Long time readers? (who÷0) know highlights from abandoned Beach Boys SMiLE album are amongmyfavoriteanything. I've never curated "a SMiLE of my own"— there's always been boots and eventually the official 2011 box set "reconstruction" and to this day ongoing fan mixes / playlists for that. What I did forever ago compile, at very start of this century, was my own personal favorite selection of stuff from SMiLE and its pinch hitter bunt, Smiley Smile; the result— Smiley While, originally assembled using a Philips home CDR recorder, for sharing with friends.
I won't go on about my love for this material; I did that over a decade after completing that CDR, when I blogged about it over a decade ago. I will note, though, there's been a little updating; made this revision upon participating in this song-by-song discussion of the Smile Sessions box set.
Reality is, Brian didn't finish SMiLE and instead produced Smiley Smile, an album which strikes me as partly a deconstruction of the grandeur and particular sort of beauty achieved with the SMiLE sessions. Yet, the band's audience hadn't even heard SMiLE yet, so one could see a deconstruction of it as preemptive or even counterproductive. More damagingly, while I find Smiley Smile's new songs often delightful, I consider some of the redone numbers crude— and I don't mean underdeveloped or underproduced. Wonderful for instance seems like a joking approach to a song perhaps now uncomfortably too delicately exquisite for the band to do seriously. (I never even much liked it until hearing the SMiLE version, actually, and it's one of my favorite songs.)
But imagine a let's say slightly different reality, wherein Brian had chosen after the Smiley Smile sessions to select the best of the material, in the finest completed takes, from across both the SMiLE and Smiley Smile recording efforts, and used those to construct an album for release in August or September 1967. Few may have known what to make of such a result upon first listen— pairing the best of the relatively lo-fi, chill, minimalist Smiley sessions with the stellar SMiLE highlights might be more perplexing than any album dedicated to either — but inclusion of the SMiLE highlights alone would have likely forestalled the sort of dismissals Smiley Smile garnered.
There'd be no artistic need to include Good Vibrations on such an album, as that'd already been a hit nearly a year earlier by then. Nor was it a song conceived for SMiLE or Smiley Smile; it could have landed in an earlier form on Pet Sounds.
My Smiley While, at just over an hour, if ever committed to vinyl, has always been effectively a three-sided release— decidedly not a thing in 1967 and still very rare, but hey, why not— it's the digital age; was when I burned first CDR and is more so now. (The blank fourth side could feature an etching of the SMiLE shoppe in the Smiley jungle.)
In nod to Brian's modular manner during this era, my 2024 revision is crafted to also work, through modular omission, as a single LP — slightly long for 1967, but still a minute or so shorter than the 2011 Smile Sessions SMiLE reconstruction. This two-sided selection is version that I could imagine having been released in some rock market reality— the best takes of the songs newly written for either of the SMiLe/y projects undertaken since release of their previous studio LP.
Formula for the below track list
- Omit the unnumbered mostly instrumental numbers in grey for single LP iteration.
- Three-sided version's side breaks are represented by
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line breaks between two songs - Single LP sides are designated by color: dark green is side one, dark violet is side two
- Source of selected version indicated by two letter code in brackets following track length
A few notes concerning inclusions
- This is assembled from officially released versions, with one partial exception— on the 30 Years of The Beach Boys box set, where it debuted, and in the stereo remix on the later Smile Sessions box, Heroes And Villains (sections) has same ending as Heroes And Villains (alternate version aka Part One). For my own comp, I have recently taken the original 30 Years (Sections) mix, removed the alt version / part one fade ending, inserted the added piano section from the stereo remix, and then conclude with the ending / fade of Heroes And Villains (alternate version aka Part One)as available on The Smile Sessions. (The switch from 30 Years mix to Smile Sessions mix actually occurs at start of the final vocal section common to both the mono and stereo (Sections), as that makes for a much easier, cleaner edit point).
- Additionally, not edits, but— fades applied at very ends of Look and Holidays, so as to not end mid-crossfade since sourced from 2011 reconstruction.
- Although The Elements: Fire (Mrs. O'Leary's Cow) is by far the more astonishing track, I've stuck with its engaging reimagining, Fall Breaks and Back to Winter (W. Woodpecker Symphony) as it for sure works better with the surrounding material I have placed it amongst. Furthermore, even in this alt reality release, Fire was not gonna see light of day in 1967 (see: history of SMiLE; Brian Wilson), not to mention 2011's official release of Fire has vocals from Fall Breaks grafted on. We do however get what became Fire's opening, here as Heroes And Villains (intro), courtesy of the 30 Years box set, still my preferred source for the core SMiLE songs
- My preference for the snippet of He Give Speeches & what might have developed from it, & my critical review of She's Going Bald notwithstanding, I give the nod to the Smiley track due to it being the completed of the two.
- You may sense a loose pattern with the smilier stuff predominant on first side of the single LP iteration, and the more majestic material on the second, with Tune X serving as somewhat of an intermission on the full length three-sided endeavor. Or maybe not.
- I realize (Sections) and the Vegetables Promo are latter day constructions built for the releases where they first appeared, but they are not ornate constructions and they utilize recordings from the sessions available for inclusion back in the day.
- Mono
Full length three-sided compilation is now known as Wily Smiley: it's SMiLE material with a big Smiley assist; the single LP sequence retains Smiley While name. While, because time; timing is everything, wasn't it?
001} Heroes And Villains (Brian demo w/ Van Dyke Parks) 2:24 ⟨EH⟩
002} Fall Breaks And Back To Winter (W. Woodpecker Symphony) 2:17 ⟨SS⟩ º
003} She's Goin' Bald 2:17 ⟨SS⟩ ^
004} Little Pad 2:34 ⟨SS⟩ º
__0̷} Vegetables Promo 0:56 ⟨HC⟩
__0̷} Look (Song For Children) 2:31 ⟨S1⟩ º
0o5} Heroes And Villains (intro) 0:35 ⟨TY⟩
005} Heroes And Villains (single a-side) 3:39 ⟨SS⟩
__0̷} Holidays 2:32 ⟨S1⟩ º
006} Wind Chimes 2:32 ⟨TY⟩
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007} Gettin' Hungry 2:30 ⟨SS⟩ ˇ
008} With Me Tonight 2:20 from ⟨SS⟩ º
009} Whistle In 1:07 from ⟨SS⟩ º
__0̷} Tune X 2:17 ⟨S5⟩ ∞
001} Our Prayer 1:07 ⟨TY⟩ º
002} Heroes And Villains (alternate version aka Part One) 2:56 ⟨TY⟩
__0̷} Heroes And Villains (sections) 7:23 ⟨LI⟩
003} Wonderful 2:02 ⟨TY⟩
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004} Cabinessence 3:33 ⟨TT⟩
005} Do You Like Worms 4:00 ⟨TY⟩
006} Vegetables 3:29 ⟨TY⟩
007} I Love To Say Da Da 1:34 ⟨TY⟩ º
__0̷} Child Is Father Of The Man (original 1966 track mix) 3:36 ⟨WW⟩ º
008} Surf's Up 3:38 ⟨TY⟩
000} Surf's Up (track only) 1:40 ⟨TS⟩
009} You're Welcome (single b-side) 1:08 ⟨SW⟩ º
all songs by Brian Wilson/Van Dyke Parks except
ºB. Wilson; ^B. Wilson/Love/Parks; ˇB. Wilson/Love; ∞Carl Wilson
EH= Endless Harmony Soundtrack; SS= Smiley Smile; HC= Hawthorne, CA: Birthplace Of A Musical Legacy (disc 2); S1= Smile Sessions (disc 1); TY= Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys; S5= Smile Sessions (disc 5); LI= Library Industries custom edit; TT= 20/20 (by way of Thirty Years, for consistency); WW= Wake The World: The Friends Sessions; TS= Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys ("Sessions" – disc 5); SW= Smiley Smile / Wild Honey twofer
*Links to named streamers below each cover art open playlists which attempt to approximate the above compilations but are mostly sadly very inaccurate due to four streamers' lack of preferred versions of key tracks from 30 Years set. If though you happen to use YouTube Music, Smiley While is actually correct and Wily SMiLE is nearly accurate except as noted in its playlist description.
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Addendum: Received request for above artwork without type, with suggestion one image could be used as front cover & other as back, maybe showing song titles, from another fan of this great music wanting to utilize these for their own SMiLE assembly. I've certainly not built these from best sources, nor did I do much beyond hacking together lo-res logos. I did, for original cover (image of Wilson & Parks) 10+ years ago extend top to make room for title (pretty obvious w/o logo showing, as logo covers some of the extended retouching which I therefore didn't bother to clean up) & did add the wood border. I had same idea about how these could serve as a front & a back, perhaps even as a gatefold! which is one reason I repeated the wood border on the new, group cover. But in this context, it seemed sensible to assign each to one or the other playlist.
In light of this request I am posting those here, for any possible readers who might also want
the images, sans type / logos, for their own personal SMiLe(y) purposes.
