Magna Qualitas Records production
Different transitions, longer songs, and entirely new songs added in
01 A1 Our Prayer
02 A2 Gee
03 A3 Heroes & Villians
04 A4 Do You Like Worms (Roll Plymouth Rock)
05 A5 Can't Wait Too Long
06 A6 Talking Horns
07 A7 I'm In Great Shape
08 A8 Barnyard
09 A9 The Old Master Painter
10 A10 You Are My Sunshine
11 B1 Cabin Essence
12 B2 I Don't Know
13 B3 Holidays
14 B4 Wonderful
15 B5 Look (Song For Children)
16 B6 Child Is Father Of The Man
17 B7 Three Blind Mice
18 B8 He Gives Speeches
19 B9 George Fell
20 C1 Surf's Up
21 C2 All Day
22 C3 I Wanna Be Around
23 C4 With Me Tonight
24 C5 Workshop (Friday Night)
25 C6 Vega-Tables
26 C7 Tune X
27 C8 Wind Chimes
28 D1 Fire (Mrs. O'Leary's Cow)
29 D2 With Me Tonight (reprise)
30 D3 Little Pad
31 D4 Underwater Chant
32 D5 Cool, Cool Water
33 D6 Love To Say Dada (Blue Hawaii)
34 D7 Good Vibrations
35 D8 You're Welcome
The running order still follows basically the same order as the official version, because it's a concept album, however vague the concept seems to be. Apparently Brian envisioned this as a description of a bicycle rider's journey across the USA beginning at Plymouth Rock and traveling across the continent to California, and eventually Hawaii. It includes the his reflections on the nation's history including the white man's conquering of the Indians, the building of the railroad, the agricultural development of the heartland, the great Chicago Fire, and ends with the purchase of Hawaii. Unfortunately, all the vocals were never completed, so a lot of lyrics that would likely have clarified this concept are not present. However, the running order is, for the most part, predetermined by the story line. We have, however, made songs longer and added new songs and transitions, adding a plot thread to the concept by having the rider pursuing the woman he loves (who is mentioned in the beginning verse of Heroes & Villains), and who has a head start on him. He leaves from Plymouth Rock because he can't be without her (Can't Wait Too Long). After years of travel that has him pass through the locations of many historical events he finally meets up with her (He Gives Speeches, With Me Tonight) and they journey across the ocean to build a place (a Little Pad) in Hawaii. We've used nearly every piece of music that we could figure out how to from the 2011 SMiLE Sessions box set, as well as an incredible wealth of other things that weren't on there as well. We even grabbed a couple of parts of the remade versions The Beach Boys released on later albums, since those tracks were originally envisioned to be on this record, and even used a few little pieces from Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE. It's all in quality that's officially releasable; no bootleggy sounding crusty old hissy tapes. And its all in GLORIOUS STEREO, achieved in whatever manner we could come up with, unlike the box set version.
Sources used for this were Mok's SMiLE, A Reconstruction by Purple Chick, Archaeology, Unsurpassed Masters 16 & 17, Zach's, Odeon Original, JMZ Mix, The Old Master Painter mix, Beach Boys & Paul McCartney - Vega-Tables, the 2011 SMiLE Sessions box set, the Endless Harmony DVD, and the 1994 Good Vibrations box set. Pieces were also taken from the stereo mixes of Smiley Smile (a fan edit), Wild Honey (Japanese Pastmaster Series), Friends (Japanese Pastmaster Series), Surf's Up (Japanese Pastmaster Series), and Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE.
Story notes and }{eywood's tech notes:
A1. OUR PRAYER: The stereo mix from 20/20 synced with the mono mix from the Good Vibrations box set.
A2. GEE: Stereo mix from the 2011 box set for the "dih di di dih" part with a little reverb added (the totally dry mix always was too much of a shock to me after the reverb soaked mix of Our Prayer (plus there's a little of it added on the mono mix as well), then cuts to Purple Chick's mix after "How I love my girl". The last vocal line before the horn was punched in from the master take to eliminate the digital slow down PC did. The horn part at the end is from the 2011 mono mix with reverb removed, then replaced in stereo. Segues directly into...
A3. HEROES AND VILLAINS: The actual beginning of our story. Our main character tells the story of his life, meeting and falling in love with his girl, leaving the city for the small town, and raising children. He flashes back on how he fell in love at first sight when he saw her dance in a cantina one night, but lost her when the police raided the place. When he, after some time, discovered her whereabouts in Middle America, he decided to pursue her and embarked on a cross-country journey by bicycle.
So. Many. Pieces. Tied with Vege-Tables for hardest thing on this record to assemble (I'd say that about 40% of the work put into this album was these two tracks). The first verse and the ìjust see what youíve doneî section are from the Smiley Smile stereo mix. Then we switch to Mokís mix for the first "My children were raised" verse. The ìthreescore and five...î verse is from Mokís mix and is synced to the instrumental backing track, partially to beef up the instrumentation, and partially to seamlessly join it to the "la la" verse. Cuts to the "La la la la" verse and the a cappella verse also taken from the "H & V sections" track on the Good Vibrations box set. I restored the slightly clipped off start of the first "la" (appearing this way on all versions, including the official) by taking 112 milliseconds of the second "la" and moving it to the start of the first one. The "dih dih dih" verse is from the 2011 box set. The cantina part is from Purple Chick's mix. The "Woo woosî are taken from the 2011 box set. The second "My children were raised" is from Purple Chick's mix. I extended and reverbed the organ note at the end to provide a good sounding stop with the correct timing before the next part. An a cappella section from the 2011 box is next, then we switch to Mok's mix to get the heavy tape delay at the end of the next a cappella part (which I extended a bit with more delay), then back to PC for "I've been in this town", back again to the H&V Sections track from the GV box for the "just see what you've done" section. We move to the 2011 box for the vocal scale insert, and "da heroes". "Da heroes" is assembled from several sections: part of the vocal montage, the track known as Part 2 Revised [master take] and the piano from Part 2 Revised (which took a bit of digital speed manipulation to match up with the vocals. Different take, I guess). The end section is from the 2011 box set and because it ended with the same horn outro that was used for Gee I, horror of horrors, resorted to using the orchestral ending from the BWPS version. I tried to avoid using this modern arrangement, but there were a couple of things I just couldn't resist swiping, mostly orchestral flourishes. All in all this track took a couple of days to get together in a way that pleased me, and revisions were made to it over the next several days as I did some fine tuning on the timing and the segues. Although it still seems a bit disconnected at times (mostly due to how many ways they tried to approach the song) I think this is pretty close to how it would have ended up if they had finished assembling it in 1967. Whew!
A4. DO YOU LIKE WORMS (ROLL PLYMOUTH ROCK): Our main character narrates the beginning of his journey. As he passes through Plymouth, Mass, thoughts of the fate of the American Indians pass through his mind.
The first ...what do you call that? A chorus?...was constructed by taking the stereo harpsichord track from the 2011 stereo backing track and the "oonga, ca oonga ca" vocals from the 2011 Backing Vocals Montage and syncing them up, then taking the 2011 mono mix and putting it on the right side to get the "baa, baa, baa, ba baa, ba ba baa" vocals in there. The final harpsichord chord on this part is also from the mono mix, but spatialized and balanced to the left a bit to more resemble the stereo track. The following part also had the vocals added from the Backing Vocals Montage ("hummm, miyuda, hummm, miyada"). The end section has the "roll Plymouth Rock" vocals added back in to cover the harpsichord leaking through the bass as it does on the official mix. Then a few extra bars of the harpsichord track are stuck in before the end section. The "woo woo" is from the mono mix with a bitchin' wide chorus effect on it to make it stereo.
A5. CAN'T WAIT TOO LONG: Our main character yearns for the woman he is in search of, remarking on how long itís been since he saw her and how he dreams of her.
This is a totally re-edited version of this song. I felt that it was incomplete the way it was presented. It had some studio chatter in it and a huge middle section that went nowhere, plus a tacked on end section that doesn't really even go with the song. I found myself singing along about how this song is "way too long, way too long baby". So I cut it into various pieces and put it back together in a different order, losing the sloppy bits and constructing it more like a Beach Boys song than it started out as. Sourced from the 20/20 bonus track.
A6. TALKING HORNS: Sourced from the 2011 box set. This was too cool not to use. Because the master track for this was in mono I spatialized the first half, then did some fancy panning and reverb on the "conversation" part.
A7. I'M IN GREAT SHAPE: Our main character passes through America's heartland as agricultural development is under way. He remarks on how great a shape both he and the country are in.
I know I could have used the demo version of this on Mok's mix, but I chose to use the version they had already prepared for the 2011 mono mix and spatialize it into stereo. Then I added an instrumental verse at the end from the master take. Although the master take was in true stereo, I mixed it to mono and spatialized to match the rest because splicing the mono and stereo versions together sounded too strange. The intro bit is taken from the BWPS version (another one of four songs `here I used the modern arrangement for this album). I stuck some of the animal sounds from one of the H&V takes on the end as a segue into...
A8. BARNYARD: Our main character remarks upon the lives of the farmers he passes in his journey.
This version is in stereo, which I came about in interesting ways. First, the same process as others used (syncing Brian's piano demo with the mono backing track) was used here. The difference is that the mono backtrack is from the 2011 box rather than a bootleg like on all previously existing mixes. It sounded far better than the one on bootleg that all previous mixologists used, and it had no BG vocals, which allowed me to add them in a different fashion. First, I removed a good deal of the reverb from the backing track with some fancy software, then I spatialized it into stereo (with more fancy software), added my own stereo reverb to it, then added Brian's vocals. For the BG vocals I used the 2011 mono version, put a real wide chorus with no sweep on those parts and, after editing the backing track to match the official version, pasted them over the backing track. A burst of reverb on the end to make the edit into Old Master Painter sound smoother and there it is. The animal sounds on this don't exactly match the official mono mix because they edited the same sections over and over to make the official version, something I found unnecessary to do, although I did paste a repeated part over the final mix to get at least a couple of those sounds into the first verse.
A9. THE OLD MASTER PAINTER and A10. YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE: A bit of melancholy as our main character expresses his sadness at losing the girl.
These two songs are made up of two different takes. The first full take from the 2011 box set "master take" track makes up the Old Master Painter part and the left channel of the You Are My Sunshine part. The right channel is the mono mix with the vocals. Because they aren't the same take the sync went out a lot, so the stick clicks were timed to (nearly) match a click at a time. Itís not absolutely perfect, but neither is the dynamic of the clicks themselves (different performance). The wah wah horn at the end is now double tracked from the two takes, and though it is not performed precisely in sync, I think that gives it a more psychedelic quality, and is therefore totally acceptable to me. The fade section is a combination of the instrumental master take from the 2011 box and the a cappella vocals from UM, which carries on after the instruments fade out.
B1. CABIN ESSENCE: Our main character fantasizes about starting a new life in the plains of America, building a cabin where he can watch the wheat grow with his lady once he catches up to her. He also remarks upon the building of the railroads.
Beginning with a short vocal insert called Mission Pak, this then starts with an instrumental introductory verse taken from the session master in the 2011 box set. For the verses I took the stereo mix from the third CD of the GV box set and ran it through a center channel extractor, removing all but the slightest hint of the mono instruments, but leaving the wide panned stereo vocals. I then combined this with the stereo instrumental backing track. This is because the instruments are all mixed to the center on the vocal version, but on the backing track they are mixed to the sides. I combined the two versions to widen the placement of the instruments on the verses. This is only in the quiet verses, not the choruses. The choruses are straight out of the GV version. The ending, however, received a similar synching (minus the center extraction) using the backing track from the vinyl version in the 2011 deluxe box. As an added bonus itís also extended beyond the original fadeout because the backing track runs about 20 seconds longer. I allowed the extra bars from the backing track to play out after the vocals fade out. What results is a mix that's wider stereo than any that have gone before, and a wee bit longer as well.
B2. I DON'T KNOW: I tried to use all the songs from these sessions that I found that weren't included in the official version whether they were finished or not. This begins with a nose...er, uh...vocal session recorded for an unused version of Wonderful that I couldn't use for that song because it was in a totally different key than the final version. This is joined to another unused song fragment. It makes a nice interlude between Cabin Essence and...
B3. HOLIDAYS: This song has an extra verse at the start compared to the official version. Created from the stereo backing track with the "whispering winds" section of Wind Chimes added in from a Smiley Smile outtake on Ultimate Masters. I tuned the whole song up by one semitone so that it segues nicely out of I Don't Know and flawlessly into the new intro for Wonderful. For the bulk of the song I retained the original tempo after the pitch shift, but the last section is sped up in both pitch and tempo so it matches the new intro to...
B4. WONDERFUL: Our main character gives thought to what it is about the woman he pursues that makes her draw him so strongly, perhaps her mysteriousness, and how wonderful she is to him. She is passing through the great woods in the Midwest at this point, and he is in hot pursuit.
Purple Chick made their mix by taking the mono GV box set version and syncing it with a Vigotone mix to make it stereo, but it was left with no true center image, either due to artifacts from the sync or some sort of phase manipulated stereo effect like the one I use periodically here. This mix was made by taking PCís version, making three copies of it, and treating each differently. One copy I rolled off all frequencies above 125 Hz by 100 dB, retaining just the bass frequencies, then mixed it to true mono. Another version I used a center channel extractor to isolate the vocal, then mixed this to true mono also. The third version I did the opposite and removed the vocal, then removed all the lows below 125 Hz, and finally widened the stereo field on it. I added the lows back in by mixing in the mono bass track, then put the stereo backing vocals in from the Backing Vocal Montage on the 2011 box set. Finally I mixed in the mono lead vocal. This resulted in a stereo mix with the vocal having a true center image. This also begins with a new intro made from an unused alternate version pitch shifted up three semitones to play an octave higher than the main body of the song (and also match the ending of Holidays). The ending doesn't fade to mono like on PC's version, but instead cuts directly into...
B5. LOOK (SONG FOR CHILDREN): The beginning quiet section of this is heavily influenced by the JMZ mix, which was in turn influenced by BWPS. The music at the start is from the instrumental backing track in the 2011 box set and the vocals that hang over from Wonderful are from the Backing Vocal Montage. At the loud part it switches to a composite I made from two takes of the instrumental backing track (I used an earlier take for the third loud part because I wanted the drums in there). The vocals in the loud parts are inserted by syncing the mono mix with the stereo backing track. I repeated the end section 4 times and then did a little manipulation to create an ending that didn't need a fadeout.
B6. CHILD IS FATHER OF THE MAN: The first part is from Mok's mix, but that version had all the vocals on the left over a mono piano track. I added reverb to this to give some depth to the stereo field and bring the essence of the vocals over to the right a bit, plus a little creative channel swapping gave a couple of voices over to the right side. The rest is the instrumental backing track reassembled from parts found on the 2011 box set with the vocal sections overlaid from two different mixes found on Archaeology. Both of these were pretty crappy sounding. One had a ton of hiss and the other was sort of "crumpled" sounding from generation loss. I used NR on both and a crackle filter on the crumply one. The NR was fairly extreme, and besides removing the hiss it also had the interesting effect of removing a lot of the backing music and leaving the vocals, which were mixed louder and above the NR threshold. Normally this would be considered an undesirable artifact, but for this it was perfect for mixing with the existing backing track. I then EQd both to sound crisper than they were in the first place, as well as remove the low end (which was already present in the instrumental track). I also doubled the bass line in these parts to thicken up the low end. I added the extra section with the orchestra from BWPS, but I reinforced the piano line with a take from 1966 so the sound of the piano doesnít change as it does when you just do a crossfade from one version to the other. I also added a new fade out section that was made by taking the ending from Purple Chick's version and syncing up an alternate take with two thirds of it to both add more instrumentation and bring in the cello I needed for the ending. I moved the section that PC used as the intro and made it part of the end section, but my source was taken from a session tape on the 2011 box set and not their mix. The final bass/cello note was retuned to make it blend into...
B7. THREE BLIND MICE: I'm not sure why it's called that. It clearly isn't the same Three Blind Mice that we all know from watching cartoons. A tiny edit was made near the end to remove a comment from the studio control room. Because the song had no ending the last note of this is taken from two earlier aborted takes (one for the cello and one for the bass and electric piano), stretched out and reverbed to create one. I used this take because I thought it was the best performance both technically and dynamically, especially for the drums, but midway through the take the drum pans more to the center and the reverb gets cranked up. I attempted to make the first half sound more like the second by adding reverb and altering the panning a bit.
B8. HE GIVES SPEECHES: Finally he reaches his goal and "falls into the friendly persuasion" of our heroine.
One of those unused tracks that fit really well here. This is made up of three different mixes: the instrumental backing track for the first eight bars, then a sync of two mixes, one with the lead vocal and one with the lead and backing vocal. The backing vocal was mixed way too loud in that take, so I mixed it with the one with only the lead, thereby getting the lead vocal louder than the backing vocal. Since this had no real ending I just cut it off abruptly and used some tape rewind noise to segue into...
B9. GEORGE FELL into his French horn. Terribly silly, but I just had to put this on there. I edited it down a bit and used pieces from both the 2011 box set and Zach's mix.
C1. SURF'S UP: OK if anyone has any idea what the lyrics to this are about give me a call. I can't even make up a meaning or stretch something out of this to fit it into the story concept, bit it is a great tune (my favorite on the whole album) despite the vagueness.
The first section of this is the 2011 stereo mix up until the ìBrother John" lyric. Because there was no ìcanvas the town and brush the backdrop / are you sleepingî lyrics in the first verse the box set makers chose to punch Carlís vocals in from the 1971 version. This causes a minor inconsistency because the second time those lyrics appear they are sung by Brian. For the sake of consistency I doubled the second "canvas..." part with Carl's vocal as well, but itís the low one from the first verse, thereby partially mimicking the harmonies as performed by Brainís band on their album and in concert. I added the harmony vocals on the "are you sleeping" line in both verses, the second of which is also synced with Brian's voice, then had both Carl and Brian finish with ìBrother Johnî. In order to do all this I synced Brianís vocal and piano from the solo demo with the instrumental backing track, then added in Carlís ìcanvas...î vocal from the Endless Harmony DVDís center channel and the ì...sleepingî harmonies from the surround channels. The middle section (Brianís solo piano and vocal demo) is from the Endless Harmony DVD, but spatialized slightly to make the piano less mono. The humming vocal harmonies courtesy of a backing vocal track recorded for the end of Vege-Tables were added to fatten up a few lines, and the orchestration was extracted from the BWPS version by phase cancelling the majority of the music and vocals, then adding it in over Brianís demo to complete the middle section. The coda is also from Endless Harmony because this mix centers Al's voice rather than pans him to the left like the mix on the Surfís Up album. Using the surround mix allowed me to bring Alís voice and the voice that says ìthatís why the child...î out a bit more. The fade out is removed and the final chord is spliced in from the BWPS version (it was such a good ending I just couldnít leave a fade out on the song), but with Brianís vocal removed and replaced with Alís from the DVD. A little segue made from some moaning, laughing, and oohs & aahs leads us to...
C2. ALL DAY: A little piano noodling recorded but not used for Heroes & Villains that I wanted to stick in somewhere, edited down to remove the sloppiness. Since this was just a basic piano track I decided it needed some other instrumentation to pick it up a bit. The stick clicks were taken from a count in before one take of Look, the bass note was clipped off the end of CiFotM and pasted in one at a time, the drum and guitar track was extracted from Three Blind Mice, the organ drone is the first track laid down for the Water Chant and retuned to fit here, and the vocals are from the end of You Are My Sunshine. How's that for something out of nothing? OK, itís still not much, but ití more of a song now than before.
C3. I WANNA BE AROUND: The instrumental backing track from the session masters.
C4. YOU'RE WITH ME TONIGHT: A night spent in satisfaction because she is here with him.
Clearly a part of SMiLE (this is the same music as Vege-Tables), this ended with something that sounded like a pail dropping and each instrument stopping at a different time. This made a great way to have the song interrupted by construction as we go into...
C5. WORKSHOP: The stereo backing track from the recording session track with the workshop sounds pasted in by me. Although the workshop session was in mono I (here comes that word again) spatialized it into stereo before adding it to the track, so in my mix the sound effects aren't all to one side, and they sort of have a "room" ambience to them as well. And, unlike Purple Chick, I prefer them loud.
C6. VEGA-TABLES: One of Brian's original ideas was to have a suite devoted to the four elements: earth, air, fire and water. This is the earth portion. I'm not sure how the Elements Suite fits into the whole cross country journey story, so I'm not going to speculate.
Because I only had the CDs for the new box set, I was unaware of the stereo mix of this on the vinyl portion of it. I therefore spent several days putting together a stereo mix of my own, and since it was probably the hardest piece to assemble I've chosen to use it on this version. The official stereo mix is used on the short version of the album I made to mimic the mono release.
This began with Mok's version, which was a nice stereo basic track. Onto this I added many things and re-edited it to match the official arrangement. For the first minute Mok's master is beefed up by the addition of the instrumental backing track and then the background vocals. "Mom and Daddy said" was lifted from Zach's mix because it was more up front. The first "sleep a lot, eat a lot..." verse is the backing track with the vocals flown in from the vocal montage, both from the 2011 box. This is because no other mixes had the backing percussion. The next small section is a sync of the master backing track, the BG vox from the montage, and Mok's mix (to get the lead vocal). Then at "I threw away my candy bar" it becomes a mix of just the backing track and Mok's mix. The second "eat a lot, sleep a lot..." is constructed by taking the two piano tracks with different vocal overdubs ("day oolah" on one and "row row row" on the other) from the Vega-Tables bootleg and putting one in each channel. Then that track was beefed up by an additional piano track and another track with electric piano and bass (to make up for how quiet the instruments were in relation to the backing vocals). Then the lead vocals were flown in, after considerable timing correction, from the song Mama Says off of Wild Honey, often a word at a time. I liked the different approaches to each run through of the verse as they were done in that version, so that's what I used instead of the original. This section also has a drum beat edited out of one of the original version vocal takes pasted in a beat at a time. The second "send us in your letter" verse is a mono mix from the Odeon version with stereo backing vocals overdubbed on it. This caused a little bit of accidental phasing at the very end, but I liked the way it sounded and kept it there. a couple of piano notes flown in from earlier in the backing track fill in the gap before the insert. The "bop bop bop bop do do do, do do do" insert is from the official stereo mix on the vinyl in the 2011 box set, the only part of that mix used for this. The final section begins with the spatialized mono mix, then switches to the stereo mix from the vocal montage (the very beginning wasn't there, so I chose to make one run through of the progression be mono-ish, then switch to the stereo). Oh yeah. I forgot to mention the intro bit edited down from the 22 minute comedic session with drummer Hal Blaine, with some of the Paul McCartney crunching session added to it for dramatic effect (this part alone took over three hours to find all the parts I wanted and edit them together so it sounded real and with the panning in the right places!). Has anyone else noticed that this guy sounds exactly like George Carlin?
C7. TUNE X: Another one of those songs that may or may not have been intended for this album, but was included on the 2011 box set as part of the sessions, and it goes very well with the sound of this album).
C8. WIND CHIMES: The air portion of The Elements Suite.
This is the stereo mix from the fourth side of the vinyl album in the 2011 box set. This had brighter sound with far less hiss than any other version I came across.
D1. FIRE (MRS. O'LEARY'S COW): The fire portion of The Elements Suite, named after the cow that kicked over a lantern and caused the Great Chicago Fire.
This mix isn't perfectly like the mono mix because all the toy and siren sounds aren't in exactly the same place, but neither is the rest of this album all that similar to the mono version, so there. The beginning is from the 2011 box set track known as "Organ Waltz". The rest is an assembly of two of the master backing track takes with the toy and fire sounds added in over it later. I made the fire sound stereo by taking a small piece of it, looping it, delaying it a bit and flipping one channel backwards, then added it in over the track. Fall Breaks and Back to Winter was also time compressed and added into the mix.
D2. WITH ME TONIGHT (REPRISE): A little revisiting of the With Me Tonight theme. Together with Little Pad this signifies that our main character is now standing on the coast of California with his lady (although it seems to me that he got there pretty quickly since he was in Chicago a minute ago. Blame Brian Wilson for this, not me. His version jumps right from the Chicago fire to Hawaii. At least mine has a stop at the coast first).
This version is a nearly a cappella take (with a bass) that is more obviously the same music as Vege-Tables (I even tried to find a way to fit it into that song but couldn't make it work well). The beginning is a piece of piano recorded for Heroes & Villains tuned up to match the key of With Me Tonight, and I dissolved the ending into reverb to get rid of the noodly bass and enable me to make a medley with...
D3. LITTLE PAD: Probably not meant for SMiLE, but it makes a nice bridge to the final destination of Hawaii, and since it appears on the Smiley Smile album, which is mostly material rescued from SMiLE, I figured it would be OK to use. This is another radical re-edit I did of an already released song. It was necessary because of the disjointed and repetitive nature of this track and also because of the sloppy editing on the original. I removed two sections of the song that were repeated parts, combined two other parts into one verse, and rearranged the three remaining sections into this version. I fixed the bad edits that were in the remaining parts and evened out the tempo as well. I also improved the mental image of standing on the California coast at the end with a little ocean sound (thanks to the BBC's sound effects library), which continues to appear frequently throughout the "Water Suite" portion of the album.
D4. UNDERWATER CHANT: Well this is a bit silly again, but it goes well with the water theme of the songs around it. Spatialized into stereo and reverbed to blend in better.
D5. COOL, COOL WATER: Part of this was originally a section of Love to Say Dada which made up the water portion of The Elements Suite. For this album the water portion is a suite of its own starting with Little Pad and ending with Dada. In my version these songs tell the story of our couple as they first stand on the California coast prior to departure (With Me Tonight reprise & Little Pad), then travel by boat across the Pacific Ocean (Underwater Chant & Cool, Cool Water), and finally arrive in Hawaii (Love To Say Dada).
I recreated this similar to the first half of the song as it appears on the Sunflower album, but with the SMiLE session tracks. The first section is from the 2011 box set, the chant part is from Purple Chick's mix of In Blue Hawaii, it then returns to the box set for the instrumental verse and the last part. Taking a cue from the Sunflower version I added in some more ocean noise during the chant section (and continued it through the instrumental verse to cover the slight static on the master). A bridge between this and the next song is made by taking an isolated vocal from the song 'Til I Die, covering it with effects and EQ, speeding it up to match the tempo of this, and putting it in between the two songs. I'm aware that this lyric is taken out of context and out of the right era, but it fit so well here I just had to have it. And in my album itís a lyric fragment that ultimately ends up being used for a song later on, not the other way around. Yep. Rewriting history. So sue me.
D6. LOVE TO SAY DADA (IN BLUE HAWAII): Our couple first near and then finally arrive in Hawaii, where they are welcomed by the natives.
Part 1 is a widened version of the stereo backing track. Part 2 is a combination of the stereo backing track and Mok's mono mix for the first and third verse sections. For the second it is that, but with the mono mix EQd and synced with it to get that one extra vocal part in there. The stereo track was widened a bit since it was nearly mono except for the drum, and a little reverb was added to the mono mix, then the two were combined to get the vocals in with the stereo music. A phrase lifted from Our Prayer is tacked onto the end as a suitable intro to Good Vibrations.
NOTE: Because this song is supposed to denote the arrival at the final destination of Hawaii, and because the BWPS version actually does so by having lyrics and vocals to describe the event, I felt it was necessary to make some vocal additions to this primarily instrumental song. Although it was impossible to recreate the vocals on BWPS from existing sources, I did find a clever solution. First I lifted the word "Hawaii" from Little Pad, altered the key of it a bit, soaked it in reverb, and added it to the "Ah wah wah oh wah" section. Then I took the stereo mix of the song Hawaii, removed the center image information (which was the instruments mixed in mono) and was left with the vocals a cappella. I took one of the "Hawaii" words from that and treated it the same as the Little Pad excerpt, even bending the notes to fit the music, and added that to the song as well. The additional vocals I added first signify the sighting of the islands from the boat. The natives are heard singing, and then our main character announces "Hawaii!" Near the end a chorus joins in. This is meant as the voices of the Hawaiians welcoming them.
D7. GOOD VIBRATIONS: Capping off the story with the best pop song ever written. Our main character remarks on how he loves the colorful clothes his wife (?) has acquired in Hawaii and how he gets such good vibrations off of being with her.
Based primarily on Purple Chick's amazing stereo mix, this version is extended by the addition of a couple of extra instrumental bars after the "gotta keep those lovin' good vibrations a'happening with her" vocal fades out, an entirely new section consisting of the original faster bridge section with the fuzz bass that I created from the stereo instrumental backing track and some clever panning of the mono vocal sections, and topped off with a longer fadeout. PC did an awesome job that even the Beach Boys can't pull off because the vocal tapes are missing (Hey PC, is there something you aren't telling us?). This is the version with the original Tony Asher lyrics. For this version I did a new composite of the verses by taking the early vocal version from the 2011 box set, removing the mono music information from behind the vocal by center channel extraction (Iíve mentioned doing this a few times by this point. If you listen to the fragment I used in the vocal montage bonus track you'll see how well this approach can work sometimes) and then pasting it over the stereo backing track single edit. This resulted in a cleaner mix that PC pulled off with the sources they had at the time, and a smoother transition between the two different vocal takes. The only flaw in this is the first line which doesn't exist on the early vocal take and had to be flown in from the final mono single mix. This results in the organ being panned differently during this line than for the rest of the song, but I consider it an acceptable flaw considering what we had to work with. I even fixed the dropout at the start of the third line of lyrics. This exists on every version of this song, even the early versions with fragmentary lyrics. I gather that it appeared sometime between finishing the instrumental edits and the tracking of the first vocals. I clipped a tiny piece out of the instrumental take and filled the hole in the vocal version with it, interpolating the vocal to fill in the blank as well.
D8. YOU'RE WELCOME: Added to the end as a sort of reply to those who wanted a stereo mix of this. This is both the mono and stereo mixes synchronized for added depth. An added chord at the end from the track on the 2011 box known as "Heroes & Villains-Bridge to Indians" finalizes it. This song is also found at the end of the mono mix (minus the extra chord), probably for the same reason. On a side note, my son noticed that after I added the final chord at the end it actually leaves a sort of expectancy for another chord there, one that is filled by returning to Our Prayer. Yep, the album loops. Now you'll have to listen to it over and over and over....(welcome to my world).
Not for CD or LP bonus tracks:
Being a new initiate into the Beach Boys music (I really only like this album and perhaps Pet Sounds, which takes a distant second place to SMiLE; Everything before Pet Sounds was bubblegum pop, catchy yet dismissible at the same time, and everything after was disconnected, badly made pseudo psychedelia and totally-out-of-touch-with-the-times wanna-be pop music...and parts of SMiLE---all that being said I have developed a fascination with the amazingness of their vocal parts. Even when the song is a shallow, forgettable piece the voice work is often, at the least, inventive, and frequently downright brilliant). I spent a lot of time listening to their material while hunting down all the elements I needed to make this record. In the making of this album many combinations of parts and running orders were auditioned, and in many cases it was a very close race when it came to deciding which edits made the final cut. An earlier, longer version of Cool, Cool Water was something I just didn't want to discard, so I offer it here. It was ultimately rejected due to containing non-SMiLE related material, namely the entire end section of the song as recorded for Sunflower. Although some post-SMiLE related snippets got used on the album (Little Pad, the "how deep is the ocean" thing) this was deemed to be just too much. In the main album there are four songs that use portions of the Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE album from 2004. These parts are orchestrated bits that I thought sounded spectacular in the flow of things, but for you purists out there I made mixes without those sections that are comprised entirely of 1960ís material. Also included is the version of Good Vibrations with the official lyrics. Hey, most of this album is modular, with parts being able to be arranged in a variety of orders and still work, so why not make some optional modular parts for different listening experiences? It's all up to your preference (and how much of a purist you are) how it sounds in the end.
Alternate mixes
A1 HEROES AND VILLAINS: The same song as on the main album, but with the original ending, not the BWPS orchestration.
A7 I'M IN GREAT SHAPE: Instead of the BWPS introduction, this version has an extra full instrumental verse before the vocals come in. This is made up of another unused take different than the one used to make up the verse at the end.
B6 CHILD IS FATHER OF THE MAN: This mix is a bit different than the other one. Not only is the BWPS orchestration not overdubbed onto the section that begins at 2:30, but the piano in that spot and at :37 is panned pretty hard to the right, whereas on the main album mix it is panned to the center to match the placement of the piano on the BWPS version. The arrangement of the part beginning at 2:30 is, however, edited nearly the same as the BWPS version, but with two repeated measures necessary to make the orchestration fit omitted. Creating an ending for this section involved altering the bass line to make it seem like a proper ending, and to make it flow more smoothly into the next part.
C1 SURFíS UP: This is the mix with the all the vocal additions intact, but without the BWPS orchestration, and with the fade out ending.
D5 COOL, COOL WATER (KEEP ON COOLIN' ME): I originally intended for this to be on the album, but my son said I should stay with the material actually recorded at the time of SMiLE. This version has the second half edited in from the longer version of the song released on the Sunflower album. This section didn't exist on any of the SMiLE tapes due to it being written considerably later. There is also a short piece in the middle taken from the acoustic version of part 3 of the California Saga as found on the Endless Harmony DVD (I would have used more of this track in here, but the snippet on the DVD was the only piece I could find). My son argued (successfully) that these things were out of context and shouldn't be on the album, but I've added this as a bonus track so you can decide yourself which you like better.
D7 GOOD VIBRATIONS: The version with Mike Love's lyrics. The verses are a new composite made by syncing the mono mix with the stereo instrumental track. The choruses are from Purple Chick. I chose not to use their version for the verses because of the audible digital slicing from the tempo correction, something I managed to avoid. This one is extended the same way as the one in the main album (hell, I just added the two verses from this version to the beginning of the one I made above). The dropout is repaired on this version as well.
Karaoke Mixes
VEGE-TABLES KARAOKE MIX: On the Purple Chick version of SMiLE there are a few bonus tracks, one of which is an a cappella version of Vege-Tables. I thought that it would be interesting to create a counter version of this: a version with all but the lead vocals in the mix. So here it is: A Stack-O-Tracks mix of Vege-Tables. If youíve ever wanted to sing along with the boys, hereís your chance.
CABIN ESSENCE KARAOKE MIX: If you enjoyed singing along with Vege-Tables why not have a go at Cabin Essence as well?
The SMiLE Retail Promo Advertisement
This is a promo made by Capitol Records in 1966 in anticipation of the release of SMiLE the forthcoming January. They had been told that the album was nearly finished, so they printed covers and made advertisements. I made a slight edit in it to remove the reference to 1967 as the year of release, but since this record has been released in January (albeit 45 years later than planned) I thought it would be appropriate to include it here.
The final super ultra maxi bonus track:
THE SMiLE VOCALS MONTAGE: On the SMiLE Sessions box set is a piece called "Backing Vocals Montage". This is a really neat compilation of a lot of the backing vocal sections recorded for the album, mixed a cappella so you can hear how amazing the harmonies these guys make really is. Wow, the diversity and sheer complexity of the voice work on this album. Far beyond anything they or anyone had done before, this one track shows, more than the entire rest of the box set, what the Beach Boys were capable of and what they were really about. Who even decided what syllables would be used for these things? Oonga- ca oonga- ca, doyng doyng doyng, mama mama mama mama, weyoup, bop a doo dah, bah dah dee dayda, day oolah, row row row, and may other things that can't even be written, like the nose solos and the giggle harmonies behind the verses of Vege-Tables. This shows just how versatile an instrument the human voice can be. BRILLIANT! In the making of this version of SMiLE I found many more pieces and parts that never made the final cut of the official vocals montage. Many things were never used because the montage was only backing vocals, not leads. So I decided to make an alternate edit of this entire album with just the voices, both lead and backing. In making the album I isolated many elements from complex mixes by phase cancellation, and some of these vocal sections have never been heard separated from the backing tracks this way. Although you will hear the occasional piano or percussion (and sometimes the leakage from the groupís headphones), this is primarily all vocals. I even illustrated the separate layers of certain sections, starting off simple and building up as the section goes on. This is a really neat way to listen to this record, compacted down to 29 minutes and a cappella. Although many songs are excluded due to them being unfinished, instrumental, or intentionally sparse, this track is a treasure trove of the voice elements used to make SMiLE.