SMiLE vs. SMiLE

“Maybe not now…” This is the story of the Beach Boys' SMiLE, the greatest album almost made.

There's a conundrum between great artists and great record labels. Great record labels repeat the formula. They find what works, and they crank it out. Great artists take the risks. Labels do not like when artists take risks because they're spending label money, and there's a chance they might not make it back. This is the story of the greatest risk anyone in popular music ever took; one that wouldn’t pay off for nearly forty years.

Pet Sounds was a hit across the pond. Audiences devoured it and artists worshipped it. It influenced the fucking Beatles! In the United States, however, things did not go according to plan. It missed out on Grammys, confused critics, and divided the Beach Boys’ fan base. The American public was, for the most part, used to “the formula.” Surfing, cars, and girls. Brian saw the discrepancy between how Pet Sounds went over in the UK and US – how artists saw its brilliance, but audiences and the label didn't. It lit a fire under his ass. He wanted to write something that would blow everyone away; something too big to ignore. Capitol Records really liked “Good Vibrations” and wanted it on Pet Sounds, but Brian held off. He had...bigger plans. “Good Vibrations” hitting number one gave 24-year-old Brian the confidence to start working on his masterpiece. He would be the Rogers of this project. All he needed was his Hammerstein.

Pictured, L-R: Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, 1967

Enter 22-year-old Van Dyke Parks. He looks like a Victorian orphan, but he writes like a poet. Both him and Brian were optimists at heart. The late ’60s were a scary and confusing time to be a young adult. The divide between young and old was growing, largely over the draft (a matter that the Beach Boys would find themselves directly involved in,) and the threat of nuclear war hung behind it all like a velvet curtain. Bri wanted to write the story of America, but in a way that spoke to its greatness. Youth, hope, freedom, coming of age, opportunity. Exploring America. The good guys beating the bad guys in the end. The first song the pair wrote together was, of course, the song about good guys and bad guys: “Heroes and Villains.” No one was in charge, no one was the sidekick. It was the two of them. Van Dyke described their dynamic as “simple, uncomplicated, collaborative heaven.”

This project would need a snappy, happy title; deceptively simple for the most ambitious project Brian has conceived thus far. Brian had Christian ideas, but was accepting of numerology and astrology too. He wanted to write music people could live to as well as pray to. He was endlessly fascinated by the universe; a real “God is everywhere and everything, and music is prayer” kind of guy. After the working title of “Dumb Angel,” SMiLEwas born.

In order to execute a project as big as SMiLE, Brian had to think on a whole different scale. Bits and pieces at at time were written, and often swapped around. Songs very rarely came in one go and even rarer did they stay the same; “Heroes and Villains” and “Surf’s Up” were exceptions to the rule. Pieces were recorded, then pieced together later. Did Brian even know what the finished product was to be? Who knows. To this day, nearly sixty years later, the intended sequencing of the SMiLE project remains one of its enduring unanswered questions. David Anderle swore he had it. (I think he was bullshitting.) David Leaf tried to work it out with index cards on Brian’s kitchen table. None could crack the code.

The driving force behind SMiLE was its humor, joy, and fun. One day, the crew arrived at the studio to find all the furniture replaced with yoga mats! On another, Brian wanted an indoor tent as a meeting spot. But the first time the guys got in, they decided to smoke hash and accidentally hotboxed it! And so, the tent was out…

Pictured, L-R, front to back: Carl Wilson, Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Bruce Johnston, Dennis Wilson, and Al Jardine, and Brian's dog Banana in the tent

...in favor of a Steinway piano in a sandbox.

Pictured: Brian Wilson and his piano in his sandbox

The antics of SMiLE sessions didn’t happen because “Brian was losing it!” He was just having fun! But too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.

This is where the conversation gets tricky. No account of SMiLE seems to agree on how much LSD Brian Wilson took, what else he was taking with it, or what underlying issues caused it to manifest the way it did. What we can agree upon about psychedelics, though, is that you shouldn't take them when you're not doing well. Brian was not doing well. He was anxious over the SMiLE project. The rest of the Beach Boys returned from tour in Europe to find this impenetrable project in complete disarray, with no idea where or how they fit in. Dennis was all for it, but the rest – especially Mike Love – had no problem voicing their dissatisfaction. As things unraveled, Brian became paranoid.

From Jules Siegel’s “Goodbye Surfing, Hello God”:

“...Walking into the control room with the answers to all questions was Brian Wilson himself, wearing a competition-stripe surfer’s T-shirt, tight white duck pants, pale green bowling shoes, and a red plastic toy fireman's hat. Everyone was wearing identical red plastic toy fireman's helmets. Brian’s cousin and production assistant, Steve Korthoff was wearing one; his wife, Marilyn, and her sister Diane; Brian’s secretary – were also wearing them, and so was a once-dignified writer from The Saturday Evening Post who'd been following Brian around for two months...using a variety of techniques ranging from vocal demonstration to actually playing the instruments, he taught each musician his part. A gigantic fire howled out of the massive studio speakers in a pounding crash of pictorial music that summoned up visions of roaring, windstorm flames, falling timbers, mournful sirens and sweating firemen, building into a peak and cracking off into fading embers as a single drum turned into a collapsing wall and the fire engine cellos dissolved and disappeared. ‘When did he write this?’ asked an astonished pop music producer who'd wandered into the studio. ‘This is really fantastic! Man, this is unbelievable! How long has he been working on it?’ ‘About an hour,’ answered one of Brian’s friends.”

quoted from: Julies Siegel, “Goodbye Surfing, Hello God” as printed in Shake It Up: Great American Writing on Rock and Pop from Elvis to Jay-Z (2017.)

“I'm gonna call this ‘Mrs O'Leary's Fire,’ and I think it might just scare a whole lot of people," Brian said. A few days later, a building across the street from the studio burned down.

Pictured: Brian Wilson, in the infamous fire hat

Fearing the composition he wrote somehow started the fire, according to Jules, Brian destroyed the master of “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow.” This moment is, in conventional retellings of the SMiLE story, the moment Brian “lost it.”

In reality, the demise of SMiLE was a tragic, gradual affair. In February of 1967, the Beatles released “Strawberry Fields Forever” to promote Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Upon hearing the song, Brian thought Lennon and McCartney had effortlessly done what he’d been grinding for months to do. This shook his confidence. “Heroes and Villains” was released as a single to buy some time until SMiLE’s projected release. It had already been delayed once from the 1966 holiday season. “Heroes and Villains” did not go over well. It was strange. It made no sense outside the context of SMiLE. Audiences were confused, and Jimi Hendrix called it “psychedelic barber shop music.” The other Beach Boys all had their own personal problems to deal with. They felt their contributions were being devalued in favor of “the genius,” as Derek Taylor’s media campaign stated.

Pictured: spread from 5/21/1966 issue of Melody Maker

SMiLE dragged on through the spring of ’67, with a diminishing sense of direction. Brian was losing allies. Mike Love bullied Van Dyke Parks out of the project over the “columnated ruins domino” line in “Surf’s Up.” Julies Siegel dropped out after a security guard at the studio turned him away; Brian thought his girlfriend was a witch. David Anderle was the last to leave. A portrait he’d painted of Brian spooked him pretty badly. All this mounted on top of the stress of forming Brother Records; without Anderle around to run it, it was a non-starter.

Capitol Records breathing down Brian’s neck? Fine. Been, there done that. Dad hates it? Whatever. That adds more fuel to the fire. “Magic fire music?” That’s worrying, but we can push through it. His brothers and bandmates no longer believing in the vision? That's something a sentimental, sensitive, lifelong people-pleaser just can't get past. In May of 1967, Brian Wilson shelves SMiLE. The Beach Boys were forced to drop out of the Monterey Pop Festival that month. The definitive California group benched themselves at the height of the “Summer of Love.”

Smiley Smile was released in September, with a handful of songs from the scrapped SMiLE project. Fans must’ve been baffled. A year and a half of hype and...this? Smiley is a fine album. Good, even. The Beach Boys are doing some almost avant-garde stuff with it. But SMiLE was a question with no answer. A few songs land on subsequent Beach Boys albums; 20/20 got “Cabinessence” and “Our Prayer,” Sunflower got “Cool Cool Water.” After 1971’s Surf’s Up, all went quiet on the SMiLE front. Dennis hands out bootlegs on cassette, fan bootlegs are made. For decades, Brian shirked any and all conversation surrounding SMiLE. He called it his life's greatest failure. The Beach Boys became something unrecognizable from Brian's vision. Dennis passed away tragically, then Carl. SMiLE became perhaps the greatest of all rock-and-roll myths; the greatest album never made.

Until the early 2000s.

By now, Brian had spent some years building a solo career. Two wonderfully encouraging and positive forces entered his life: his wife Melinda, and his bandmate Darian Sahanaja. While the Beach Boys became a nostalgia act, Brian and his concert band were performing Pet Sounds. At some point, the question of new material came up. By working through his trauma, it seems Brian realized the only way out of this “would’ve-could’ve-shoud’ve” black hole was through. He finally accepted work on SMiLE. Darian acted as Brian’s musical secretary; using new technology to helping Bri sift through song fragments and reverse engineer things that had been lost to the sands of time. Brian’s band, including Probyn Gregory and Darian, committed to working on one song a day. There was no pressure to do more, but not a day would go by where nothing was done. All this work was leading up to a concert date; set for February 20^th, 2004 at Royal Albert Hall. Bri found that having a date set in stone was a great motivator. By the grace of god, Albert Hall goes off without a hitch; the material is received really well. This show was the final push needed to mend Brian's broken heart.

In September of 2004 – 37 years after the intended release of SMiLE – Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE was released to thunderous applause. I can only imagine what it must have been like to be a fan when this thing was finally released. After the better part of four decades, suddenly, finally, it's here. You can go to a store and buy it. You can hold a SMiLE in your hands. You can put a SMiLE on your turntable. You can spend money on SMiLE – I spent $125 on my vinyl copy! David Leaf’s SMiLE: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Brian Wilson has an entire chapter dedicated just to fan reactions from SMiLE on tour. It oozes love for the record and what it means to the man who made it. Critics lost their minds just as much as the fans did. It even thawed Robert Christgau’s heart!

Considering the hype, it is nothing short of a goddamn miracle Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE lived up to it. Brian and his team had to have sighed the biggest sigh of relief in the recorded history of ever!

Brian said that his rerecording of SMiLE was the iteration of smile closest to vision. However, this is not the closest iteration to a 1967 SMiLE. In October of 2011, after a year and a half of behind the scenes work, the Beach Boys released The SMiLE Sessions. Some bits and bobs were recorded later on, like Carl’s vocal on “Surf’s Up,” but the vast majority of material was put to tape between the spring of 1966 and 1967. Like Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE, The SMiLE Sessions tracks were assembled into full songs for release. Bootlegs had been doing this for decades: Purple Chick was basically the proto-SMiLE Sessions. It’s funny, though: not only did the Sessions package render the bootlegs, it negated the need for Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE in some fans’ eyes. The full Sessions came in a huge box set that runs for over $600 today. There were a handful of tracks and a lot of song fragments never accounted for, and we’ll never know how they were supposed to fit into SMiLE.

SMiLE and all its iterations (even more so since the rise of AI, that’s a big thing that’s changed since I first wrote this review!) stand as a monumental undertaking that was never quite followed through upon. It remains the most mythologized would-be album in rock-and-roll history. What do we make of its two “canon” iterations: Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE and the SMiLE Sessions?

Every day for over a month of the summer of 2023, I listened to one song on Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE, then compared it to the same song as it appears on the SMiLE Sessions. I also threw versions of these songs that appeared on Smiley Smile, 20/20, Sunflower, and Surf’s Up into the mix, because at this point? Why the hell not?

I had a bias going in. Thanks to a Brian Wilson fanatic boyfriend, the SMiLE Sessions had ingrained itself into my everyday listening. I listened to it while waking up in the morning, getting ready for my day, taking my dog for a walk, even in the shower! The Sessions are a bona fide part of my life, and been for some time. Before writing the SMiLE vs. SMiLE video, I hadn’t heard Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE in full. The video was my first reaction to it all.

Track vs. Track

Our Prayer holds a very special place in the Vinyl Monday canon. Censoring my swear words with each progressive change – “Our Swear,” as the first viewer to notice dubbed it – was my channel’s oldest running joke. I kept “Our Swear” going for nearly four years of Vinyl Monday episodes. With Brian Wilson’s passing in June, and Surf’s Up as the 150^th episode, I retired the joke.

The version of “Our Prayer” on the SMiLE Sessions is pretty much the version we hear on 20/20, just with a different, crisper mix. The former is the version I used for “Our Swear,” so I think you know which version I've always preferred. The open-vowel beginning with a wider vowel at the end favors the grand, ornamental changes. The baritone and bass vocal sound on this performance is light. In typical Brian fashion, the really high tenor part was favored. The Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE version is very different. The vowel sounds are inverted; wider in the beginning and darker at the end. This arrangement (or maybe it's just the mix, Brian was experiencing hearing loss at this point in his life) is a lot heavier on the baritone end. Whatever tie signature it’s in (it’s pretty open!) there is more space between phrases. (Verdict: SMiLE Sessions)

Gee is lumped in with “Our Prayer” on Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE, so on this day I went ahead and listened to both. If “Our Prayer” is SMiLE’s overture, then “Gee” is the curtain rising. We have this vintage TV set/radio treatment on the “do, do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do do-do,” vocals. It bursts out of the tube into the “do-do you wanna, heroes and villains.” The female vocals pop, swinging above and below on this line. The SMiLE Sessions version is very different from the cleaned-up album version. No vocal effects, just right at you from the very beginning. This is the first major difference we've had between these two versions of the album. The beginning of “Gee” on the Sessions has one less “do.” There’s more of a swing in the vocalizations because there’s one less “do” to…well...do. The trombone fades into nothing, leaving a pause at between “Gee” and the next track, “Heroes and Villains.” It disrupts the flow from one song to another – is the point of SMiLE not to be a suite? Though I feel strongly about the merits of “do-do-do…” (Verdict: Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE)

The structure of Heroes and Villains is delightfully weird. I can't think of another song structured this way (besides “Good Vibrations”) and I certainly can’t come up with another pop song with a cantina section! The first lyrical contribution from Van Dyke Parks on the album comes rushing in:

"I’ve been in this town so long that back in the city,

I’ve been taken for lost and gone and unknown for a long, long time..."

Van Dyke’s writing could be wordy as hell. That first verse is a lot to spit out in a short time. “Heroes and Villains” hammers out all the Van Dyke tropes; long lines, alliteration, plenty of wordplay, a wistful feel, and goofy sense of humor. See shoehorning a turn of phrase like “What a dude’ll-y do” into “But she’s still dancing in the night unafraid;” a song memorializing Marguerita, gunned down at a square dance! On the Smiley Smilerecording, the keys are quite prominent. The organ lingering over such a calamity of a song feels claustrophobic. As aforementioned, “Heroes and Villains” was chopped up into a three-minutes-and-change section. The cantina section and the outtro – two necessary elements to understand what the hell is going on here – were nixed. I can safely put the single/Smiley Smile version at the bottom of my ranking.

The Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE version of the tune links comfortably from “Gee,” thanks to a perfectly indulgent horn crescendo. The backing vocals are very consonant-forward on this recording, making them pop. (Again, I think this decision was to help an aged Brian out.) The Brian Wilson recording introduces the one line that comes to mind when I think of “Heroes and Villains.” Ladies and gentlemen…

“You’re under arrest!!”

This song is just so weird. That exclamation is the icing on the cake!

The SMiLE Sessions version is similar to Smiley Smile’s, but with two key differences: it's got the cantina movement, and it doesn’t have the organ. I love both these choices. The song is a little freer to move without those keys, and still retains its context. (Well. What little you can find.) While Brian Wilson’s rendition ended with a motif from “Surf’s Up,” this version ends with the “Gee” horn. These creative choices are emblematic of what makes SMiLE special; how insular it is. Almost every single idea Brian presents in the music comes back around at some point, and it’ll come when you least expect it. However, I think it's a little early to be casting our gaze as far out as “Surf’s Up.” Haven’t you heard of spoiler alerts, Brian?? The trombone is a better fit going into our next track, but the performances are just better in 2004. (Verdict: Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE)

We don't know why Do You Like Worms was ever the title, and at this point, we probably never will.

I didn't think any version could beat the SMiLE Sessions recording. “Worms,” AKA “Roll Plymouth Rock,” is a weird favorite of mine, it was always going to be a number I paid attention to, but wow. Brian Wilson’s rendition was hearing the song for the first time again. I don't always appreciate the finished lyrics on this record (as you'll see later in this section,) but these worked. “Waving from the ocean liner,” the ship bell makes the SMiLEatmosphere, vibrant and theatrical. “The Native Indians behind that.” The “whooooo” slipping away so far at the end makes it dark and unsettling. The vocals are missing on the SMiLE Sessions recording; it seems this was a portion written later on. The listener still gets some of the storyline from the arrangement; we're crossing the ocean on the Mayflower to Plymouth Rock, and on to Hawaii. “Wa halla loo way, wa halla loo wah, keeny wok-a-poo-la…” But if you don’t know All The Lore, you'll need some more lyrics than that. (Verdict: Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE)

Barnyard: I was dreading this one. Can I pick neither? This might my least favorite song of the SMiLE canon. It doesn't serve much of a purpose to the narrative aside from being silly, but it does represent the element of fun that was so tantamount to the making of SMiLE. I won't be spending any more time than I need to talking about a song where humans make barnyard animal noises, but I will say everyone was a lot more committed to the bit on the Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE recording. Shoutout to whoever played the goat.

Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine is another shorty whose versions are very similar across both albums. Brian Wilson's does the vintage radio effect again, as Brian sings the American standard “You Are My Sunshine,” but with a melancholy twist. “You were my sunshine, my only sunshine, you made me happy when skies were gray…” The strings slide down like they do at the end of “Worms;” like a wilting sunflower. (It was about here that I had to take stock of all the damn abbreviations in my notes. I had to rack my brain while filming the video to figure out what was what!) The SMiLE Sessions rendition has a whole other section rounding the song; it makes the trombone slide feel out of place. (Verdict: Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE)

Cabinessence was one of those SMiLE songs that landed on the “placeholder” albums between 1967 and 1971. First heard on 20/20 with “Our Prayer,” the album version is very similar to what’s happening on the SMiLE Sessions. Not much more than minor cosmetic differences in the mix. The Brian Wilson recording of “Cabinessence” has prominent percussion and this grand, breathtaking centrifugal force on the group vocal. It feels like we’re being lifted off the ground – surely freaking out as we do so! – as a magical flying bicycle takes us on a cross-country. (I couldn’t help but think of the flights of Judeo-Christian religions; I know Brian was a spiritual guy.) He takes the countermelody: “Who ran the iron horse? Who ran the iron horse?” but it's a little drowned out by the hefty arrangement and bottom vocals. I love the crescendo at the end of this circular motif; it's the perfect way to round out side one of the album. (Damn, we fit this much on just one side of a disc?) The SMiLE Sessions version has different inflections on the harmonica, and the “doing”s just hit different. Otherwise, it’s pretty much the same as 20/20’s; they even share vocal tracks. (Verdict: Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE)

When I heard Wonderful for the first time in Beautiful Dreamer, I cried. It had never moved me like that before, and hasn’t moved me quite like that since. This song bears the same theme as “Caroline, No;” a man meeting his first love again after some time has passed and mourning the loss of her youth. “Wonderful” is a lot more sympathetic to the girl. We gain some insight on the things she falls back on in heartbreak: “Her mother, and father.” The SMiLE Sessions version stays true to the Brian Wilson formula; French horn and all. The Smiley Smile album version is practically a different song – hi Carl! This recording has a murky, underwater sound that gradually rises to the surface. It has a much softer feel overall, and the back half is completely different; we hear the “Heroes and Villains” motif again. It gets a little surreal with the chatter through the bridge (much grass went into this “Wonderful,” I’m sure,) and a little weird with the whispers. This may be a molten hot take, but...(Verdict: Smiley Smile)

Look/Song For Children and Child Is Father Of The Man are two of my favorite tunes of the SMiLE canon, so I was really looking forward to this. Brian Wilson’s transitions right from “Wonderful,” and has lyrics. “Maybe not one/Maybe you too, wonderin’/Wonderin' who, wonderful you, a-wonderin’.” There’s the introduction of a new motif that we’ll hear a lot of through the rest of this record, and a similar sense of whimsy to “Barnyard.” All the SMiLE Sessions version has on top of the instrumentation are occasional murmurs of “Child, child, child, father of the man.” Do we really need lyrics to convey childlike wonder? Brian might not have. Thoughtechnically incomplete, it still services the greater SMiLE narrative. (Verdict: SMiLE Sessions) The Brian Wilson rendition of “Child Is Father Of The Man” took me by surprise. I only made it fourteen seconds in (yes, I timed it,) before having to start the song over. I couldn’t believe the difference I was hearing. This arrangement sounds so full! Percussive chugs of surf guitar under affected keys and a wash of drums. There’s echo, there’s reverb! This was such different instrumentation than I was used to. Then it burst into the vocal arrangement that I was used to. It felt like a complete sonic journey; no hint of an unfinished project. This set of lyrics helped fill out the theme of SMiLE: “Easy my child, it’s just enough to believe/Out of the wild, into what you can't conceive” The sleigh bells feel like a callback to “God Only Knows.” The “Child” piano motif returns, with a beautiful string and French horn outro. All of what I heard here made it glaringly obvious the SMiLE Sessions version was a song fragment. I never would have known that otherwise. It does have those great big booming drums that I love hearing on a Beach Boys record (there was nothing like the Beach Boys and the Wrecking Crew together!) Thevocals are perkier because there’s not quite so much happening behind them. But I can’t believe I ever accepted this version as complete. (Verdict: Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE)

Here it is. The diamond, the moment I’d been waiting for this entire project: "Surf’s Up."

Compared to the other versions I heard, Carl’s Surf’s Up solo vocal feels naked and vulnerable. The usually-robust Beach Boys harmonies feel like they’re hiding in the corner. You can tell this project was made to sound like Brian; he was hardly here. When he finally comes in, it feels like we’re being visited by a ghost. The “Child Is The Father” motif makes no sense without the context of the rest of SMiLE. This version of “Surf’s Up” feels like an orphan child. The Brian Wilson version features a confident vocal delivery from Brian. You can tell he cherishes and believes in this song. Jesus, the harmony at “Canvas the town and brush the backdrop” is something else. This was the first time I’d ever heard that and it’s stunning. “A choke of grief heart hardened I/Beyond belief, a broken man too tough to cry.”

The SMiLE Sessions was the first version of “Surf’s Up” I’d ever heard. It fucks me up that Brian could sing higher than me, and I’m a woman. His falsetto was spun gold. It’s worth noting the “bygone, bygone” that appears here is an outtake from the Surf’s Up sessions in ’71. I love how the tempo of this song ebbs and flows like a wave. The solo piano version, though not much more than a demo, displays the magic of artists at work; a half-carved sculpture. It reminds me of my favorite scene from Love and Mercy where Paul Dano as Brian is at the piano, running through “God Only Knows.” I got to really focus on the lyrics with this recording. Even after reviewing the Surf’s Up album in-depth, I still don’t really know what the hell “Surf’s Up” is about. No one does. Brian says he felt love while writing it, and everyone else feels great sadness hearing it. This “Surf’s Up” demo is so powerful to me; an entirely naturalistic picture of the final brick of Murry Wilson’ssurfingcarsandgirls tower coming loose, sending the whole thing softly crashing down.

This was one of the hardest choices I had to make in this project. Every version of this song has its merits. That’s a sign of a truly great song. It’s like “Something” by The Beatles. You hear George Harrison’s demo from the studio, and even then, in its bare-bones state, you hear the incredible potential that song had. This is the same case. Verdict: draw.

(For a more in-depth analysis of “Surf’s Up,” read my Surf’s Up review here.)

I’m In Great Shape, I Wanna Be Around, and Workshop presents our first great sequencing conundrum of the SMiLE album saga. Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE has all three of these songs tacked together, while the SMiLESessions placed “I’m In Great Shape” between “Plymouth Rock” and “Barnyard.” “Workshop” remains in its place after “Surf’s Up.” For the life of me, I can’t work out how the powers that be came to this conclusion. The Brian Wilson suite is a wonderful showcase of our backing vocalists; the great crew Brian had. Here, it's a cutesy interlude that devolves into a proto-vaporwave thing – where on earth did that fat reverb come from?? The lyrics about wanting to put somebody back together when they’re brokenhearted with little carpentry

noises in the back is so sweet. It reminded me of something my grandpa says:

“I can fix anything, but I can't fix broken hearts, I can't fix broken bones, and I can't fix stupid.”

It’s interesting to note that Brian’s SMiLE Sessions vocals for “Great Shape” and “Barnyard” came from a demo session in ’66. It still does that freaky outro, but into “Barnyard” this time; even more disorienting than the last round. It makes no sense, I have no idea why this was split up. Unfortunately, “Workshop” is wordless, so we don't get that wood shop noise pun. No wonder this confused me so much when I first heard it! But I do love the touch of somebody hitting their thumb and shouting, “OW!” (Verdict: Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE)

Oh, Vegetables. This is one of my guilty pleasure Beach Boys songs! I’m known to sing this one to myself as I cook. My dog loves scraps of cucumbers, tomatoes, and especially carrots. This song makes me think of him running into the kitchen whenever he hears me taking the cutting board out! Cute as it is, good grief, I cannot believe I had to listen to three versions of this song, three times each, in one day. While cooking, no less! Too much of a good thing is absolutely a bad thing! The Smiley Smile album version is most likely the one featuring Paul McCartney chewing celery. Maybe Brian had him come over and supposedly chew that celery, but never had any intention of using it. Maybe it was all a bit. Think about it. Never in the history of recorded music has there ever been anyone committed to the bit than Brian Wilson in 1967! I totally think this whole celery thing was just to fuck with Paul. Oh my God, was this revenge for “Strawberry Fields Forever”?? I think I just unlocked something…

My favorite vegetables are cucumbers and sweet potatoes, thank you for asking. Anyway, my favorite is the SMiLE Sessions version. The ukulele is adorable, it’s got the “Heroes and Villains” motif, and some more wayward wandering vocals without venturing too far into the surreal. The Smiley Smile recording is so jarring. Literally nothing about it feels right!

Holiday (or “Holidays”) brings us back to the adventures in exotica Brian embarked on with Pet Sounds, times ten. Wood blocks and tiki vibes galore! Where’s my paper umbrella? The Brian Wilson incarnation marks the triumphant return of the “Roll Plymouth Rock” motif. It seems “Holiday” was intended as a prelude to the fabled Element Suite; I really don’t think this should have been much more than a minute long. It covers what ground it needs to do pretty quickly. The SMiLE Sessions version is very similar as far as the musical structure goes, but there’s no lyrics and no “Plymouth Rock.” This version makes me wonder why “Plymouth Rock” needed to be in here at all. We get all we need to from the atmosphere the arrangement creates. It’s the wackiness and fun of SMiLE, plus some pretty ad-libs. Verdict: SMiLE Sessions

Wind Chimes is the beginning of what probably would have been the Elements. Brian Wilson’s edit has unreasonably good double bass; we encounter this jarring soft-loud thing. I have to say I was tuning out of this song, until those nice big drums. As as soon as I heard those drums, I knew exactly why they were there. This third side of the album as a whole is where you really start to appreciate how interwoven Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE is. It’s like one big long suite; leitmotifs and all. The Smiley Smile version sounds like a different song entirely! The haunted vibe suits the Elements; at least from what we have of it. That stop-time is striking and beautiful, and the whispers drift in and out like a breeze through the branches. With the SMiLE Sessions, we have the same arrangement as Brian Wilson’s, but it bridges the gap with Smiley’s vibe. The playing is tight, but it

better retains the unsettling feeling. (Verdict: SMiLE Sessions)

With Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow, Brian made a song so blistering that it may have actually burned down a building. The Brian Wilson version has clearly been altered by its muscle memory; it’s genuinely terrifying. The train whistle murmurs and engines lull before the realization of, “Oh, this is actually really bad, we should get out of here.” This song needed thirty-plus years for music to get heavy enough to carry it. Those chugging electric guitars are menacing. In those thirty years, though, “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow” became more about the making of the song than the song itself. The SMiLE Sessions version is very obviously unfinished, and it’s spooky knowing why. (Verdict: Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE)

I’m sorry, Brian, I’m sorry, Van Dyke, I’m sorry to everyone involved. But In Blue Hawaii’s lyrics are all sorts of no. “Is it hot as hell in here, or is it me?” quite passionately ruins the song! We’ve skipped right over the devastation after the fire has been put out. Once you get past this – if you can – the inclusion of the “Our Prayer” motif turns a bunt into a grand slam. It’s like the coda before the grand finale that is “Good Vibrations.” TheSMiLE Sessions recording fares a little bit better without all those clunky lyrics. Some of SMiLE should have stayed as instrumentals, and that’s okay! Pet Sounds had two instrumental tracks and it’s one of the greatest albums of all-time! The arrangement of this is much closer to “Cool Cool Water” on Sunflower; hair-raising and cold. Those non-verbal ad-libs are spooky. But, like much of SMiLE, there’s a second side to things; another sequencing conundrum. This “Blue” doesn't feel like enough of a lead-in to “Good Vibrations.” Therefore, as dissatisfied as I am... (Verdict: Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE)

Finally, Good Vibrations. I get why the Brian Wilson lyrics were altered, but you just can’t mess with perfection and expect the same results. Sorry, Brian. Sorry, Van Dyke. This version was taken out of the running immediately. The Smiley Smile version is the one most Beach Boys listeners are familiar with; this was the one that hit number one. It’s inventive, it’s intricate, it’s lush, mid-’60s Beach Boys at their very finest. Not to instantly contradict myself, but SMiLE Sessions builds “Good Vibrations”’s highs even higher. That one additional movement changes everything. This was like hearing the song for the first time all over again. If you ask me, this is the definitive version of the song. (Verdict: SMiLE Sessions)

(I want to take this line to quickly shout out “You’re Welcome.” Though it wasn’t intended as more than a B-side, I love hearing it so much on the SMiLE Sessions. It would’ve the “Your Majesty” of SMiLE.)

I was surprised to find that, overall, I preferred Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE. I’m a Beach Boys purist, I staunchly believe the whole is more than the sum of its parts. But I may have been subconsciously rooting for the 2004 album for the story behind it. If you want a cohesive, rounded-out version of SMiLE, go with Brian Wilson. If you want something sonically closer to what a 1967 SMiLE would have been, go with the SMiLE Sessions.

Question number one: Had it been completed and released in 1967 as intended, would SMiLE have been the greatest pop album ever made? What would a Beach Boys SMiLE have done? Sure, SMiLE would have been an incredible feat of humanity had it been completed. It was ambitious, in 1966 and in 2004. But greatest? There was so much stuff happening in 1967 that proved to be a lot more influential and, importantly, more accessible. SMiLE is dense as hell, and was years ahead of its time. It’s The Long One off Abbey Road, times four! For those reasons, I don’t think SMiLE would have fared as well in its time.

Number two: Since SMiLE was never completed, how do we handle it? This may be a hot take among Beach Boys fans, but I think we should treat SMiLE as something that does not, and never will, exist. We as humans have an innate need to quantify things. That’s why Pitchfork, Metacritic, RateYourMusic, and Fantano – the four horsemen of the apocalypse – have done so well with scored reviews. With something like SMiLE, though, we can't really quantify it. That’s tough, especially for analytical listeners. As evidenced by the other five discs of the SMiLE Sessions I didn’t account for in this review, there are still so many pieces that never got their place. So many holes were never filled. What about the skits? What about the rest of the Elements? How long was this thing even supposed to be? Now that Brian has passed away, we will never know, and we have to accept that for all for it is. And we absolutely have to stop making AI composites of SMiLE. Unlike the bootlegs of yore, this practice is void of creativity, terrible for the environment, and now it disrespects the dead.

Number three: Do we treat SMiLE as a Beach Boys album at all? The Beach Boys were right. There are some Beach Boys songs here, like “Good Vibrations,” but SMiLE was never truly going to be a Beach Boys album. It’s quirky, zany, and painfully earnest; grinning your biggest grin with a tear in your eye. That is the very essence of Brian Wilson.

Number four: In wake of examining his master work, how will Brian be remembered? Firstly, for his ear. His arrangements throughout SMiLE, namely “Heroes and Villains,” “Good Vibrations,” and “Cabinessence,” are masterful. I’ll remember him for his heart. You need a lot of heart a lot of resilience to go after a project as big as SMiLE, decades after its conception and initial failure. SMiLE is an exploration of two main themes: the history of America, and the human condition. One theme is used to illuminate the other. At its worst, it can seem unfinished, nonsensical, a little...vague. But at its best, on songs like “Wonderful” and “Surf’s Up,” they strike the same bruised heartstring as Pet Sounds. This is especially apparent on the devastatingly raw Surf’s Up demo. Brian’s aged voice might even add to this quality. I wasn’t expecting to ugly-cry to “Wonderful.” Though not as pristine as it once was, Brian’s voice still carried that tender, heartfelt quality; a resiliency that is so essential to the Beach Boys.

In my lowest moments, I often ask myself, “Are there still beautiful things?” But I look at SMiLE and my answer to that question is, “Yes.” It may be naive to do so, but I still believe in the inherent goodness of man. There’s a lot of bad out there. It was a scary time to be a young person in the ’60s. I can tell my older readers that the 2020s are a scary time to be a young person too.

I originally wrote this review in the summer of 2023. The pandemic was behind us, “Barbie summer” was in full swing, and we were completely naive to what would come in two short years. Our collective guard was down. “It’s okay to be pissed-off!” I said, completely unaware of the human rights atrocities and violations of constitutional rights that would unfold in our beautiful, broken United States, in very deep shit that starts with a big bad F. In spite of all that has happened since the original SMiLE episode, I still believe that it’s okay to see hope.

SMiLE is a defiant sense of hope; a sunflower turning its face to the light as the wind is whipping and the rain and snow is coming down. SMiLE is kintsugi; when potters fill the cracks of broken dishes with gold. At the end of the day, SMiLE is more than rock-and-roll myth; an album that doesn't exist. It’s more than fragments of a never-finished thing glued together with gold. It’s the assurance that broken things are beautiful, and good triumphs over evil. I swear to God, it does.

Personal favorites: “Heroes And Villains” “Roll Plymouth Rock,” “Wonderful,” “Child Is Father Of The Man,” “Surf's Up,” “Mrs O’Leary’s Cow,” “Good Vibrations”

– AD ☆

Watch the full episode above!

Badman, Keith. The Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary of America’s Greatest Band, On Stage and In the Studio. San Fransisco: Backbeat, 2004. https://archive.org/details/beachboysdefinit0000badm/page/207/mode/1up

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