When recording sessions kicked off on the project tentatively titled ‘Smile’ the Beach Boys couldn’t have known that the proposed album would take some forty years to complete.
Beginning the album as emblems of American youth, one of the most potent pop forces of a generation Beach Boys would eventually end the ‘Smile’ sessions as a splintered entity, never again reaching those artistic and commercial heights.
Composer, songwriter and creative force Brian Wilson recently returned to the project, bringing the original tapes together to get as close as anyone to filtering through the madness of those months in California during the high summer of 1967.
With that in mind, ClashMusic can offer an extract from Jon Stebbins marvellous tome ‘Beach Boys FAQ’ which focusses on the turbulent sessions behind one of pop’s most enduring disaster stories.
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Smile, the 1967 Beach Boys LP, remains the greatest rock album that never was. It initiated the substance-addled train wreck that Brian Wilson became, and was perhaps the thing that haunted him most throughout his troubled years. It both made the Beach Boys irrelevant in their time and created a cult for Beach Boys music that will never die. The LSD-, amphetamine-, hashish-, and paranoia-fueled sessions that resulted in the strange and wonderful Smile music were the backdrop for some of Brian Wilson’s most eccentric behaviour. Many of the Smile songs were written in a large sandbox that Brian had placed in his home, his grand piano resting upon the sand. A large tent was erected inside Brian’s home as well, furnished with large pillows and psychedelic tapestries; in it, Smile strategy meetings took place and substances were consumed. Brian wanted to film everything during the creation of Smile; he wanted to perform and record comedy sketches; and he wanted to empty his swimming pool and conduct recording sessions at the bottom. Brian made arrangements to tape nature sounds, animal sounds, machine sounds, and water sounds, and he wanted to incorporate all of these into his music. Brian asked his studio musicians to wear firemen’s hats while burning buckets of wood smoldered nearby. He ordered his first-rate horn section to blow into the wrong end of their instruments. Like a five-year-old child, Brian sprinted into the increasingly absurd Smile project in total wonder. He was both thrilled by what he discovered, and shocked to find a reality that eventually resulted in complete disillusionment. But despite the shambolic and inevitably disintegrating nature of the Smile project, it remains the best thing never released by the Beach Boys.
Smile has to be the most unusual record ever made, or almost made, in the context of its time and place. With the Beach Boys riding a giant wave of momentum created by the megahit “Good Vibrations,” Brian suddenly found himself with at least a small window of creative carte blanche. He quickly took it to the nth degree as the Smile sessions gained a full head of steam in late 1966. If his goal was to create the most avant-garde LP by a mainstream pop act in history, he came within inches of reaching the top of that mountain. But instead of planting his flag, he hesitated. The reasons why are as numerous and as mysterious as the myriad of bits and pieces of incredible music that make up the Smile puzzle.
Smile has been analyzed and dissected by legions of scholars, fans, and cultists for decades, and has been called everything from a Brian Wilson brain barbecue to the most brilliant and ambitious piece of musical art ever recorded. It could be both. Brian dove straight into the abstract with Smile.
It is more complex and diverse musically than anything the Beach Boys had previously or would ever release. Brian’s collaboration with lyricist Van Dyke Parks ensured that the Smile themes and lyrics would not resemble anything previously put forth under the Beach Boys banner. Instead, Parks’s sometimes stream-of-consciousness, alliteration-heavy style showed massive thematic depth as it artfully decorated Brian’s acid-laced “Teenage Symphony to God.”
Close Your Eyes and Lean Back
Smile songs range from abstruse reflections on the eradication of native cultures and the ensuing western expansion to deep spiritual pleas to God and to our own children for a better way. It’s not exactly All Summer Long. The overriding feeling behind the Smile themes and sound is one of an incredible mind trip, and in many ways it’s a bad trip. The project was originally titled Dumb Angel about an entity that tries its best to help others but constantly screws up everything it touches. It’s been theorized that the inspiration behind that concept could have been Dennis, or America, or just mankind in general. The concept then evolved toward a type of humor album, from which the title Smile sprung. The title stuck, but much of the humor evaporated as many of the songs took on an unhinged and at times manic quality with foreboding gothic overtones.
Ultimately, the concept of Smile seemed to be a constantly undulating and ever-changing one. It was limitless creativity, but seemingly a process without end. Brian would compose, arrange, create, build, tweak, alter, erase, rebuild, retrofit, adjust, decorate, strip down, build up, polish, and then abandon elements of his project on a weekly basis. It was a kind of mad hatter’s tea party, with amphetamine more than likely being the tea of choice. With a fragile vessel like Brian speeding through troubled waters, it was inevitable there would be an ultimate crash. The factors that brought it on are debatable and many.
One much-written-about theory is that the other Beach Boys killed Smile by criticizing Brian, who had become too advanced for them. This theory is built on the assumption that they did not understand or appreciate his genius. Any conclusion drawn from this point of view is overly simplistic and mostly wrong. As with any band, and with any family, there were some tensions between certain parties. Cousin Mike Love is usually singled out as the Beach Boy who had the most negative reactions toward the Smile approach. Logic would tell you that one of the main reasons for this is the resentment he felt for being shut out of the creative (and financial) process by no longer being Brian’s primary lyricist. Mike reportedly had issues with the esoteric Van Dyke Parks lyric style, and according to Parks was not shy in letting this problem be known. Parks ultimately left the project, came back, and left again. According to some, the festering Mike Love negativity caused Parks to vacate, and opened one of the major cracks in the egg known as Brian Wilson.
However, Mike has subsequently stated that his main concern during that time is the fact that Brian was taking drugs, and that his cohorts during the Smile era were encouraging this. And it should be noted that Mike as usual added his excellent vocals to Brian’s tracks despite any reservations about the project. Regardless of Mike’s feelings about Smile, it is clear that Brian’s brother Dennis was solidly supportive of the project. He stated emphatically to the press at the time that Smile was much better than the critically deified Pet Sounds. Carl participated in the Smile sessions more than any other Beach Boy. It would seem Carl’s active support for the project was genuine as he, Dennis, and Al each contributed instrumentally to at least some of the studio-musician-dominated tracking sessions. There may have been differing factions within the Beach Boys: some who loved the music, some who were confused by it, some who disliked it. It’s also possible that each member may have been torn within himself since Smile was such a huge departure from the previous Beach Boys’ sound, and a major commercial risk. But to say the Beach Boys killed the project is laughable, as it clearly was Brian who was in charge, who tragically went off the rails, and who couldn’t bring himself to finish it.
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‘Beach Boys FAQ’ is out now.
