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| From | "Robert Sutliff" <rsutliff@columbus.rr.com> |
| Subject | Re: Smiling . . . |
| Date | Thu, 7 Oct 2004 18:25:54 -0400 |
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Yeah,
The one thing I thought is how really close it was to being finished.
Certainly the centerpiece, Heroes and Villains was more than finished - it
was just a matter of excising redundant bits. Also, Wonderful, Wind Chimes,
Vegetables and Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine (is that Dennis on
vocals?) were finished. The rest of the backing tracks were finished and
most of the words were done. Later of course Carl took the backing tracks
for Cabinessence and Surfs Up and sang them.
I'm guessing we can never know the state of internal Beach Boys politics
(meaning Mike Love) at that point. Certainly Smile is the antithesis of
everything Love stood for - catchy 2:30 pop singles. Brian's horrific mental
fall from grace dates precisely to this point in time. What if you had
created the most amazing pop album ever and at the last moment had the rug
pulled out from under you? You'd probably take a lot of drugs and give up
also.
I dunno though - maybe it wasn't that way at all....
Bobby Sutliff
I'm sort of glad I'm not remotely that brilliant or talented.
> Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 04:35:51 -0400
> From: garymaher@juno.com
> To: audities@smoe.org
> Subject: Smiling . . .
> Message-ID: <20041007.043601.4428.5.garymaher@juno.com>
>
> Wow -- I can't stop listening to Smile. It's been a long time since an
> album has hit me like this. And while I've always liked the Boys, I'm
> far from a huge fan. Before this week, there wasn't much after Pet
> Sounds that got my attention. (Except for the obvious singles.) Even
> the Smile outtakes on the box set didn't do much for me. Taken
> separately, out of context, they conjured up images of the obsessed,
> raving Brian. Hearing them all together, dropping the stupid song
> titles, getting more of a taste of what it's all supposed to be about --
> it's somehow clicked for me. The first two suites are the most
> consistent side I've ever heard from the BBs. And the fact that this is
> a true concept album, or rock opera, or something, makes it even more
> impressive.
>
> Two things that strike me the most about this record, aside from its
> majesty:
>
> 1) How BW came SO CLOSE to finishing the thing in '67. Most of the
> songs were done on the first attempt, to the point of being finished.
>
> 2) What an amazing personal success story this is. BW will surely be a
> poster boy for fighting through mental illness and personal adversity.
> This was supposedly the very beast that drove him off his rocker, and he
> has come back to slay that demon in a big way. Talk about getting a
> monkey off your back!
>
> So now that we have Lifehouse and Smile, the Beatles have finally
> finished Let It Be, and we can burn our own Zombies R.I.P. from the box
> set, what's next? Will we be hearing that Pink Floyd have gotten back
> together to finish that Household Objects record? Or maybe that the
> mysterious disappearing Who tribute will finally surface? ;-)
>
> g
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