SMiLE - the greatest album that never was
by wee court
After the release of "Good Vibrations" and it's sucess, the Beach Boys (Brian Wilson) needed to make an album to follow it up. This album was going to be Smile. Originally Smile was going to be called Dumb Angel, a reference to Brian's new found spirituallity in music. However, the title was changed to Smile.
In 1967, Smile was probably the most anticipated album of the time. It has been speculated that if it had been released, it would have been the greatest album of all time, even better than Pet Sounds. However, this topic remains a constant debate. The ideas of Smile were certainlly more original and groundbreaking than its competition, Sgt. Pepper (The Beatles).
For the role of lyricist, Brian hired well-known session musician and arranger, Van Dyke Parks. The lyrical style of Van Dyke Parks was completely new to the Beach Boys. What was his style? Well, Parks wrote impressionistic lyrics, ideally suited as an accompaniment to the pictoral music Brian was creating. Unfortunately, the other members of the band did not see things this way- in particular Mike Love. Unable to comprehend Park's lyrics on any level, and bitter about his rapidly decreasing songwriting royalty cheques, Mike began to
question Van Dyke's lyrics to the point that
Van Dyke refused to write any more songs for
the Beach Boys. One may think this event would
be however, the downfall of the album. However, Smile would be terminated for a much more complex reason. This can not be explained until "The Elements" tracks of the album are elaborated. "The Elements" was to be a suite of instrumental music which was based around the 4 elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. There is still much debate as to what pieces of music would have constituted this suite. One of the first signs that the Smile plan was crumbling was during the sessions for a track called "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow"( more commonly known as "Fire").
At the time "Fire" was being recorded, Brian got fire hats for the orchestra and studio members to wear. The session was quite a powerful specatacle. Thus, when news came that a building near the recording studio had burned down, Brian was convinced it was a sign to abandon the album. As a result, Brian is reported to have burned the Smile tapes. However, this is not completely true, because many of the tracks wound up on later albums and a mojority of the "destroyed" tracks appeared on the box set. Therefore, it is possible to make a tape which is similar to what would be on Smile. Even so, it is not known what tracks would have actually been selected.
Another impressive aspect of the Smile album was the book filled with song illustrations that was to come with it. It is possible, however to obtain a copy of the Smile booklet. Some of the art work has been posted on this webpage (click to view).
