Earlier in 1966, Brian Wilson was introduced to professional songwriter Van Dyke Parks - Parks had initially hoped to compose film scores for Disney movies, but found himself ingrained in the Los Angeles music scene with artists like The Byrds, Tim Buckley, and Harper's Bizarre. During the meeting, Wilson noted that Parks had an unusually articulate way of speaking - it's as if fate was on his side, as Brian was looking for a new lyricist after Pet Sound lyricist Tony Asher went his separate ways with the group. Sometime after their meeting, Brian officially invited Van Dyke Parks to write lyrics for the next Beach Boys album, and while Parks was hesitant, he eventually agreed. Writing sessions for the next Beach Boys album spanned from July to September, with some speculation that further writing continued up to November of that year - at this point, the next Beach Boys album had the working title of Dumb Angel.
May 11, 1966 saw a Gold Star session for a new song that Brian had in mind - this was after Pet Sounds was done, with an imminent release date no less. While an instrumental was yielded from the session, it was really more intended as an experiment rather than a complete product. By June, Brian was revisiting a song that he previously tracked in February with the tentative title of "Good, Good, Good Vibrations." In the midst of writing sessions with Van Dyke Parks, Brian was all over the place - "Good Vibrations" was assembled from 90 hours worth of tape recorded across four different studios. In between the various sessions, Brian found time to return to Gold Star on August 3 to track for a new song composed with Van Dyke Parks - "Wind Chimes." On September 21, "Good Vibrations" was finally finished, and the next Beach Boys album underwent a name change.
The SMiLE sessions were officially underway.
Of course, we never got SMiLE, at least in any way that it was intended. By May of 1967 the project as we know it was shelved, and any hope of a completed SMiLE was all but dead in the water by the 70s. The story of the album is far from lost, though, and what's left is the portrait of a tortured genius pushing himself beyond his limits. What remains of SMiLE was finally released in 2011, with a hypothetical track listing for a completed album that we, of course, never got. When taken in more than 50 years after the monumental sessions for the album, one thing remains clear to me - SMiLE, years later, is still otherworldly. Everything that Brian had learned from Pet Sounds is all but amplified, as his explorative take into the music world is matured - rich interpretations of classical, americana, jazz, exotica, and elements of absurdist comedy and the avant-garde, nothing is left unchallenged and nothing is sacred. Immortalized in a Parthenon-like state of what once was a landmark, SMiLE glistens and gleans like an ancient wonder of the world. It's bold American theming and explorative, pioneering sound makes it a bold answer to the British Invasion, even if it wouldn't be heard for years. There's very little doubt in my mind that, had SMiLE been released in 1966-67, it would be acclaimed as one of the finest albums ever made - Hell, it's not even complete and I still think it's one of the finest albums ever made.
Even early on, there was signs that SMiLE was far different from anything before. In preparation for the sessions, Brian purchased $2,000 worth of marijuana and erected a $30,000 hotboxing text in his dining room ($17,000 and $251,000 in 2022 dollars). These rather odd home renovations weren't the end of it - his living room furniture was replaced with gym mats and exercise equipment, and a sandbox was placed under his grand piano. No doubt, the Wilson household was an interesting place to be in 1966, least of all because of the various people that found themselves in Brian's new inner circle. As he distanced himself from The Beach Boys during the start of SMiLE, Wilson acquainted himself with new people - David Anderle, an MGM Records talent scout known as the "mayor of hip," met Brian in 1965, and quickly became one to introduce a new cast of characters into the Brian's life. Derek Taylor found himself in Brian's inner circle around the same time - Taylor had already gained a reputation as the expert press officer of The Beatles, and he would eventually go on to spearhead a media campaign that declared Brian Wilson a pop genius. Many other players found themselves in the Wilson inner circle, including Turtles vocalist Mark Volman, reporter Michael Vosse, and Crawdaddy! founder Paul Williams. Amongst those within the inner circle of the project, SMiLE took on a grandiose stature - it became a monument before it was even finished.
SMiLE, as it is on this archival release, can be separated into three major pillars - Americana, Cycle of Life, and The Elements. Breaking down each movement leaves a handful of songs that stick to certain sounds, themes, and ideas. "Heroes and Villains" is the ethos of the old west - cowboys and saloons and the plight of the natives. While Brian would become consumed with making "Heroes and Villains" a worthy follow-up to the million-selling "Good Vibrations," the product we hear on The SMiLE Sessions is simply amazing. Preluded by two short musical segments, the acapella "Our Prayer" and the traditional "Gee," with the former still widely considered to be one of the most beautiful pieces produced by Brian. One person is quoted as saying that Brian wanted to create music that people would pray to, and "Our Prayer" is about as close as he ever got, that's for damn sure. It's important that I now mention the way that SMiLE was mostly assembled - a modular approach was applied throughout the album. In summary the modular approach involves recording multiple short pieces of music, ranging from about 30 seconds to a minute, and piecing them together to form a much larger song. "Heroes and Villains," like "Good Vibrations" before it, can be divided into a few major portions of music - the verses, the bridges (which sees the introduction of the Bicycle Rider musical motif), as well as three unique portions that fit into neither. The "cantina" segment is one of these, playing as a short ode to a woman in a cantina, as well as two segments known as "children were raised" and another "ballad" segment. As a whole piece, "Heroes and Villains" is a marvel, and a more than worthy followup to "Good Vibrations." Each segment builds and grows - one moment it's highly orchestrated verse segments, the next there's an out of nowhere acapella segment. A commentary on the old west painted through the lens of modern America is how I see it, and it's an excellent starting track.
Towards the end of 1966, SMiLE became one of the hottest albums of the music press to discuss, and it was projected to release within the end of the year - December of 1966. Capitol wasn't going to miss out on the publicity either, running full page ads in Billboard and TeenSet that advertised the album as the best from the group yet, and the hype for the album began to grow exponentially. Capitol even printed cardboard displays of the album's artwork and placed them in stores. It seems that everyone at the label, unlike the fleeting faith of Pet Sounds, was sure of SMiLE's success - I'm sure that the seven-digit sales number of "Good Vibrations" convinced them a little bit, but that's neither here nor there. In Britain, hype was just as unreal. Headlines ran articles declaring that EMI was giving the group their biggest campaign since The Beatles, and a reader's poll from NME ranked Brian Wilson as the fourth top "World Music Personality" of the year - he was more than 1,000 votes ahead of Bob Dylan. As if this new era for the group wasn't apparent enough, a poll ranked The Beach Boys as the number one music group in the world, firmly placing the group as the leading zeitgeist of popular music. Five kids from Hawthorne had dethroned the Fab Four. As Wilson headed a new revolution in popular music, it seemed obvious at to what would follow - SMiLE was gonna be a hit, both with critics and the public...
Songs like "Do You Like Worms" still are amongst the most unique moments in the group's lengthy catalog - the sound of it is so singular that, frankly, I'm struggling to find words to describe it. We get a continuation of the "Bicycle Rider" motif from "Heroes and Villains," though, not dissimilar from the likes of Richard Wagner's compositions. The themes of Americana continue in some of the more short, intermittent songs - "I'm In Great Shape" and "Barnyard" both lean on the old American feel of farm life, playing like a miniature suite (early versions of the album even had a "Barnyard Suite," albeit one that was never finished), while "You Are My Sunshine" uses a unique arrangement of the classic American tune with descending cellos and complicated arrangements, leading into one of the finest moments on SMiLE. "Cabin Essence" is a stunning three-segment song about the construction of the trans-continental railroad. From banjos, harmonica, and piano on the "home on the range" segment to the thunderous chorus, complete with some of the most complicated harmonies the group's ever performed, to the pounding fuzz bass of the song's fadeout. It's complex, decisively catchy, and easily one of the group's most defining accomplishments - the ethos of SMiLE, distilled into one of the group's championing moments.
On November 28, 1966, it all began to fall apart. On this day, Brian Wilson tracked sessions for a track called "Fire," for a planned suite of songs called "The Elements." Coincidentally, a nearby building to the studio would burn down just a few days later - this deeply shook Brian. Keep in mind, Brian's mental state had slowly been deteriorating for a while, and the continued use of drugs during the project certainly did not help with that decline - he believed that recording "Fire" caused the building to burn down, and he feared that he was creating witchcraft music. The previously happy sessions for the album quickly began to devolve, as Wilson grew frustrated with damn-near everything around him. It wasn't helping that Van Dyke Parks was starting to become a scapegoat for the group, and mainly one for Mike Love. Let me make this clear: Mike Love did not destroy SMiLE, although he did voice many concerns about the commercial viability of the project. That being said, him and Van Dyke did bash heads from time to time, most notably with the line "Over and over, the crow cries uncover the cornfield" at the end of "Cabin Essence." Despite the seeming chaos that started to envelop, Wilson informed Capitol's A&R Director that the next single, "Heroes and Villains," would be ready by January of next year - maybe everything would just barely come together.
A segment of four songs on the album is simply dubbed "Cycle of Life." "Wonderful" opens it, and it's harpsichord led instrumentation backs lyrics about loss of innocence and sexual awakening - the vocals crescendo and grow throughout the song, as the group yodels and hums over Brian's vocal performance. "Look" is probably the single individual moment that I'd call a weak point on SMiLE, and yet it still carries a simply beautiful instrumental, led by glockenspiel and (yet again) harpsichord. What immediately follows, though, is one of the most beautiful, effective moments on SMiLE: the two-song pairing of "Child is Father of the Man" and "Surf's Up." The former rises and sinks from powerful choruses with fuzzy basses and melancholic trumpets to gentle instrumental breaks with washed-out guitar that sounds as if one's floating through the sea. Of course, I hardly need to say much about "Surf's Up." Arguably the group's finest song, it truly signals a new era of music revolution for the group - columnated ruins domino. With the beautiful structure from verse to piano segment with just Brian singing to the big climatic fadeout that reprises the "Child is Father of the Man" melody to the tongue-in-cheek song title, perhaps no other song in the group's repertoire accomplishes what "Surf's Up" does. It may not be my favorite, but I think it's almost certainly the group's defining moment.
1967 was nothing short of disaster for the group, and likewise "the whole house of cards began tumbling down" in the words of Van Dyke Parks. January came and went, and "Heroes and Villains" was nowhere to be seen; as Brian missed his deadline, Carl Wilson received a draft notice from the military, Van Dyke Parks was offered a solo contract from Warner Bros. Records, and "Good Vibrations" began slipping off the top 20 charts. The sandcastle that was constructed around SMiLE began to wash away with the tide. By February, inner band issues continued when the group sued Capitol for $250,000 over unpaid royalties - during the suit, the group looked to try and terminate their contract with Capitol before its November 1969 expiration date. All of this was happening while Brian's mental health began to nosedive, as he grew increasingly untrustworthy of his inner circle - Derek Taylor was essentially ex-communicated after he allegedly brought SMiLE tapes to The Beatles, to which Brian said that he was "raped." Brian's paranoia only increased, to the point where after viewing the movie Seconds, he believed that the film was a Jewish conspiracy by Phil Spector and director John Frankenheimer after he noted what he believed to be several coded messages about his life - it should not surprise you that Brian has since been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. On March 2, 1967, Van Dyke Parks and Brian got into a dispute during a session for "Heroes and Villains," which prompted Van Dyke to leave the studio, effectively severing the relationship between the two.
"The Elements" holds the album's most lighthearted, comedic material - stark contrast to the emotional catharsis of "Cycle of Life." Songs like "Vega-Tables" and "I Wanna Be Around/Workshop" are the album's comedy side on full display, with sound effects and goofy lyricism through and through, especially on the former (which at one point was slated to be the album's lead single). What was truly "meant" to be on the elements suite is a little bit debated, but one of the few completed moments from it was the previously mentioned "Fire," which probably serves to stand as the group's single greatest instrumental - a chaotic interpretation of the Great Chicago Fire, complete with wailing sirens, thumping drums, intense string arrangements, and an actual fire that Brian Wilson set in the studio for the song. While it's the only song explicitly stated to be part of "The Elements," other moments like the marimba-led "Wind Chimes" or the watery "Love to Say Dada" (which eventually evolved into "Cool, Cool Water" on Sunflower) carry the spirit of "The Elements." The album, in this album's form, ends on the million-seller "Good Vibrations," and while I'm in agreement with everyone that "Surf's Up" would've been the ideal closer, I think it's a little poetic that the album ends with the very song that began its conception.
On May 15, further sessions for "Love to Say Dada" were canceled due to what Wilson called "bad vibrations." Another series of sessions were canceled - SMiLE was officially dead. By June, Brian must've certainly felt that it was all over - Sgt. Pepper's by the Beatles came out, and all the ground that The Beach Boys had built in 1966 was swept out from under them, as the Fab Four again pushed themselves into the musical forefront. While SMiLE was gone, it's sessions cast a shadow on everyone involved - Van Dyke Parks' debut album, the excellent Song Cycle, would carry with it a similar adherence to classical sounds and Americana visions, albeit in a far less pop-centered outfit than SMiLE ever would've been. Parks would also pick up production jobs for the likes of a still somewhat unknown Randall Stuart Newman - that album, Randy Newman Creates Something New Under the Sun, has a similar baroque sheen to SMiLE. It's only fitting that Newman would later go on to inspire Brian Wilson again with his Sail Away album. In spite of the album's shelved status, more albums would release and more tours would commence - heck, some of those albums are pretty acclaimed even. Life for the Beach Boys would continue on...
...For all of them, that is, except Brian Wilson. The recording sessions for SMiLE deeply scarred Brian, and left him in deep mental duress under set by heavy drug abuse and deep-rooted mental issues from his abusive childhood. So as the group would press through the 1960s, Brian's role as the group's leader began to diminish - the lost years of Brian Wilson began, and would continue on for over two decades as he spent years of his life in various stages of mental decay. His image became that of a tortured artist.
Even in its unfinished state, and with 50 years in between recording and realization, SMiLE is still some of the most otherworldly music I've ever heard - significantly more adventurous and explorative than either Pet Sounds or Sgt. Pepper that came after it. It's funny, it's moving, it's beautiful. In many ways, it's exactly what Brian Wilson called it in interviews - a teenage symphony to God. I'll never forget the first time I heard SMiLE, and I'll never forget how fractured I was when I first heard "Cabin Essence" or "Surf's Up" or "Fire" or "Wonderful." The power and emotion I felt when listening to it hasn't ever left me, and it's moments like those that make me truly love music. Nothing's left me more speechless.
RATING: ✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯
Listen to The SMiLE Sessions.
Very well stated. Some of the best music ever made. Wish more people were aware of it. The layers on the songs are mind blowing. Best vocals the band ever did & for Mike's defiance, he's all over the project.
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