphasized one, for the album's collapse. Anderle specifically mentions Mike as the most antagonistic and how Brian would dread going into the studio. Again the "all Mike did was innocently ask about CE once" apologism just doesn't ring true reading these old primary accounts
.
^Anderle even predicts the next big thing from Brian wont come from the Beach Boys. I think this could've been true had his illness not made leaving them and doing something new for himself next to impossible. It seems like Brian wanted to produce other bands like Redwood but was held back by guilt, mental illness, inertia and pressure.

2) Contrarily, his point about Brian getting bored and then instantly changing gears seems to give an alternate narrative why things happened as they did. Brian realized after 4, 5 months into 1967 that this thing wasn't going anywhere, was gonna take forever to finally get off the ground and got bored of the whole thing. So he pursued another direction as Anderle seems to say he was want to do. Interestingly tho, he accuses Brian of simply giving up with Wild Honey, of retreating to the basics and not progressing anymore. I have to agree personally; not a big fan of WH, I always saw it as a huge step backward after the innovation of SMiLE and Smiley. But I know that's not a popular opinion here. The interviewer offers the idea that Captiol released WH, and this must mean it doesn't count in Brian's eyes, which Anderle agrees with. Very fascinating.

^It's interesting he mentions Brian's tendency to drop people suddenly for the same reasons. I've seen people on the SmileySmile board mention that a lot.

3) Oh there it is AGAIN, talking about how important humor was to Brian, how he wanted to make the first pop humor LP, how he sent them to record humorous conversations. (Like Taxi Cabber) Some of the more conservative Smile fans will argue there's no proof Anderle is referring to Psychedelic Sounds, no proof this humor album would be SMiLE but rather a second project, etc. I have to say, I think you'd have to be grasping at straws at this point to argue against humor on SMiLE. In spite of how unfairly ignored they've been all these years, all the flak and accusations of "hobby-horsing" I've gotten on the SmileySmile forums for sticking up for them, how I've recently had my arguments dismissed for not reading this article yet....

If you read these old sources it seems increasingly undeniable that Psychedelic Sounds, in some capacity, would be on SMiLE. All the main sources you all agree are reliable and cite as the most important to read seem to point to this very thing I've been saying all along. It's undeniable that humor was important to Brian and intertwined with the SMiLE project. It's the very first thing Anderle brings up once the topic turns to SMiLE and its catharsis. You cannot accuse me of playing double standards with evidence when the very evidence you seem to care about so much, and look down on me for not reading, supports my argument as well.

^Anderle goes back to this point again later, reiterating that Brian was all about humor--so much so that he couldn't work or function with someone he deemed humorless

4) He specifically seems to recreate one of these Psychedelic Sounds recordings, describing the chanting into the mic, how Brian put it to music after, and everyone agreeing it sounded great. Again, the Psychedelic Sounds seem to be rough working ideas. They almost certainly wouldn't be on SMiLE as is, but shortened, refined, probably rerecorded with the Beach Boys or Wrecking Crew and set to music. It's really not as crazy an idea as some people seem to believe.

Interview Part 2:

1) Right of the bat, Anderle mentions how Brian would begin projects as a concept, an idea, and it'd be hard to understand what he meant. He'd have the guys record a feel and they wouldn't even know what he wanted, like the big picture, but would just follow his lead. You can definitely see that on the PS bootleg. Anderle mentions how Pet Sounds didnt start off as some unified concept, Brian just worked on musical feels as they came to him. "What started as the first song may become part of the sixth" which seems to lend credence to Vosse's testimony of certain songs like CE and Worms juggling sections between themselves for awhile before settling on the structures we know today. He mentions how the lyrics came later and are worked around a big idea Brian wants to express and the titles came later--in fact, according to Anderle, the titles dont mean anything. Hmm...wonder what that means for the significance of Vega-Tables weird spelling, and humorous or referential titles like Do You Like Worms or Mrs O'Leary's Cow and Second Day?
I have to disagree with Anderle here, as those seem like very thoughtful titles for the tracks they accompany.

2) Something else that potentially calls Anderle's reliability into question, he says Pet Sounds is when Brian gave up on touring, when as far as I know it was actually a year earlier, with Today. He also says Pet Sounds comes from the dogs at the end, when we all know Mike Love came up with the title

3) When it comes to SMiLE, Anderle claims Brian described it as a monument. Part of the problem, he says, is Brian would get an idea at 4 in the morning and want to record it immediately. This wasn't possible when you have to book studio time. This explains the desire for a home studio, even if it produced more lo-fi records.

4) He mentions Van and Brian blowing each others minds, but how he knew even then, they'd never work together. Not productively anyway. He describes their parting as tragic and asserts that they didn't want to separate but both knew they had to. He cites the split at February '67 and says Van was too sophisticated and Brian not enough.
Again, this is an aspect of the album's demise which isn't often talked about but seems to be corroborated by our primary sources.

5) He describes SMiLE as the culmination of all Brian's intellectual pursuits at the time, including the Elements. He says they all knew what Fire would be, and water, had some idea of air, no mention of Earth. This, to me personally, casts doubt on the idea that Veggies was Earth. It would make sense that if it was, it would've been very easy and very probable for Brian to just say that to Anderle and everyone. Veggies was a song that had been professionally recorded, became a focus late in the sessions, and was on the tracklist, so you'd think Anderle would know what it was and it'd come up in discussions of the other 3 elements. The fact that Brian didn't specifically call it Earth--and of course, that its a separate entry on the tracklist--makes me skeptical it's anything except its own individual song.

This also all but confirms then that Wind Chimes (let alone its fade) isn't Air for the same reasons. Same with the idea of Surfs Up as Water. [this was HolyBee's theory] How could Brian never have mentioned it, how could Anderle forget such crucial information just a few months after the sessions? In fact, I think Anderle's testimony is further evidence against any kind of elements suite of individual songs. My hunch is still that Psychedelic Sounds holds some clues, with my speculation being that Brian specifically named Undersea Chant as his idea for water to them. The fact that this was rerecorded with the Beach Boys as the Water Chant later corroborates this. I strongly believe Breathing was an idea for Air but either Brian wasn't satisfied with it or never definitively said to Anderle "this'll be air." And I guess Earth was just never worked on, or never written, or the idea of Veggies being Earth was dropped so quickly Anderle never even heard about that original plan. Is this speculative? Yes. But far more likely than Veggies and WC being elements, based on the evidence. The real answer is we will never be 100% certain, and it's all about how you interpret these articles as well as the recorded material itself.

6) He lists friction on all fronts at once killing the album. He cites the issue with Fire as the first sign of real trouble. Then reiterates studio time, fights with VDP and trouble with engineers as big causes of strife. Anderle also, notably lists the ideas of Brother Records and getting into films as just excuses and procrastination. Now THIS is interesting to me, because up until then I had thought of these projects as being very genuine endeavors. Based on Vosse's memories, I envisioned a Brian at the top of his powers trying to branch out into film and self-reliance. I'm not 100% sure who to believe, since Anderle has a few issues where his recollection comes off as not entirely reliable, and yet Vosse would be biased on this subject because he was tasked with spearheading the film division and it'd be both hard for him to realize his project as just a distraction as well as embarrassing to admit. Anyway, Anderle comes back at the end to reiterate that VDP cancelling on Brian was the main reason; Brian didn't know how to make lyrics that would fit with what had been written.

7) That being said, Anderle goes into detail about how the Beach Boys resisted Brian heavily when they came back from the tour. He doesn't hold that against them, since he mentions there was no way to know what Brian was doing was the right thing. They were only hearing fragments out of context and no one had done music that sounded like it before. Anderle mentions how they wasted a whole week trying to get Mike to sing a song the way Brian wanted, but he couldn't, so Brian did it instead. Anderle specifically says that had they warmed up to it in time, SMiLE would've been finished. So once again, anyone saying all Mike did was innocently ask about lyrics once or twice are spitting in the face of history. Brian and VDP fought too, and the collapse is much more complex than "Mike killed SMiLE" but it doesn't change the fact that the Beach Boys themselves were still very unsupportive. Period.

^Later on in the interview, he goes back to this point and reiterates that their relationship was NEVER good during SMiLE. He also states that if anything was going on in his life, Brian would NOT be functional in the studio as a result. Anderle then returns to this point a third time to say in no uncertain terms, the fact they didn't "get it" is a huge reason the album was never finished. It really doesn't get any simpler than that. Except if you needed more, he goes on a whole spiel even later in the interview about how Mike fought all experimentation, how he was the one band member Brian couldn't relate to or control, and how they both had totally different mindsets.

8) Anderle stresses how important Heroes was going to be for the original structure/vision of the album, how hard and defeating it was trying to maintain an air of positivity with a lawsuit and all other bullshit going on, and how Brian was told he needed to have a single. Anderle says it was necessary for Brother, and that this new project and the burdens of Brother killed the creative vibes. He mentions growing apart from Brian as he (Anderle) had to take on business responsibilities and wasn't fun for Brian to talk to anymore. Anderle claims Heroes was only chosen as a single because it was the closest thing to being finished, again conflicting Vosse and conventional wisdom on the subject. I tend to take Anderle's side on this point, however. I always felt Heroes and Villains was a strange choice for a single, since it did not and as far as we know never had a verse/chorus/verse structure.

9) Once again, Anderle calls his account into question when he not only claims CIFOTM will come out on the next album (which would be Friends by this time I believe--perhaps he's confusing Little Bird?) but that Bicycle Rider was originally part of Vega-Tables. Hmmm....

10) He says Brian never wanted to put GV, a single, on the album. Hes referring to Smiley, but the way it's phrased it could possibly mean SMiLE too. Once again, pretty interesting theory to ponder.

11) Admittedly, he talks about the humor album as if it were a separate thing. And says Smiley was perhaps an attempt to merge the two ideas. I admit this is a strike against my theory of Psychedelic Sounds skits on SMiLE.

^He takes a negative view of things like recording water and trying to start a bar fight. He sees these as distractions as well, similar to the films idea. Personally, I would agree that an entire separate album of random humorous conversations would have been a crazy idea. I cannot see such a thing being a critical nor commercial success then or now. As overdubs or hidden tracks on SMiLE, some choice outtakes from the Taxi Cabber conversation, or Smog monologue are fun; it worked in Frank Zappa's We're Only In It For the Money and other albums. However, by themselves and presented at length, these are difficult to listen to even for me.

12) Here as well, he takes a very negative view of Wild Honey. If I recall correctly, he praises it by part 3. Again, somewhat calling into question his credibility. If he does a 180 on that in a month, who's to say his opinions, recollections and thoughts on something that happened a year ago by this time haven't also changed dramatically?

13) He calls Marilyn a saint and the perfect artist's wife for what she puts up with from Brian. Hardly the cow that hampered his growth at every turn which ol' Loren Daro described on SmileySmile. Personally I find Marilyn to be the single most sympathetic person in the entire Beach Boys story, so seeing her get a shoutout like this from one of Brian's "cool" hipster friends is really nice.

14) Anderle mentions Brian talked openly about breaking up the group. He speculates that after Smiley and WH bombed that Brian probably knows deep down it was the right thing to do. This is also fascinating in hindsight, and once again shows that yes, pushback from the group was very significant at this time. The apologists on SmileySmile (and even PSF Im sure) who claim that this aspect of the sessions is overblown or even outright made up are flatly contradicted by eye witnesses.

Anderle differs from Vosse on several points and its hard if not impossible to say who's right. I tend to side with Vosse on most counts because as I said there are points where we know Anderle is objectively wrong in his recollections, and where his views get inconsistent. Aside from one brief suggestion that the humor album and SMiLE were separate, once again NOTHING he says contradicts anything I've theorized about SMiLE. In fact, most of it supports my theories/summations of SMiLE and the Sessions.

My thoughts on Part 3 of the same interview.

1) Love how he now points out that Brian was also first in the back to basics movement of 1968. He just did it *so* ahead of everyone that nobody noticed or gave him credit for it. However, I think Brian did that earlier than even Anderle gives him credit for, with Smiley and not WH. Plus, it's another strike against his credibility when Anderle was using WH's simplicity against Brian in the previous parts, only warming up to it now when other bands were also doing simpler albums.

2) Also find it sadly ironic how he goes on about Brian first recording Surfs Up on piano and how it blew everyone away. Gah...that should have just been the second single, dammit!

3) I disagree with this lengthy discussion on how artists SHOULDNT innovate. Frankly, to me, the late 60s is by far the greatest period of pop music BECAUSE of all the innovation and competition going on. The production race and using the studio as an instrument, every release pushing the boundaries of what could be done...this, to me, created the best albums ever. I also disagree that SMiLE would be an extension of Pet Sounds, and that Brian must have thought it was unnecessary. I realize the reasons for its abandonment are multifaceted but I don't believe that was part of it. I realize the transition from SMiLE to Smiley was more smooth than we had previously believed but I still believe that collapse was indeed a collapse and crushed Brian's spirit in many ways. Overall, it's interesting to note Anderle's change in perspective since the three months from the last interview. Somewhat casts doubt on his memory, then. Like, if his stance on WH and SMiLE did a near 180 here, what does that say about his memories from a year back?

^He makes a similar change of opinion on Mike, tho here it makes more sense since Mike recently got into TM

4) Very bizarre and sad in hindsight how Anderle believes Brian's dark period is over and he's back to where he was pre-Pet Sounds again. He says he imagines Brian must be happy...going into the studio and being as productive as before. He says he believes Brian will recapture the old audience and capture the newcomers in the near future. It's heartbreaking to read this section, knowing what we know now. And again, he returns to HUMOR and how important it is for Brian to explore that.

5) At the end, he seems to confirm that the main cause of SMiLE's death was Brian's need for instant gratification. Makes sense, yet not a theory you see put out by others. Interesting.

^Thats about the ONLY thing SMiLE-related in the whole piece, annoyingly.


The Testimony of Danny Hutton

This one's a video interview. Some takeaway points (just focusing on SMiLE/Smiley):

1) Brian never discussed his plan for SMiLE. Brian wouldnt articulate his plans, just sit at the piano, go off into his own world and create. This is corroborated by Anderle.

2) Brian was too buried in the material post GV, in that modular phase, hearing little snippets over and over to take an objective outside "this obviously sounds better here" kinda mentality, according to Hutton. He was too absorbed in the possibilities and listening to the same small pieces over and over again to really take a firm hand and decide on a structure.

3) He was feeling outside pressure from the band about making things simpler to play live

4) He never really thought of certain projects as separate. Like "ok, I'm gonna write these 12 songs for this album" then maybe take a break "ok, and now this album." Instead, Brian just kept writing continuously and when it was time to release something he'd take the best songs he was working on since the last release. This kinda makes sense then, with people who say Here Today (the last recorded Pet Sounds song) sounds a lot like some SMiLE material and how GV almost wound up on Pet Sounds--and conceptually/thematically it would make more sense there too, than it does on SMiLE.

5) Hutton thinks SMiLE collapsed due to lack of confidence from Brian, outside pressures, being confused how to put it all together, frustration because the time had passed as Strawberry Fields and especially Sgt Pepper came out
. Basically the usual reasons we've seen cited a million times.

6) Brian painted his house purple, corroborating Vosse's story.

7) The home studio removed Brian's discipline.

8) Hutton says he heard all the songs in parts, never as completed songs. He says music lost something with 4-track, 8-track, etc. The idea of a recording being a time capsule of a certain performance was lost, and he talks about SMiLE taking that to the extreme. How it was still great, still beautiful, but the modular concept "didn't put you in a place" anymore.

9) Brian wanted to produce Three Dog Night (Redwood) so he could expand into Blues and other things he couldn't do with the Beach Boys. He wanted to try out new styles, a new dynamic, etc. Mike was pissed Brian wrote Darlin' for them, giving a hit to another band, that kinda idea. Danny doesn't blame Mike at all for thinking that way, and understands his thought process, but says Mike rubbed a lot of people the wrong way with that attitude.

10) "Brian was not adversarial, he'd just hide/Dennis was very protective of Brian/Carl was the referee/Mike was just always pushing, always trying to be the alpha male" Brian wanted to change, Danny speculates thats why Smiley's production was credited to The Beach Boys--to wean them into being more self-assured without him so he could do his own thing.


The Testimony of Mark Volman

I saw this snippet when searching for interviews from the other people in the airport photo. The part relating to SMiLE is so short, I'll just post it in full:

E.C.: Speaking of your Ed Sullivan appearance and the L.A. scene in the mid-sixties, I was watching the video tape of it the other night and your face seemed very familiar. Then I realized that you were in the infamous 1966 photo of Brian Wilson with a group of about 15 of L.A.'s hip crowd, including Danny Hutton (later of Three Dog Night), Dean Torrence (Jan & Dean) and Van Dyke Parks (sessions with the Byrds). Did you get to hang out with Brian a lot in 1966-67? The reason I'm asking is of course is the infamous "Smile" album that he was working on at the time (and was never released).

Mark: I am not sure just how much I want to talk about this. I do recall spending many evenings up at Brian's house. One of my best friend's was Danny Hutton and Danny was a really good friend of Brian's. We would go to the house with the sandbox and hang out. Brian would play tracks from his then unfinished album which he would eventually call "Smile." We would sit around a very long dining room table with headphones and .......... Listen, this stuff really has nothing to do with The Turtles and it always made me uncomfortable talking about it. It always made me feel like a groupie for Brian. I am glad Brian is doing better and his music was always exciting to watch metamorphose over time. I also felt that others were never given enough credit for his success. The photo happen because his wife Marylin asked us all to come and surprise him at the airport. We went, someone shot a photo and it came out in a book. "Smile" must be available somewhere because I have many versions of it.

I don't have the connections to get one published, but that'd be quite an honor to be sure It's why I've been trying to get my blogs off the ground (ever so painfully slowly) to compile all my writings on SMiLE, politics and random musings, into one place. As of today I have 146 Notes on Facebook I've been in the process of backing up to other sites so I can finally delete my account and stop giving that horrible company my information.  

Chapter 7: A Trinity of Inspiration

In this Chapter, I'm going to outline Brian's New Age philosophies which he was into during the SMiLE sessions. This is ordered by how much I think each ideology was important to Brian, from most to least. For fun, I'm going to talk about ways each might be used to create fun new SMiLE mixes. The astrology section here was originally a standalone essay I published on the Smiley Smile forum around 2013. The Numerology essay was a fun experiment published on SS a few months later. The I Ching essay is new to this collection.

Astrology

I've been reading about astrology lately and since SMiLE dominates about half of my mind it was inevitable the two would be combined sooner or later. I think I may have finally, truly cracked the code about what this album is about. Of course, another year or two from now, I could completely change my mind again. [Spoiler Alert: I didn't.]

I've posted a couple times here about how I think “Surfs Up” and “Vega-Tables” are the big closing tracks of each side. Whether one agrees with me on that or not, I do think each track was a particularly big deal to Brian and somehow connected in his mind. They're the only songs that we know of which had “psychedelic sounds” skits definitively associated with them. These are the vegetable fight for Veggies and “George Fell Into His French Horn” for Surf. Those are the only comedy skits recorded by expensive Wrecking Crew musicians, implying Brian's serious intention to include them in some way, and by extension how crucial these two tracks were to the album as a whole. Veggies and Surf got a double sided single release on the box set, further implying their connection. They're also back-to-back in Brian's 3-suite sequence of the music from 2003. (This is despite what a jarring transition from the melancholy Surf to the upbeat Veggies.)

I'm wondering if the reason these two particular tracks are so connected is because they both have a hidden astrological meaning. Someone on the SmileySmile forum proposed that the weird spelling of Vegetables was a reference to the Star named Vega and by extension "Vega Tables" could be evoking astrology as a whole. The star Vega is the brightest in the constellation Lyra, a lyre gripped by an Eagle. I see this imagery as a summation of Side 1--American music. The association of an Eagle with the US is self explanatory, and a lyre is an ancient instrument. I think this goes a long way in proving that Vega-Tables belongs with the Americana tracks, NOT on Side 2 as one of the Elements tracks so many seem inclined to believe.

Now on Side 2 you have “Surf’s Up.” If you follow the Astrological Ages you know that we have either recently entered or are set to enter the Age of Aquarius. This age is said to herald in a breakdown of traditional authoritarian institutions, reevaluating priorities and worldviews, renewed emphasis on raising children, and general free-spirited open-mindedness. As far as I've always interpreted it, that's what “Surf’s Up” is all about too. So I see this song as an embrace of Aquarius and its values. Society is breaking down, there's so much exploitation and suffering...but there’s hope for the future. The innocence of children can serve to inspire us. The world we leave for them can be a freer, more interesting one if we work to make it that way. Aquarius is the water-bearer...water, ocean, surf...”Surf’s Up”? That's not too much of a stretch.

This could give new meaning to “My Only Sunshine” as well. Now, it's uncertain where this song would go on a 2-sided 67 LP. Brian has it with the other Americana tracks on his 2003 solo performance, many fans do likewise. Recently I've come to see it as a Side 2 Cycle of Life track myself. But either way, I've come to respect this song a lot more in recent months. I read it as Brian expressing that he was losing faith in traditional religion/ethos of Western society. This may still be true, but I also see it as the sun setting on an old age and bringing in the new, once this astrology context is applied. This interpretation is especially applicable when you consider that the constellation which the sun is in is what determines the astrological sign. And this could then mean that Brian has grown disillusioned with the Old Master Painter (again, a metaphor for God) as he's been characterized in the Piscean Age. And yet, rather than give up, he's setting to rediscover God in a new, more personalized Aquarian context. Again, I think this goes a long way in proving that "Old Master Painter" belongs with "Surf's Up" on the album. It's the curtain call for Pisces, an expression of disillusionment with the values associated with it, and then "Surfs Up" comes in with the Aquarian values we ought to follow going forward. (Amazing how Brian was able to say so much with just a ~2 minute mashup of two separate old standards!)

I realize I may be looking too hard into it.

Maybe Veggies is just a lighthearted track about Veggies, “Surf’s Up” is just a prose poem set to music and Sunshine is just a cover. But when you consider the zodiac signs are on the back of the intended sleeve, the alternate spelling of Vegetables, and the fact that Brian was really into astrology, numerology, alternative spirituality and various other New Age ideas at the time...I think there's credence to this theory. I think it gives the album cohesion beyond "one sides about America and the other side is about Innocence" (or the natural elements, in some people's mixes.) Now, not only is one side a retrospective on America and the other an introspective on life, but they represent the Piscean Age and Aquarian Age philosophies. The Age of Pisces is associated with monotheism, violence in the name of religion and uniting the east and west. All ideas that are explored in the Americana tracks. Aside from the values I listed above, the Age of Aquarius is associated with individuality, creativity and personal expression. I think the non-Americana tracks I have on my Side 2 embody these ideas well.

And I know I'm *really* reaching with this last thought, but maybe Brian saw himself as the "speaker" of the Aquarian Age the same way Jesus and Moses heralded in the ages of Pisces and Aries, respectively. Don't think that I'm saying Brian saw himself as a soothsaying prophet or some religious leader on their level. Obviously not. But he did see himself making “a teenage symphony to God”/“music people would pray to.” Those are his own words, not mine, describing what SMiLE was intended to be. The whole idea behind Aquarius is supposed to be power in the individual, not some all-encompassing Church or dogma. I think it's reasonable to assume Brian wanted to enlighten as well as empower his listeners, not dictate any set theology. I imagine his message was intended to be something like this:

"We failed as a people in the past, all this evil done in the name of religion/nationalism. The ethos of the new era should be individual thought and expression. I made this album to share *my* interpretation of the world. What will *you* do? The power is yours!"

Maybe this is why someone says "don't think you're God, just be a cool guy" in the later Smiley Smile version of “Wonderful”. Maybe this played into the scrapping of the album--Brian lost passion in, or faith in his ability to convey, such an important message. So with Smiley Smile he dropped this grandiose intent and just wanted to make a "cool" album.

Numerology

I analyzed the twelve main SMiLE tracks (from the Capitol tracklist) according to numerology. These were the results.

9+4+9+5+7+9+5+1+2+1+8+1+7+5=73=1 (I'm in Great Shape)

5+6+5+4+5+9+6+3+3=46=1 (wonderful)

1+3+9+6+1+3+7=30=3(surfs up)

4+5+7+1+2+1+2+3+5+1=31=4 (veggies)

3+8+9+3+4+9+1+6+1+2+8+5+9+6+6+2+8+5+4+1+5=105=6 (child is father)

2+8+5+6+3+4+4+1+1+2+5+9+7+1+9+5+2+5+9=88=16=7 (The Old Master Painter)

8+5+9+6+5+1+1+5+4+4+9+3+3+1+9+5+1=79=16=7 (Heroes and Villains)

4+6+7+6+3+3+9+2+5+5+6+9+4+1=70=7 (Worms)

7+6+6+4+4+9+2+9+1+2+9+6+5+1=71=8 (vibes)

5+9+5+4+3+8+9+4+5+1=53=8 (wind chimes)

3+1+2+9+5+5+1+1+5+5+3+5=45=9 (Cabin Essence)

2+8+5+5+3+5+4+5+5+2+1=45=9 (the elements)

Gotta say...I'm disappointed. I was hoping half would add up to one thing and the other half something else. IE, a clue to which sides the songs would go on. Or that each would be a different number and the numeric order would show you where each song lay in the sequence. Or SOMETHING. Nah. I do think it's interesting how they roughly pair up except for Veggies and Surf. But I'm not sure what it means or if its just a coincidence. Probably the latter. In any case, thought someone ought to test this out. Whether others buy it or not, I think looking at the album through an astrological context wielded some fascinating insight. I wanted to see if numerology would too. Was there any other philosophy Brian was into at the time I could try?

Instead of looking at the tracks individually, I worked this time to add up the totals of each SIDE of vinyl and trying to come up with equal numbers for each. Uh, if that makes sense.

So I added up all the songs in the first column of the Capitol tracklist compared to all the songs in the second. Here's the results I had.

Side One: 30+79+70+71+53+45=348=15=6

Side Two: 73+46+31+105+88+45=388=19=1

With these, I used the totals from each title and added them up. But in numerology, if your total is any number besides 1-9, 11 or 22 you keep going. So I also experimented with adding those numbers together to see if anything changed.

Side One: 3+7+7+8+8+9=42=6

Side Two: 1+1+4+6+7+9=28=1

As long as I was doing this, I experimented with the numerologic totals of my two SMiLE mixes which used the same songs on the tracklist, Olorin and Romestamo. Just for shits and giggles. I started with Romestamo because as far as Im concerned...well, thats MY SMiLE now. Heres what I found doing that.

Romestamo1:4+7+7+9+9+1=37=1 or 31+79+70+45+45+73=343=1

Romestamo2:1+3+6+7+8+8=33=6 or 46+30+105+88+71+53=393=15=6

I think its interesting the pattern of 1s and 6s coincides with the Capitol list at least. But Im trying to find a "balanced" sequence. Where the songs on each side total the same number numerologically. So I tried Olorin.

Olorin1:7+1+7+9+4+7=35=7 or 73+31+88+79+70+45=386=8

Olorin2:8+9+8+6+3+1=35=7 or 46+30+105+71+53+45=350=8

Huh. Well thats cool. I am a tad thrown tho that both methods didnt yield the same number tho, as seemed to be the case for the other two sequences. Not sure whats up with that, if that should count as some kind of disqualifier, or what. Id love to see a sequence were all four match up perfectly should one even exist. As a refresher, the tracklisting I did in that mix was:

1: Worms, Great Shape, VegaTables, Heroes, Cabin, OMP

2: GV, Elements, WC, CIFOTM, Wonderful, Surfs Up

I only experimented with my mixes that used the "original songs" because if not Id be doing this all night. Anyway, Im curious if anyone else can find some balanced groupings with this method; that is, adding the titles of those 12 songs up numerologically. It might provide some neat insight. This could all be a total waste of time too, but I did really like my Olorin mix and feel like I was unto something with that sequence (even if I did make minor changes later for a different mix) so there could be something to this. And Brian was really into stuff like astrology and numerology at the time. Its just possible he wanted to work that in somehow. Interesting to consider there was this clue all the time no one considered, at least I think so, and might be fun to look at SMiLE thru this lens in any case.

I Ching

I never got around to this before because as I recall the Vosse/Anderle/etc articles don't mention Brian was into the I Ching at the time. However, according to Wikipedia and its sources he was, so I thought I'd examine this concept as it may or may not relate to SMiLE as well. Take it with a grain of salt, like all of these "___ology in SMiLE" essays, it's just for fun. Im always curious for new ways to sequence and analyze this album. As far as Im aware, there's no more complex ideologies to look into after this one--to my knowledge Brian wasn't into Chakras, or Tarot cards, or the tree of life or geomancy or anything like that. If he was, shoot me a source to prove it and I'll look into those next.

So to begin with, the I Ching is all about change. It's essentially a form of divination, looking at an event or situation in your life and consulting how best to interpret or react to it. There are 64 different hexagrams made up of six broken or unbroken lines which represent different values. A broken line represents yin (feminine, earth, negative) and an unbroken line represents yang (masculine, heaven, positive). Hexagrams are made up of two combined trigrams, and before we continue let's look at those for a second.



Essentially they can be thought of as elements, or physical features in nature. But they each correspond to various other qualities, as illustrated in these tables:






So, based on these tables, I thought it might be interesting to try to work out which trigrams (and therefore which hexagrams) each of the 12 main SMiLE songs might correspond to.

Worms: Water (due to the association with pilgrims), Earth (discovering America/new land), Mountain (due to the association with the Warrior because of the native american genocide), Fire (due to its ruling planet according to astrology)

CE: Fire (I've heard you can hear music from Fire the track in the chorus, train engines burn coal), Earth (destroying yet uniting the continent), Lake (due to its ruling planet according to astrology)

Heroes: Wind (due to its association with being wise, and the lyrics in the song corresponding to it), Earth (due to the association with mothers, since the mother of narrator's children dies in the song), Water (due to its ruling planet according to astrology)

Veggies: Earth (where you grow Veggies), Lake (due to its association with joyousness), Thunder (due to its ruling planet according to astrology)

IIGS: Earth (barnyard...earth...idk) [Earth is also the trigram associated with its ruling planet in astrology. This was the toughest song to pick trigrams for due to how obscure it is. I tried going by barn animals, but then I'd have to choose like 6]

OMP: Earth (Faraway hills), Sky (God, sunshine, both in the sky), Thunder (along with sky, this is the element associated with its ruling planet in astrology)

Wonderful: Lake (associated with the 3rd and therefore youngest and most innocent daughter), Wind (gentleness and penetration and I always interpreted this as a song about rape), Water (due to its ruling planet according to astrology)

CIFOTM: Heaven (Father), Mountain (3rd/youngest son), Fire/Wind (depending on whether you use its ancient or modern ruling planet, these are the element associated with it)

GV: Thunder (oldest son, arousing), Fire (clinging, second daughter), Lake (due to its ruling planet according to astrology)

WC: Wind (obvious), Mountain (keeping still--staying at home) [the moon isnt included on the trigram's associated planets]

SU: Heaven (Prayer was supposed to come after, creativity), thunder (arousing/initiative, starting a new movement), Mountain/Earth (associated by its ancient and modern ruling planets in astrology)

Elements: Thunder (arousing), Water (dangerous, in motion) [the sun isnt a trigram planet]

Just thought that was interesting. And if you're so inclined, you could mix and match those values and their corresponding trigrams to give each individual track a series of hexagrams to change from. Now in this next section, we're going to look at an alternate way to express the I Ching in SMiLE.

In modern times, the two most common methods of finding a relevant hexagram for a situation are thru the use of special dice that show the values 6-9. 6 and 8 are associated with "new" yin, with 6 being "old yin" and a changing value. 7 and 9 are associated with yang, with 9 "old yang" a changing value and 7 "new yang" an unchanging value. After six values have been found (starting from the bottom going up), the first hexagram is formed. And once the changing values have been flipped from yin to yang or vice versa, the second hexagram is found. Here is where a tie-in to numerology could have been cool--if all the songs' numeric values were between 6 and 9 we might have used this method of the I Ching. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

An alternate method I thought of myself is using the elements to stand in for the yin and yang values. Consider the alchemy symbols for the classic elements:



So you could thing of Earth and Air (with their unbroken lines) as unchanging yin and unchanging yang. Then Fire and Water would be changing yang and yin, respectively.

Look at what elements each SMiLE track is associated with according to astrology (I will go into this in the next Chapter). The feminine elements would be yin and therefore broken lines, while the masculine elements are yang and unbroken lines. Each side of the album (6 songs) would then form a different hexagram.

I'll just admit upfront that Im not really a firm believer in this, or as enthusiastic about it as I was with the astrology and numerology theories. Maybe it's due to the fact that Vosse and Anderle mention those two but not (to my recollection) the I Ching. Or maybe it's because this requires working in a lot of outside concepts (like the elements according to astrology) in order to work. But...yeah. It's something I thought of tho so I figured I'd post it anyway. If there are any other fanatics like me out there looking for new sequences (and/or something to justify them) then this might help you out. Personally, I think in terms of the I Ching, it's most likely Brian wanted to work in the idea of change, from one state of America to another, and demonstrate a corresponding change of an individual in Side 2. It probably didn't go much deeper than that; the idea of working in actual hexagrams corresponding to the album or individual tracks is just for fun.

And I thought I got deep when I analysed "That Lucky Old Sun"... 

Chapter 9: The Evolution of My SMiLE Mixes 

I'm going to continue my in-depth dissection of all things SMiLE with a look at my changing understanding of it as the years have gone by, mix by mix. (I'm kinda bummed I didn't put anything out for the 50th anniversary, but my interests were consumed by politics then.)


SMiLE (the Metroid Mix)

When I first discovered SMiLE sometime in spring 2011, I was enthralled by it. At that time, several bootlegs and fan mixes were on YouTube, and I gobbled up everything I could find to download. At that time, I had no thoughts for a sequence. I only wanted to hear as much of it as possible, preferably at once on every listen. So, while my bootleg collection was great, as was BWPS, I wanted to make a SMiLE album utilizing everything. That's what led to my first attempt at a "mix." I use that word in quotes because it was more of an iTunes playlist of my favorite versions of each track from various bootlegs. Since the BWPS sequence was still dominant in most people/mixers opinions at this time, mine naturally followed suite. Who was I to doubt Brian?

I had the strange idea that the album had to be 24 tracks long...I really don't know why. And I thought the elements tracks were too significant to put one after the other, so I tried to space them out with some sessions outtakes. Because I didn't use the actual bootleg titles for the albums in iTunes, what versions I used for each track are lost now. I know the biggest sources were Purple Chick's SMiLE and Mok's SMiLE mix. Then there was one--actually the first SMiLE mix I ever heard and downloaded in fact--off YouTube that used the wrong titles for almost every track (to avoid copyright protection?) For example, George Fell was called "Armstrong" and Holidays or IWBA were called "A Trip to Town."

I don't have this mix anymore since all my files have been lost or moved over time. It truthfully wasn't that great anyway. It was an "everything and the kitchen sink" type of mix that I now can't stand. It clocked in at ~75 minutes. I uploaded it track by track on my old old YouTube channel (also called theSuperMetroid) which was quickly deleted for copyright violations thereafter. Oops Here was the tracklist tho if you're interested. (Also, I misspelled "definitive." )



SMiLE (the Mujan Remix)

I did this mix later the same year, after I'd gotten my copy of the boxset to work with. The main reason I made this one was the boxset made my previous mix obsolete. I still kept to the BWPS 3-suite format because it's all I knew and I'd yet to really analyze the SMiLE music in depth. I still had the attitude that "Brian did it this way, that's good enough for me." The only changes I really made were elongating most of the tracks, moving He Gives Speeches to be next to Wonderful, pairing Worms and Holidays together (after I'd heard the rumor they were possibly two versions of the same track), a reprise of Heroes right before the end, and replacing GV with a medley of outtakes as the finale. It ended up clocking in at 67 minutes, which at the time I thought was really cool (and now think is far too long).

Someone else generously compiled all the tracks into a convenient YouTube playlist. For whatever reason, the Veggies mix I did got the most attention at the time, being frequently reposted by a Facebook fan group and I received some nice messages there from people who enjoyed it. All I really did was replace the fade on the boxset with a new fade using the arguments. Over time tho, the CIFOTM mix overtook it in views, and despite the jarring transition to stereo it's the cut I'm most proud of. I hated what was done to that song on the boxset in particular, so restoring it to that fleshed out bootleg format I first heard was amazing.

I uploaded this mix under a different account, Mujanus, which I've since lost the login for and the email it's tied to is also inaccessible. I'm honestly amazed these videos haven't been taken down yet. Someone at Capitol or the Beach Boys HQ must like it   

SMiLE: Reflections

This was made a year and a half later, in late spring 2013. By this point, I'd grown tired of the 3-suite structure of SMiLE on BWPS/boxset Disc 1 and almost all of the bootlegs. It was fine at first, but over time several noticeable flaws started jumping out to me. I've discussed them at length on SmileySmile but a quick summary is:

_________________________________________________________________________________________
1) The Americana suite is messy. You have Heroes and Worms going side by side which just accentuates the stolen chorus (and as a result, sounds lazy to new listeners.) Snippets passed off as standalone tracks like the 30-second IIGS and Barnyard make the album sound a lot weaker and unfinished than it really is. Combine that with OMP (let's face it, one of the weaker tracks) coming so soon after all this, and it's bound to turn off newbies. Under this sequence, the album doesn't really start to pick up until you get to Cabin Essence. It's certainly not a very good first impression to new listeners, and make subsequent visits a lot less appealing even to an uber-fan like myself.

2) The Second Suite is great, but should have been the finale. Surf's Up is the perfect capstone to the album, and having it in the middle kind of diminishes its impact, especially followed up by the upbeat/goofy IIGS and Veggies. It's a very jarring transition, maybe the worst one I've ever heard on a professional album. Look works really well following Wonderful on BWPS, but with the boxset versions the transition can't work even half as well. Realistically, Look (as much as I love it) only slows things down. Finally, CIFOTM (my favorite SMiLE song) is hacked to pieces in service of the flow of this suite, which means some of its best moments have to be sacrificed.

3) The Third suite is so full of conflicting feelings that it's not very pleasant to sit thru. And after coming thru like 12 or 13 tracks to get to this point, exhaustion is starting to set in even tho the music is fantastic. You go from a funny song, to a relaxing song, to a scary-anxious song, to a chilled out song again all in ~10 minutes. It's emotional whiplash. And somehow, at least to me, hearing GV come at the end of all this seems weird. To me at least, that song is begging to be a setlist/side opener, rather than a closer.

4) The more I learned about the 2003/4 release, the less it seemed like a deliberate attempt to finish the album according to its founding ideas from the 60s. I'm not one of those "Darian's fanmix"/"Brian's a vegetable"/"wife and managers" people. But I do think Brian's a lot less ambitious and more of a go-with-the-flow kinda guy these days. I think Darian played him his own mixes/boots collections (which were often based on the popular Priore interpretation--Americana side, Elements side) Brian liked it enough to go with it, maybe a few changes aside, and they arranged a setlist that would work well as a live show. Stuff that probably would have been cut for time, or thoughtfully spliced into Heroes or something by a younger Brian (Dada, IIGS, BY, IWBA) couldn't be cut now as they'd become iconic since the boots. And older Brian couldn't think of a more creative way to work them in or didn't care to, hence their awkward inclusion as weird thirty second speed-bumps. 

5) The darker and more psychedelic undertones to the music has been ignored if not intentionally washed away. Suddenly the initialism of "LSD" in Love to Say Dada is replaced with a generic title like "In Blue Hawaii." The mesmerizing Water Chant is ruined with unnecessary lyrics, same with Holidays. The new lyrics for CIFOTM are downright uninspired especially coming between Wonderful and Surf's Up which are some of the more thoughtful on the whole album. The creepier segments of music, like the Talking Horns and aforementioned section of Worms (see Chapter 1) are nowhere to be found. There's just a certain aesthetic missing and it feels like all the trippy vibes have been sanded down in order to not be controversial.    

6) Making the album anew for a different time and different Brian is all well and good, but for me personally, I prefer to listen to a SMiLE that's made with the intentions (as best they can be determined) and medium (2-sided vinyl, where 3 suites is sloppy or impossible) of 1966-7. That's just my opinion on the matter. Statements like "we added a third movement" (when asked what was different from the 60s plans) felt like more than enough reason to believe this was a completely different project. Annoying little details, like the deadpan delivery of "you're under arrest," fake harpsichord, butchered bass notes in CIFOTM and sacrificed fades (which are the best parts of some tracks) make me believe Brian just wasn't trying to get it "right" and didn't care about making an accurate completion of the material. Any statements of his to the contrary felt like marketing to drum up interest for the CD release. 
__________________________________________________________________________________________

So anyway, with all that in mind, I started working on a "2-suite" SMiLE. I just grouped the tracks as they made sense to me. The Americana stuff is obvious, as is the second suite of BWPS. What I always had the biggest problem with was the Third Suite, so I broke that up. Veggies is more humorous and fun like Heroes, while Mrs O'Leary's Cow is a reference to American history and it represents the same destruction of nature found in other Americana tracks. Meanwhile Dada and Wind Chimes were more somber and understated like the Cycle of Life tracks so they remained on that side. I noticed while doing this that all the tracks on Side 2 (save Holidays and Dada) had the same instrumentation, with pianos and horns as the most prominent instruments. I also noticed that the songs on the first side were about larger forces (nature, nations, organized religion) and entities while the second side tracks were about intimate, individual experiences.

While this initial attempt was a little rough around the edges, it laid the foundation for how I would perceive SMiLE from then on. Without trying to toot my own horn, it flowed much better to me than BWPS ever did, and made more sense especially considering the vinyl format. The more I heard and thought about it, the more a 2 suite/side structure made irrefutable sense. There was even a precedent for a "rockers on one side, ballads on the other" format with the Today album.

All that said, I have to admit looking bak that my favorite thing about this particular mix is the cover art I came up with. I still wasn't a huge fan of the Frank Holmes drawing at this time, and plus I wanted something that would stand out. I wanted to demonstrate the time it took to finish the album and the pain and isolation felt in that process. I wanted this amazing work of art to be taken seriously, something akin to the Beatles' Revolver or White Album hence the black and white collage art style.  

Even tho I hardly listen to this mix anymore, I'm really happy it survived the purge that took my later 3 mixes off YouTube. I guess Brian or whoever's in charge of Brother Records copyright protection must like it Also around this same time, I made a 10 minute cut of Heroes and Villains and spoke about doing 3 more mixes. These never got off the ground tho, because the more I heard and thought of this 2-sided SMiLE the more I loved it, and the more I was convinced it was the only format that made sense. This one clocks in at 48 minutes.

Side Two 

My Sources/Links for Further Reading

I hope you enjoyed my "thesis" on SMiLE, 4 years in the making if we start from '15 when the first essays which would go on to become part of the book were written. My main source for most of my claims is just the music (including Psychedelic Sounds) itself. But if you're interested in some of the other written sources I've read and absorbed over the years, here's what still exists out there. (Unfortunately so much of the websites I saw in my first few years as a fan I didn't keep track of and/or they're defunct now.) This is the list I made when these essays were originally posted on the PSF. Unfortunately two of the links have gone dead since then, which is denoted with a strikethrough. 

These are my SMiLE Mixes

Mujan Remix

Heroes and Villains: Ultimate Extended Cut

Reflections Side 1 & Reflections Side 2

Aquarian SMiLE & Reversed YouTube Mirror

Dumb Angel (Olorin Edition) [the original on Vimeo was taken down, unfortunately.]

Dumb Angel [the Romestamo Cut] & Reversed YouTube Mirror 

The Psychedelic Sounds

Lifeboat Tape

Vegetable Fight

The Rest of the Psychedelic Sounds

Here's a 31 page scholarly article about SMiLE 

www.people.carleton.edu/~aflory/Smile.pdf

And the link to Goodbye Surfing, Hello God 

read.atavist.com/goodbye-surfing-hello-god?no-overlay&preview

And links to read the Crawdaddy interview with Anderle

www.vistaservices.com/crawdaddy/page2.html

Links to the Fusion interview with Vosse

s351.photobucket.com/user/marcus1970/media/Fusion_01.jpg.html

s351.photobucket.com/user/marcus1970/media/Fusion_02.jpg.html

s351.photobucket.com/user/marcus1970/media/Fusion_03.jpg.html

s351.photobucket.com/user/marcus1970/media/Fusion_04.jpg.html

s351.photobucket.com/user/marcus1970/media/Fusion_05.jpg.html

s351.photobucket.com/user/marcus1970/media/Fusion_06.jpg.html

This is a link to a Smiley Thread which has embedded scans of the April 1967 Teen Set Issue

smileysmile.net/board/index.php?topic=17139.0

Link to an interview series on Danny Hutton

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL35350BBCE486D776

Interview with Al from when TSS was released

www.rockcellarmagazine.com/2013/04/02/al-jardine-smile-beach-boys-interview/#sthash.Ui2Rl7S9.dpbs

Someone listing all the chords used in SMiLE song by song

www.surfermoon.com/tabs/smile.html

My Personal Collection of SMiLE Shop Essays
(If This One Doesn't Work, Let Me Know and I'll Reupload Them)

www.dropbox.com/sh/txe2sstn290f4b0/AAAhNmIKA5LTGdPaMi1TtNeQa?dl=0

A fans dissection of Smiley Smile

smileysmile.org/closelisten.htm

Other Dissections of SMiLE

www.ratherrarerecords.com/convoluted-conversation-part-3/

www.angelfire.com/mn/smileshop/historymott.html

www.angelfire.com/mn/smileshop/historylane.html

www.goodhumorsmile.com

www.arpjournal.com/asarpwp/smile-brian-wilson’s-musical-mosaic/

self.gutenberg.org/articles/eng/Smile_(The_Beach_Boys_album)

www.goldminemag.com/articles/discover-the-story-behind-the-beach-boys-smile

A series of fan essays on Brian, many pertaining to SMiLE

www.surfermoon.com/essays.shtml

Another site about SMiLE

www.goodhumorsmile.com/page04.htm

Leetwall31's List of Key Signatures for All the SMiLE Sections

imgur.com/7ERMbu5

I would like to dedicate this "book" to him, as the most fascinating up and coming SMiLE fanatic I ever saw in my time on the boards. His mix promised to be the most exciting and original I've heard and I'm still disappointed he didn't stick around to share it with us. On the off chance you're reading this, Leetwall31, come back to the community. We miss you!

EDIT: Another amazing poster, jk, has graciously provided new links for two of the articles that had been missing in a previous version of the essay. Also, he's offered this revision to the Fire Key Signature:

[My version of] Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow [written out in the style of leetwall31's list of tonalities]

*Key of F*

*Part One (fast)*
Starts in F, ends in F plus random organ squiggle

*Part Two (slow)*
Starts with bass riff alternating Eb and Db
Vocal section alternates chords of BbA5/Ab and F
Reprises alternation of Eb and Db bass riff
Ends on Ab with random bass squiggle (the last note being Ab) and drum thumps

You don't have to delete it, jk. I appreciate your going out of your way to find them! And I also appreciate your revision to the Fire key signatures:


[My version of] Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow [written out in the style of leetwall31's list of tonalities]

*Key of F*

*Part One (fast)*
Starts in F, ends in F plus random organ squiggle

*Part Two (slow)*
Starts with bass riff alternating Eb and Db
Vocal section alternates chords of BbA5/Ab and F
Reprises alternation of Eb and Db bass riff
Ends on Ab with random bass squiggle (the last note being Ab) and drum thumps

Well, I reached out to him on vimeo thanks to you, jk. Hopefully he sees it soon and is willing to come back