SMiLE Though You Still Have Three Weeks

This is long. If you don’t give a rat’s ass about Brian Wilson or Smile, don’t bother.

One of the greatest mysteries and points of debate in Rock music is the enigma that is Brian Wilson’s never-completed 1967 magnum opus, Smile. A fragile psychiatric profile, ego, drug and familial problems led to this albums tragic demise. Since its death, and the leaking of session tracks, half-completed tracks, and bootleggers’ wet dreams, have only aided in keeping the mystery alive.

If it had been released in 1967 would Smile have trumped Sgt. Pepper’s as the greatest rock album ever recorded? (Editorial note: I’ve never viewed Sgt. Pepper’s as the Beatles greatest achievement, only their weirdest.) To put it quite simply, the world will never know. The album was never released in 1967. It was, in fact, never completed. Lyrics were missing, tracks only half recorded and a final track listing only an uber-fan’s greatest guess.

Now, nearly 40 years later, Brian Wilson has completed Smile. I’ve heard five complete tracks and samples of the entire disc. Is it genius? Is it everything they claim? I will get to that.

My first experience with Smile came from my Good Vibrations boxed set of Beach Boys gems. Upon listening to the first two discs, charting Brian’s genius stars’ rise, you suddenly come upon Our Prayer and the pieces of Smile that were assembled by Mark Linnett. Having only read about Smile and not having experienced a single shred of it in my neophyte fan status, I was knocked over. In a good way? It’s hard to say. I was just shocked. Up until that point I had never heard music like this. Rather than a cohesive piece, each song seemed to be a thematic patchwork, with sometimes wildly contrasting pieces of music put together to make a “whole” song (quoted because they were not, in fact, completed and, therefore, not whole). Since hearing that music I have since heard much of Smile’s offspring, from a wide variety of musicians influenced by Brian’s madcap approach to music. Listen to any High Llamas album for an idealized version of Brian’s vision.

Time passed and the songs grew on me. I began to find threads, repeated melodies, snippets of lyrical moments popping up in surprising places. I began to get a sense of what Brian was trying to do and, as time went on, I became obsessed. I sought out bootlegs, assembled my own version of Smile and studied piano lines that seemed to represent melodic themes. I began to listen to the deeper aspects of the song, including how they were crafted.

In short, what once seemed like a bunch of really fucked up music began to take shape as a singular piece of work that was tragically halted in the middle of its creative explosion. The melodies were catchy and haunting. The lyrics were seemingly impenetrable and the sudden changes of style and mood intoxicating. I became a Smile addict.

And I was happy to have that, “Gee, what could have been” feeling and the need to try and convert the unwashed to the genius of the music.

What began as a project of two men in their twenties (Brian and Van Dyke Parks) has now been completed by two men in their sixties, after having walked away from the project for 37 years. 37 years, longer than I have been alive. In that time people have gone completely bonkers, become estranged and some of the key voices (in my mind THE key voice, as well) have passed away. Despite these obstacles, they have completed Smile.

One thing must be noted. Smile, in this or any form, will never be what was going to be in 1967. Without rewriting history, it is simply impossible. And maybe it is better that way. Maybe it is better that Smile collapsed beneath its own lofty goals.

There are some sad spots when approaching this new recording. The first is the mentioned estrangement and death. Carl Wilson, perhaps the finest voice in the Beach Boys, is gone. Without that voice a certain feeling of innocence and gentleness is lost. Dennis Wilson is dead. Mike Love is an ass and Al Jardine is estranged. In essence, only one man involved with the Beach Boys at the time could possibly be involved. And that is Brian. This is a fitting isolation. Now, as in the beginning, Brian is the only Beach Boy truly behind Smile 100%.

Brian has a new band. Brian has a new band that musically runs circles around the Beach Boys and, it can be argued, the Wrecking Crew. But what is gone is the harmony. Fate and genetics put together five voices that blended in a way that can only be described as goose bumpy. Have there ever been such rich, textured harmonies in Rock music before or since?

The new band is fantastic and all capable singers. But they are simply not Brian, Carl, Dennis, Mike and Al. They can imitate but can never be the Beach Boys.

Live with it. I can.

So, how does Smile 2004 rate? Having not heard it in its entirety, I can not say for sure. However, based upon what I’ve heard, it ranks. In fact, it’s quite simply fantastic.

Oh, sure, there are few production and musical notes that are a bit sour for me. The “Columnated ruins domino” line doesn’t quite work with the blended voices of Brian and Jeff Foskett. And there is a certain innocence and longing that is missing from “Surf’s Up”. But any of these complaints are minor and only scratch the surface of this album.

Why? Because the voices, guitars, production and any instruments are not the stars of Smile. In every case the music is the star. The melodies, counter melodies, bass lines, harmonies, runs and basic construction of these songs are what matters.

What I’ve heard is incredible. Excellently executed and completely fascinating. What it lacks in that magical spontaneity of 1967 it more than makes up for with love, care and sheer musical eloquence.

Forget the Beach Boys. This isn’t the Beach Boys. Smile is the culmination of Brian Wilson’s near forty-year battle with himself. And no matter how you cut it, the music on Smile is and always will be his greatest achievement. Weird and wonderful, Smile is everything it was purported to be. The only thing we will never know is whether or not it would have change music as we know it.

Or did it? Despite the fact that it was never released as planned, the myth of Smile and those tantalizing pieces of it, have informed, intrigued and influenced two generations of music’s most daring writers and performers.

The beauty of Smile 2004 is that it allows us to keep our questions about whether or not Smile 1967 would have been everything it was supposed to be. We can always wonder about it, and we can still go back to those pieces and hear what it could have sounded like. But all we can do is wonder. And that’s all we could do before. Brian hasn’t taken that away from us.

What he has given us is his current idea of what Smile was and is. In his own mind it is the best work of his career. He recently said, “Smile means the world to me. I had it inside me for almost 40 years. It's my baby.”

I can’t imagine having something like this locked inside me, and yet completely surrounding me, for forty years. What a terrible and wonderful curse.

But in the end Brian’s child-like qualities are what is most winning. “It's better than Pet Sounds,” he says, “and I did it.”

And I did it. Those are the words of a man amazed at what he was able to do. It’s the same sense of wonder I have when I look at the kids.

And he did do it. He did it anew, looking forward rather than backward. And he did it well. Of course, wait until I actually hear the whole disc. I may change my mind.

But I doubt it.