I was introduced to the Beach Boys by my dad's copy of Endless Summer. It was a two-record compilation from the mid-70s with all their hits, and for many years, was the only thing I knew about them. My sister also had a copy, so I could listen anytime I wanted. The artwork for Endless Summer featured a painted mural of big Beach Boys heads positioned in wavy jungle grass, and I spent hours looking at their grinning, bearded faces, imagining what kind of magic strangeness they were really up to behind "I Get Around" and "Catch a Wave". Later, I found a book about them, and again saw aged, beaten faces, with lots of hair, tacky, yellow pants and inappropriately overweight grown men. I hadn't even heard Pet Sounds yet, but was convinced these people were sad and interesting. And they usually smiled.
Brian Wilson was the son of a songwriter. He was a naturally creative boy, though also prone to the same sunny interests and obsessions as his friends and cousins. He came of age just as thousands of other kids did at the time, learning that this place really could be the land of the free, home of love, peace, self-discovery and where everyone he cared about lived. He loved music. He still does, though at 61, despite the full mane of hair, he doesn't quite sound or write like the same boy who once scored the perfect soundtrack for an American summer. He was obsessed with George Gershwin and vanilla white harmony groups like The Four Freshman; he gave the world "In My Room" and Pet Sounds in return. Brian Wilson is touring Smile right now, with, they say, an unplugged keyboard and the same stiff onstage demeanor he showed during the "Brian is back" days. But then, performance has never been his bag.
Wilson abandoned Smile, his painstakingly planned follow-up to Pet Sounds, in 1967 because he had a nervous breakdown. He was emotionally unfit to continue. He was 24, only a few years older than I was when I bought my first bootleg copy of the music. If you want to know the precise details about how he broke down, there are dozens of accounts available (including mine here at Pitchfork). The short end of it has to do with drugs, growing pains, a new cast of friends, and a dysfunctional family. Brian had too much of all those things in the mid-60s; working on what was supposed to be the greatest record ever made might not have been the most realistic endeavor. Or maybe it would have been, had he surrounded himself with more understanding people. Or fewer drugs. Or better drugs. Or been able to keep his overbearing dad out of the picture. And on and on and on, until being a fan of the guy is more exhausting than it is rewarding. I really don't blame him for staying in bed for the 70s.
I first heard Smile when I compiled my own version of it. The Beach Boys' Good Vibrations box had just come out, containing the first "officially" sanctioned missing pieces of the album. I, like many amateur Beach Boys historians, used them, along with the best songs from the boots to make ad-hoc masterpieces. I'd read how "Our Prayer" was supposed to go first, and it seemed naturally to segue right into "Heroes & Villains". Then I had to decide which versions to use. I strung together the single mix with the "Cantina" version with "Do You Like Worms" (its cousin), using a complex system of cassette deck editing techniques-- that is, I got really good at using the "pause" button. I put Wilson's solo vocal and piano performance of "Surf's Up" last. It ended my tape on a bittersweet note, which I guessed was in the spirit of what Smile would have been. I was wrong. Sigh. A lot of us were.
Darian Sahanaja was right. Wilson's wife Melinda suggested that Brian take Smile on the road, and Sahanaja, keyboardist and backing vocalist in Wilson's touring band (aka The Wondermints) took up the sizable task of organizing the project. He dumped every Smile song and song-fragment he could find onto his laptop, took them to Wilson's house and watched as Wilson proceeded to phone no less an authority than original lyricist Van Dyke Parks when he needed help remembering lyrics. They hadn't really kept in touch for a few years, but Parks was at Wilson's place within 24 hours-- and would stay for five days-- to settle past scores and finish the lost record.
The trio made subtle changes to the music when necessary, and in the spring, Wilson headed to Studio One at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles to make his record. Just as he'd made the original "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes & Villains" there, Wilson gathered his band, strings and brass to record the tracks, cutting the basic arrangements live while doing the vocals on the same tube consoles his old Beach Boys had.
The end result is a great album, albeit one more lighthearted than its myth would suggest. The music I hear is like round pegs in square holes; it's just as insular and manic-compassionate as "In My Room" or "God Only Knows", but filtered through an amiable resolve. It sounds pleasant and assured, lacking the vulnerable, shy wave of hope drenching the old Beach Boys records. Yet, Wilson's voice sounds great. It's a bit lower, and his inflections have lost some subtlety over the years, but it still carries the weight of those angelic melodies (and when it can't, his band helps him out).
And what of his band? The eight musicians who contributed to recording Smile with Wilson not only live up to the material, but also make possible what could not have been all those years ago. They are not the Beach Boys. There is no Carl Wilson. For better or worse, there is no Mike Love. But there is the music, and all concerned parties should be given some kind of musical amnesty award for managing to avoid the pitfalls of posthumous reworking and re-recording. This is no ghost record or bout of nostalgia. Rather than study the lonely, bittersweet passions of Wilson's youth, it celebrates the return of his muse and his gift to the world in the form of a "teenage symphony to God."
Smile begins, as had been expected since Wilson first discussed the album in 1966, with "Our Prayer", combined with a short piece called "Gee", which is, in actuality, an overture to "Heroes & Villains". The choir-like group harmonies of "Our Prayer" are as beautiful as they had been, originally tacked onto the end of 1969's 20/20, but in this case, reveal only the tip of an incredible iceberg. "Heroes & Villains" begins identically to the 1967 single version, and Wilson's band tackles it with gusto. Wilson's lead vocal sounds markedly gruffer in places, though more telling is his complete lack of hesitation in the phrases. He isn't as sensitive as he used to be, but he makes up for it by nailing every complicated counterpoint line and inner harmony voice.
After moving through the song's "cantina" section, the band segues into "Roll Plymouth Rock", which Smile historians will recognize under its former title, "Do You Like Worms?". The galloping tympani is no less a disorienting force here than it had been originally, but Parks' never-before-tracked lyrics (they are said to have been written during the sessions) suggest a clearer narrative rooted in manifest destiny: "Once upon the Sandwich Isles, the social structure steamed upon Hawaii/ Rock, rock, roll Plymouth Rock roll over." This leads to "Barnyard", replete with animal sounds and more new lyrics about chickens and pigpens. The short, sad take on "You Are My Sunshine" (coupled with "Old Master Painter") precedes the climax of Smile's first third, "Cabin Essence". This is the same version as appeared on 20/20, though in this context is euphoric where it had been unexpected before.
The next section begins with "Wonderful", performed with harpsichord and understated orchestration (the brass, unfortunately, sounds synthesized) and Wilson's original arrangement of vocal harmonies. "Song for Children" emerges straight out of that, though fans will recognize it as the first section of a larger piece, "Child Is Father of the Man". That piece follows, and is more famous as the coda to the title track of 1971's Surf's Up album. Here, it wallows in ominous piano arpeggios and strings before introducing "Surf's Up", performed almost identically to Carl Wilson's 1971 production for the Beach Boys. Brian doesn't take the high harmonies on "brother John" anymore, but his voice is surprisingly nimble. Furthermore, Parks' lyrics, once considered too abstract by Love, now seem perfectly in accord with the surreal Americana of Smile. "Canvas the town and brush the backdrop." "Carriage across the fog-two-step to lamplight cellar tune." "The laughs come hard in Auld Lang Syne."
The album ends with a suite of Wilson's most idiosyncratic music. "I'm In Great Shape/I Wanna Be Around/Workshop" form a kind of bizarre interlude for Smile, wherein Wilson pumps up the virtues of "eggs and grits" and wanting to be around when "someone breaks your heart," over the strains of saws and drills. Things get odder as it flows in to "Vegetables", performed as a combination of the song from 1967's maligned Smiley Smile and the one heard on the Good Vibrations box. Wilson pulls out the "Mama Says" refrain ("Sleep a lot, eat a lot, brush 'em like crazy") before moving into "On a Holiday". Fans will recognize this from various boots as just "Holiday", but Parks' lyrics (check the sea-chantey rap (?) of, "Not the rum of Carib scum/ It's Port tonight, drink up and come/ Un-weigh the anchor yank and we will party!") are new.
"Wind Chimes" is the same version as first officially appeared on the Good Vibrations box, but like so many others on the album, seems perfectly suited to this context. When the band rips in during the wordless (but for "do-do-do" and "ba-ba-ba") chorus, I strain to hold back cries of glee. I haven't actually succeeded yet. This leads to the infamous "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" (also known as "Fire"), the instrumental Wilson once thought so powerful as to cause fires around his city. It still burns with lysergic intensity, albeit refined and featuring none other than backing harmony vocals cribbed from Smiley Smile's "Fall Breaks and Back to Winter".
Smile ends with "Good Vibrations", suggesting in no uncertain terms that Wilson aims to leave listeners grinning. I'll grin. I'll congratulate him. I won't wonder too much what might have happened had this been released way back when. And I'll let this record fall into the my still-churning impressions of Brian Wilson. Better late than never? Yes.
