Smiley While

Library Industries' very personal compilation(s) of best of the officially (except as noted*) available Smile / Smiley Smile era tracks, prior to 2011 release of "Smile Sessions"

front cover

Look! Listen (vibrate too), I’m playing this Smile/y mix right now and I don’t want to distract myself from it at all so I ain’t gonna write too hard. This music is sacred to me in a very profane world. Listening to it properly is more important than writing about it successfully. Consider this speed-blogging on something I've spent years loving and thinking on and talking about in far more coherent ways. Because sharing this music with y’all Right Now is what counts.

The tale of The Beach Boys' SMiLE album is well represented on the internet / you can read about it everyanywhere. Not here; I shall skip those facts.

Years ago before computers played consumers their music & allowed us (those consumers) to arrange things into playlists I used my Philips CDR785 3-CD Integrated CD Recorder to assemble the best (my personal favorite) versions of all the SMiLE era and Smiley Smile tracks which had become officially available by then. I called this collection “Smiley While.” I think I named it such not just 'cause it sounded like "Smiley Smile" but also because I had this idea that the whole notion of time was essential to what would have been SMiLE; that time had notoriously become (or was perceived as) an enemy of SMiLE; that time had passed it by; yet it was timeless really. And so on. Smiley While. I grew up against The Beach Boys; couldn't stand 409 (though I lived in one in future years) but later I had heard Pet Sounds, Smiley Smile, Sunflower, Friends, etc... and this Smile era stuff was the greatest. No further Smile era tracks were to become officially available until much later, on the recent Smile Sessions. None of that 2011 set is in evidence here, though some of these same takes were used therein, in same or similar mixes / edits. What’s here is best of what I could assemble before then and at least one essentially, intrinsically, truly beautiful person has told me they gosh LOVE it far more than the official 2011 Smile Sessions reconstructed SMiLE so who am I to not finally share it with the world? I recall reading or dreaming that even Brian Wilson said the final version in that box was sunnier than SMiLE would have been. We’ll never really get to SMiLE; it never really happened and box sets don’t change that.

Notice where there was any version available not from Smiley Smile I instead used that other version? (Those versions all hail from the first Beach Boys "...Thirty Years Of..." box set. For Heroes And Villains I indeed used the Smiley Smile / final single version and the box set variations). Compared to Smile era versions or demos, the Smiley Smile counterparts were dismissive almost denigrating yes denigrating utilizing often a cheap humor that shows the band perhaps uncomfortable with the beauty they should have unashamedly presented.

You’ll notice NO eventual Sunkist commercial.  Personally I can't believe that if Wilson had finished SMiLE, with all that remarkable new music & all that lyrical brilliance from Van Dyke Parks, on what by all accounts was to be a single LP, he would have actually included Good Vibrations which had already been out and a hit for many months, So I left it off. Plus, it bugs me. Irritating lyrics from Mike Love and I find the parts that showcase him insufferable. Every time he says "excitations" I get almost angry. And even though it is a stellar production, to me it sounds borderline gimmicky compared to the Smile tracks that followed. [It is a sad coincidence that I am finally posting this at the time of the hit single's Theremin player's death...]

I feel like this music should be credited to Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, et al. more than to some entity known as The Beach Boys. I wish I lived in a world where at first sign of resistance to this spectacular artistry Brian had kicked Mike Love back to pumping gas and instead started a band with Van Dyke Parks. Called it Dumb Angel or something. And really finished SMiLE. In lieu of visiting that alternate Earth, please enjoy my playlist.

I searched so strenuously to be able to legit-present a playlist for my blog visitors to hear, with links to purchase the tracks. Even joined sites I’d ignored for years, all in this effort. Yet Last.fm, iTunes, eMusic, Amazon, the new MySpace, Spotiface - they all failed us my Brothers & Sisters. All tracks can be purchased however from 7Digital. (You can also find the CDs used or new from various vendors). The tracks and the official sources from which they hail are listed below with links to the albums at 7Digital. I found they all sound to be at fairly matched volumes in years of listening and playing for others, if using the editions of these releases which I own on compact disc and which you can get from 7digital as high quality 320 kpbs MP3 files:

01} Heroes And Villians (demo w/ Van Dyke Parks) 2:23 from "Endless Harmony Soundtrack"

02} Fall Breaks And Back To Winter (Woody Woodpecker Symphony) 2:18 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer #

03} She's Goin' Bald 2:17 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer ^

04} Little Pad 2:29 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer #

05} Vegetables Promo 0:55 from "Hawthorne, CA: Birthplace Of A Musical Legacy" (Disc 2)

06} Cabinessence (Track Only) 3:58 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 5)

07} Heroes And Villians 3:37 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer

08} Wind Chimes 2:33 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)

09} Heroes And Villians (intro) 0:36 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)

10} Surf's Up (track only) 1:41 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 5)

11} With Me Tonight 2:17 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer #

12} Gettin' Hungry 2:27 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer ~

13} Whistle In 1:05 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer #

14} Our Prayer 1:07 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2) #

15} Heroes And Villians (alternate version) 2:57 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)

16} Heroes And Villians (sections) 6:41 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)

17} Wonderful 2:03 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)

18} Cabinessence 3:32 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)

19} Do You Like Worms 4:01 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)

20} Vegetables 3:30 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)

21} I Love To Say Da Da 1:35 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2) #

22} Surf's Up 3:39 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)

23} You're Welcome 1:07 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer #

      all songs by Brian Wilson/Van Dyke Parks except # by Brian Wilson; ^ by B. Wilson/Love/Parks; ~ by Brian Wilson/Love

back cover, w/ Vegetables Promo

back cover, w/ Mrs. O'Leary's Cow

To present all this to you for lo-fi right now listening, I went finally to Grooveshark. Had to source "Surf’s Up" (piano demo version) from some Pitchfork comp; ‘twas missing from the Thirty Years box on Grooveshark. And… I settled for replacing “Vegetables (Promo)” from “Hawthorne” 2CD set which wasn’t available on GrooveS with a bootleg of  the infamous * "Mr. O'Leary's Cow." It's maybe better this way, or maybe it's worse. Probably actually better, though corrupting my years-long stance of assembling this from official, commercial sources. It's less lighthearted, perhaps; though maybe less aggressive. ("If I ever call my dog on you...") You can hear this slightly tweaked and possibly improved “Smiley While” playlist here:

Smiley While / The Beach Boys Playlist by LibraryEye

Or just by playing the widget at top of this blog's sidebar.

I even made album art. See it all around? Gosh. Smile at that.

This combination of Brian Wilson & Van Dyke Parks is a special American genius touched nowhere else. And, great playing abounds from fabled session cats. Please, please enjoy. I love you all.

You’re Welcome.