Smile (The Beach Boys album)

By the end of 1965, having withdrawn from concert tours, Wilson had distanced himself from his bandmates and networked further within the Los Angeles music scene while increasingly using drugs such as marijuana, LSD (or "acid"), and Desbutal. He forged a close relationship with Loren Schwartz, an aspiring talent agent, and sought to make the Beach Boys' eleventh studio album, Pet Sounds, a clear departure from previous releases. He opted not to work with his usual lyricist, bandmate Mike Love, and instead collaborated mainly with jingle writer Tony Asher, at Schwartz's recommendation. In December of that year, Byrds member David Crosby introduced Wilson to Van Dyke Parks, a songwriter, arranger, session musician, and former child actor who had relocated to Los Angeles in the early 1960s to play in local folk revival scenes. , Terry Melcher, Tony Asher, and Brian Wilson at a Pet Sounds recording session in early 1966. On February 17, 1966, Wilson began recording "Good Vibrations", first intended for Pet Sounds but later excluded due to his dissatisfaction with the initial recording, experimenting with several arrangements until April. On May 4, during the fourth session for "Good Vibrations", he began recording the track in sections rather than as one continuous performance, intending to splice the segments together later. Through 1966, Parks briefly signed with MGM Records, who released his first two singles, and played on albums by the Byrds and other acts, after which his activity centered on select Warner Bros. pop groups. Through Parks or Bruce Johnston, Wilson was introduced to former Beatles press officer Derek Taylor, soon recruited as the Beach Boys' publicist and initiator of a promotional campaign that branded Wilson as a pop "genius". Pet Sounds was released on May 16 and immediately became a landmark album for its sophisticated orchestral arrangements and its role in positioning the Beach Boys among top rock innovators. In the U.S., the album confused their fans and sold worse than previous Beach Boys releases, whereas the British embraced it warmly. This UK success encouraged Wilson to take greater creative risks and convinced Capitol Records to support his next ambitious project. ==Collaboration and surrounding milieu==

(pictured 1967) provided most of Smile's lyrics and thematic direction and participated as an instrumentalist in the recording sessions. In mid-July 1966, Wilson reconnected with Parks at a house party hosted by Byrds producer and Johnston collaborator Terry Melcher. Impressed by his articulate manner, Wilson, seeking a new lyricist, later offered him a collaboration on the Beach Boys' next album. Between July and September, later remarked that his association had felt akin to being a "groupie for Brian". (pictured). Journalists were similarly integrated into this milieu. Paul Jay Robbins, from the Los Angeles Free Press and a New Left political activist involved in the 1966 Sunset Strip curfew riots, met Parks at Byrds concerts, which led to his inclusion in Wilson's circle. Paul Williams, the 18-year-old founder and editor of Crawdaddy!, expressed admiration for Pet Sounds and "Good Vibrations", and subsequently visited Wilson at his home at Christmas 1966 before returning to New York. Jules Siegel, from The Saturday Evening Post, was introduced to Wilson by Anderle and accompanied him at his home and in the studio for two months. Richard Goldstein, the first rock critic from The Village Voice, and Lawrence Dietz, from New York magazine, was also among those involved. Anderle said, "Smile was going to be a monument. That's the way we talked about it, as a monument." Journalist Nick Kent, writing in 1975, believed that the reliability of figures such as Anderle, Siegel, and Vosse had been compromised by claims "so lavish [that] one can be forgiven, if only momentarily, for believing that Brian Wilson had, at that time orbited out to the furthermost reaches of the celestial stratosphere for the duration of this starcrossed project." Gaines, in 1986, acknowledged that the "events surrounding the album" varied so greatly by individual perspective that the facts remain uncertain, while Williams stated that he, Wilson, Anderle, Parks, Taylor, and other journalists were "very stoned", which may have affected their perception of events. ==Inspiration and scope==

Wilson originally planned several projects—including a sound effects collage, a comedy album, and a "health food" album Many artists had adopted British inflections to mimic the Beatles' style; in Parks' description, Wilson faced no other alternative but to combat these developments, as he was effectively "the last man standing". Numerous authors state that Wilson intended Smile as a response to the Beatles' August 1966 release Revolver. Parks recalled Wilson afforded little attention to the Beatles' concurrent output and "was more taken by Beatlemania|[their surrounding] mania". In a 2004 interview, Wilson mentioned that while the 1965 album Rubber Soul had inspired his artistic ambitions with Pet Sounds, Smile was meant to be "something more advanced" than pop music and incomparable to the Beatles. Vosse recalled Wilson stating that "laughter was one of the highest forms of divinity" and that he had intended to create "a humor album"; Jules Siegel recalled Wilson, during one evening in October 1966, announcing to friends his intent to create a "teenage symphony to God", also describing a shift toward a "white spiritual sound" he believed would define music's future. Wilson cited the Beatles' latest work as part of a broader "religious" movement in music, stating, "That's where I'm going. It's going to scare a lot of people." That November, Nolan reported Wilson's artistic shift stemmed from a prior psychedelic experience, though Wilson later stated he would not take LSD again. Asked about music's trajectory, Wilson predicted "White spirituals [...] Songs of faith." Wilson said that the album's original working title, Dumb Angel, was discarded after the group opted for a "more cheery" alternative. His brother Carl explained in early 1967 that the final title, Smile, had reflected the band's focus on spirituality and "spreading goodwill, good thoughts and happiness". ==Themes and lyrics==

Wilson said that after the emotionally intense and personal nature of Pet Sounds, he sought a less direct approach to lyrics through his collaboration with Parks. He maintained a hands-off role in the album's thematic direction: "Van Dyke had a lot of knowledge about America. ... We wanted to get back to basics and try something simple. We wanted to capture something as basic as the mood of water and fire." . Image: American Progress by John Gast (1872). Parks characterized his lyrical approach to Smile as accommodating Wilson's fragmentary musical ideas, which he described as "short spasms of enthusiasm" and disconnected sections that collectively embodied a "cartoon consciousness". He pursued impressionistic vignettes depicting a range of archetypal scenarios and symbols tied to American history, spanning railroads and automobiles to Western colonialism's impact on Native American communities. According to Parks, it was "important to capture the westward movement, the conquering of this continent and beyond [...] with some anecdotes and snapshots". Scholar Darren Reid surmised that the album's historical Americana was a deliberate counterpoint to the Beach Boys' earlier hedonistic themes, arguing that its mood incorporated humor, sarcasm, and introspection rather than overt happiness, with the titular "smile" suggesting irony. There is a wealth of material that diverges from this purported Americana focus, according to musicologist Marshall Heiser. Themes of spirituality and childhood permeate songs like "Wonderful", "Child Is Father of the Man", and "Surf's Up", When a journalist characterized the album as "impressionistic psychedelic folk rock" that captures childhood's "psychedelic magic", Wilson endorsed the description. A recurring melodic and rhythmic motif, sometimes called the "Bicycle Rider" theme, was configured into several tracks. The lyric references 19th-century "Rider Back" playing cards by the United States Playing Card Company, which depicted angelic cupids on bicycles, and were commonly used in American social settings, including saloon bars. Parks commented, "A lot of people misinterpreted that, but that's OK; it's OK not to be told what to think, if you're an audience." ==Music and production==

Modular approach and stylistic range Smile has been described by various commentators as a work of art pop, psychedelic rock, avant-pop, progressive pop, experimental rock, folk rock, musique concrète, This approach, akin to film editing's "dangling causes" (unresolved elements bridging sequential scenes), allowed flexible rearrangement during production. The album's material underwent daily revisions and rearrangements; Anderle recalled instances where sections from "Cabin Essence" were repurposed into tracks like "Vega-Tables", leading him to "beg Brian not to change a piece of music because it was too fantastic". The work drew from pop culture elements that many 1960s rock musicians had viewed as antiquated, including doo-wop, barbershop, ragtime, exotica, cowboy film motifs, and pre-rock 'n' roll pop. Sacred Harp singing, Shaker hymns, Native American chants, and Hawaiian mele. Citing Smile as an example of "a large-scale choral work on sacred or historical themes", musicologist Daniel Harrison categorized the collection of songs as an oratorio, with only portions aligning with a pop LP. Toop identified a range of "contradictory templates" embedded within its "music legacy" as well as parallels between Miles Davis and Gil Evans' collaborations and the atmosphere of tracks like "Look" and "Child Is Father of the Man", while comparing the album's acoustic experimentation to Charles Ives' avant-garde techniques, Les Baxter's thematic LPs, and Richard Maxfield's electronic experiments. Toop further suggested that Smiles structure could be interpreted as a series of tone poems indirectly related to the principles of Third Stream, a notion reminiscent of Charles Mingus's term "jazzical". Mark Linett, who engineered Wilson's recordings after the 1980s, argued Wilson's modular approach exceeded the limitations of pre-digital technology, given the "infinite" permutations for assembling fragments. Brother Records archive manager Alan Boyd concurred, calling it "probably an unbearably arduous, difficult and tedious task". Orchestrations and musical architecture . Matching the harmonic sophistication present in Pet Sounds, Smile extended Wilson's orchestral approach with larger focus on traditional American instruments like banjo, steel guitar, and tack piano in addition to textures such as a piano with muted strings, tic-tac bass, bass harmonica, and bouzouki. While Pet Sounds introduced rhythmic experimentation distinct from the Beach Boys' earlier work, Smile amplified this complexity. while Toop characterized some vocals as regressing into "baby talk". Contrasting the musical architecture of Smile with Pet Sounds, musicologist Philip Lambert writes that the latter achieved unity through subtle harmonic and melodic parallels between tracks, while Smile relied on overt thematic variations interwoven into a continuous narrative. It also integrated recurring harmonic elements such as the "bicycle rider" motif, recurring in evolving forms to establish cohesion, a four-note motif resembling the "How Dry I Am" melody (scale degrees 5–1–2–3,) and shared chord progressions across songs. In discussing its "musical language", he referred to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue as a structural model, particularly its thematic development and use of variation; Wilson adopted variation as a central structural device for Smile, expanding from earlier Beach Boys songs like "Fun, Fun, Fun" (1964), which modified verses through layered vocals and arrangements. Williams writes that the motif eroded traditional song distinctions, eschewing the narrative coherence typical of rock opera, a term Wilson later adopted for the work. ==Tracks==

Listed on Wilson's late-1966 note By November 1966, Wilson had declared Smile would feature "Good Vibrations", "Heroes and Villains", and ten other tracks, incorporating both musical and spoken humor. He clarified it was not a comedy album, with spoken elements limited to brief interjections between verses rather than standalone tracks. On December 15, he submitted a handwritten provisional track list to Capitol to address delays in the album's release. The label produced sleeves listing "Good Vibrations", "Heroes and Villains", and ten other tracks with the notation "see label for correct playing order", while preliminary mixes were created for multiple songs. "Heroes and Villains" marked Wilson's first collaboration with Parks. Wilson envisioned the track as a three‐minute musical comedy intended to surpass "Good Vibrations" and produced versions lasting six to eight minutes. He selected the title and linked the melody to the Old West, which reminded Parks of Marty Robbins' "El Paso" (1959). Parks promptly devised the opening line: "I've been in this town so long that back in the city I've been taken for lost and gone and unknown for a long, long time." This collaboration spurred additional Old West–themed songs, including "Barnyard" and "I'm in Great Shape". On November 4, 1966, Wilson recorded a piano demonstration of "Heroes and Villains" incorporating sections of "I'm in Great Shape" and "Barnyard", although the December note listed "I'm in Great Shape" as a separate track. Vosse recalled that "Barnyard" had evolved from an impromptu piano reinterpretation of "You Are My Sunshine" that sparked Wilson's concept for a rustic barnyard aesthetic. Wilson recorded a short medley, sometimes called "My Only Sunshine", that bridged "The Old Master Painter" with "You Are My Sunshine", with Dennis Wilson singing lead on the latter. In 1978, Wilson told biographer Byron Preiss about an uncompleted "Barnyard Suite" of four brief pieces. "Surf's Up" was Wilson and Parks' second collaboration, composed primarily in one night while under the influence of Desbutal. Wilson referenced the song's atypical minor-seventh opening chord progression and its title, unrelated to surfing, stating: "from there it just started building and rambling". Vosse, writing in 1969, described it as the intended climactic finale of Smile, preceded by a "choral amen" segment. "Child Is Father of the Man" blends keyboards, trumpet, vocal rounds, and reverberant guitar drones. Parks stated the title, borrowed from William Wordsworth's "My Heart Leaps Up", reflected Wilson's aspiration to redefine his identity beyond youth. "Cabin Essence" addresses railroad themes; biographer Jon Stebbins characterized the track as containing a waltz-like chorus with percussive effects resembling rail spikes and "some of the most haunting, manic, evil-sounding music the Beach Boys ever made". "Do You Like Worms?" explores themes of American recolonization, though its extant lyrics do not reference worms Marilyn recalled that Wilson composed "Wind Chimes" after observing wind chimes they had purchased and hung outside their home. "Wonderful" similarly derived from Wilson's nickname for Marilyn. Parks described the music as distinct from their other work, leading him to conceive a love song with "boy/girl" lyrics. Three incomplete arrangements were recorded between August and December 1966. Wilson, in 1967, described "Vega-Tables" as promoting healthy eating with humor to avoid being "pompous about it". The track marked Parks' final co-writing contribution to the album. of 1871, an event which "Fire" was based on "The Elements" was conceived as a four-part suite structured around the classical elements: Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. Anderle recounted Wilson's immersion in natural environments to inspire the work, including trips to Big Sur, mountains, beaches, and water sources. To capture water sounds for the project, Wilson tasked collaborators with using a Nagra tape recorder. Vosse recalled, "I'd come by to see him every day, and he'd listen to my tapes and talk about them. [...] And I had no idea what he was listening for!" The "Fire" segment (also known as "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" and "The Elements – Part 1") involved unusual studio conditions where participants wore toy fire helmets and burned wood for ambiance, with crackling sounds mixed into the track. Anderle stated that while Wilson outlined concepts for fire, water, and air, the group lacked a cohesive structure beyond viewing it as operatic. Parks recalled the elemental theme emerged later in production. Early album artwork grouped "Vega-Tables" under "The Elements", though Wilson's note listed them separately alongside "Wind Chimes". In 1978, Wilson stated that "Air" remained an unfinished piano piece. Remaining tracks "Our Prayer", a wordless hymn intended as the album's opener, was distinguished by Lambert as "every technique of chromatic harmony [Wilson] had ever heard or imagined." Session tapes capture Wilson designating the album's introduction, dismissing Jardine's suggestion to treat it as a standalone track. It remains the only track with confirmed placement. "I Wanna Be Around", a cover of the Sadie Vimmerstedt and Johnny Mercer standard, was recorded post-"Fire" sessions alongside the intended segue piece "Friday Night". During the session, Wilson directed musicians to simulate construction sounds (sawing, drilling) using tools, resulting in a recording known as "Workshop", "Woodshop", or "The Woodshop Song". Wilson's conceptualization of the track and its noises ("Workshop") symbolized a "rebuilding after the fire", according to Priore, suggesting that the track might have been placed in sequence after "Fire". "I Ran" (alternately titled "Look") shares melodic elements with "Good Vibrations" and features upright bass, vibraphones, brass, and keyboards. Vocals recorded in October 1966 were lost. "He Gives Speeches" was a minor fragment that, according to Lambert, served as a thematic variation on Wilson's recent material, designed to interlink tracks through "cross-references" for the developing concept album. "You're Welcome" is a reverb-drenched vocal chant. "Love to Say Dada", according to Preiss, formed part of the water-themed section of "The Elements" and was "briefly considered" to be paired with "Surf's Up". The instrumental "Holidays" was sometimes mislabeled on bootlegs as "Tones" or "Tune X". In early 1967, Carl and Dennis Wilson recorded individually written pieces: Dennis' "I Don't Know" on January 12 and Carl's "Tune X" (later "Tones") on March 3 and 31. Badman speculated these recordings may have been intended either to transform Smile into a group effort rather than a Brian solo project or simply to allow Carl and Dennis to test their production skills. "Psycodelic Sounds" and other recordings Compiled under the title "Psycodelic Sounds" , Wilson conducted numerous sessions focused on capturing "humorous" situations. This resulted in hours of recordings created with his friends while they chanted, played games, staged mock arguments, or engaged in casual conversation, described by biographer Peter Ames Carlin as "just like the old days with his Wollensak recorder, except much, much weirder." His bandmates were absent from these sessions. A collection of tapes with titles such as "Basketball", "Chewing Terry's", "Kid at Fairfax", "Tea Pot", and "Water Hose" were recorded on October 4, 1966. Recordings from the "Psycodelic Sounds" experiments included sound effects such as exaggerated breathing, moans, and laughter, and pronounced echo effects. An audio vérité segment titled "Bob Gordon's Real Trip" initially presents a routine conversation with a Chicago taxi driver, which abruptly transitions into surreal audio manipulation as the driver's voice becomes heavily drenched in spring reverb. One 24-minute exercise, recorded on October 18, featured Wilson, his sister-in-law Diane Rovell, Parks, Anderle, Vosse, Siegel, and a woman named Dawn. Siegel initiates the party game Lifeboat, where participants roleplay shipwreck survivors debating whom to sacrifice. Tensions escalate, culminating in Wilson lamenting, "I feel so depressed. [...] I'm too down to smile." Another session (November 4, 1966) included Wilson, Parks, Hutton, Vosse, and a participant named Bob ordering from a psychedelic ice cream van playing a piano-simulated music box version of "Good Vibrations". Wilson initiated a comedic routine about falling into a piano and microphone, followed by group chants of phrases like "Where's my beets and carrots?" and "I've got a big bag of vegetables" over bongo rhythms. Parks later reflected on withdrawing from such interactions, perceiving them as "destructive". On November 16, Wilson staged arguments between Vosse and studio drummer Hal Blaine, a recording reportedly intended for potential inclusion in the "Vegetables" track. Early in 1967, Wilson recorded a series of novelty songs with photographer Jasper Daily: "Teeter Totter Love", "Crack the Whip", and "When I Get Mad I Just Play My Drums". The AFM contracts for these tracks list "Brother Records" as the employer. These recordings were intended to fulfill Wilson's separate "humor album" concept, according to Gaines. ==Artwork and packaging==

Capitol assigned Smile the catalog number DT2580 and produced at least two slightly varied album jackets. The album was to include cover artwork and a booklet of pen-and-ink drawings by graphic artist Frank Holmes, a friend of Parks. Holmes met with Wilson and Parks around June 1966, basing his work on lyric sheets provided by them, and completed his contributions by October. Parks felt that Holmes' illustrations profoundly influenced the project, serving as the album's "third equation" and framing its creative direction in cartoon terms. Holmes based the cover on an abandoned jewelry store near his Pasadena home. regarding the storefront as "something that would be pulling you into the world of Smile". The cover features a husband and wife rendered in an early-Americana, 19th-century style. According to Vosse, the smile shop idea had derived from Wilson's "humor album" concept, and "everybody who knew anything about graphics, and about art, thought that the cover was not terribly well done[...] but Brian knew better". Parks felt that Holmes, expected to create a "light-hearted" design with no specific instructions, ultimately provided an effective visual framework for the project and viewed his work as a fundamental aspect of its identity: "I think of Smile in visual terms". Wilson approved the design and submitted it to Capitol. In September 1966, Capitol began production on a normal cover (not gatefold as has sometimes been claimed) with a 12‑page booklet featuring color photographs from a November 7 Beach Boys photoshoot in Boston by Guy Webster, alongside Holmes' illustrations. In early 1967, the cover was modified to include repeated instances of "Good Vibrations", absent from Holmes' original design. The back cover displayed a monochrome photograph of the band without Brian, framed by astrological symbols. Capitol produced 466,000 copies of the record sleeve and 419,200 copies of the booklet, which were ultimately stored in a Pennsylvania warehouse until the 1990s. ==Initial recording sessions and promotion==

on Sunset Boulevard (pictured 2019) On May 11, 1966, Wilson recorded a demo instrumental take of "Heroes and Villains" at Gold Star Studios. He returned on August 3 to record "Wind Chimes", marking the unofficial start of the album sessions. Over 80 sessions occurred in the subsequent ten months. "Good Vibrations" was completed on September 21 and recording had begun for "Look", "Wonderful", "Holidays", "He Gives Speeches", and "Our Prayer" by the end of September. Work on "Cabin Essence", "Do You Like Worms?", "Vega-Tables", "Barnyard", "I'm in Great Shape", and "Child Is Father of the Man" followed in October. "Good Vibrations" was issued as a single on October 15, becoming the group's third U.S. number-one hit by topping the Billboard Hot 100 in December and marking their first number one in Britain. Initially slated for a December release, Smile became one of the most-discussed albums in the rock press; Taylor continued to write articles for music publications, sometimes anonymously, in an effort to further speculation. Nolan, writing in Los Angeles Times West Magazine, called Wilson "the seeming leader of a potentially-revolutionary movement in pop music". Wilson informed Melody Maker that Smile would "be as much an improvement over [Pet] Sounds" as that album had been over Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) (1965). Dennis remarked in Hit Parader, "In my opinion, it makes Pet Sounds stink. That's how good it is." In November, the sessions saw the first recordings of "Surf's Up", "My Only Sunshine", and "The Elements", while December sessions introduced "You're Welcome" and "Love to Say Dada" (then titled "Da-Da"). In December, Capitol promoted the album with a Billboard ad proclaiming, "Good Vibrations. Number One in England. Coming soon with the 'Good Vibrations' sound. Smile. The Beach Boys." This was followed by a TeenSet color ad declaring "Look! Listen! Vibrate! SMiLE!" The ad promised "Good Vibrations" alongside "other new and fantastic Beach Boys songs", as well as "an exciting full-color sketch-book look inside the world of Brian Wilson!" Record stores featured cardboard displays of the cover, and Capitol circulated a promotional ad for employees that used "Good Vibrations" as a backdrop for a voice-over stating, "With a happy album cover, the really happy sounds inside, and a happy in-store display piece, you can't miss! We're sure to sell a million units... in January!" In the UK, a headline claimed that the Beach Boys' British distributor EMI Records were giving the band the "biggest campaign since the Beatles". On December 10, NME published a reader's poll that ranked Wilson fourth among "World Music Personalities", about 1,000 votes ahead of Bob Dylan and 500 behind John Lennon. The Beach Boys were also voted the top "vocal group", ahead of the Beatles, the Walker Brothers, the Rolling Stones, and the Four Tops. On December 17, KRLA Beat published a nonsense article by Wilson titled "Vibrations – Brian Wilson Style", filled with in-jokes about his associates. ==Collapse==

Criticism from Wilson's bandmates (1966–1967) Corporate pressures, technical difficulties, internal conflicts, legal stalling, and Wilson's deteriorating mental health led to the shelving of Smile. After months of work, Wilson determined that its esoteric nature would not appeal to the public and opted to produce simpler music. In Brian's words, the band was "too selfishly artistic" and had not sufficiently considered the public. Writers often theorize that the album was cancelled because Wilson's bandmates had failed to appreciate its music. However, Stebbins contends that this view is "overly simplistic and mostly wrong", with not enough consideration for Wilson's psychological decline. Carl, Dennis, and Al Jardine contributed instrumentally to several tracking sessions, with Carl participating more extensively than any other member aside from Brian, although Stebbins notes, "Even Carl was unhappy with the project". Derek Taylor recalled that despite Wilson's erratic mood swings, his bandmates were generally supportive; he also felt that Wilson was insecure and highly sensitive to criticism, frequently seeking others' opinions on his work. Journalist Tracy Thomas, who attended sessions around January 1967, reported in the NME that Brian's "dedication to perfection does not always endear him to his fellow Beach Boys, nor their wives, nor their next door neighbours, with whom they were to have dinner[...] But when the finished product is 'Good Vibrations' or Pet Sounds or Smile they hold back their complaints." It is often suggested that Mike Love was chiefly responsible for the project's collapse. Love dismissed these accusations as hyperbolic, contending that his vocal opposition to Wilson's drug suppliers instigated claims that he, along with other band members and Wilson's family, sabotaged the project. Wilson's remarks on the matter have been inconsistent, as he has both affirmed and denied that his confidence in the project was undermined by Love. In author Clinton Heylin's estimation, some reports suggest that Wilson became dissatisfied with Parks' lyrics, although Love "certainly" contributed to Wilson's change of opinion. Mark Volman recalled, "I liked Mike a lot ... he had a good sense of humor about it all, even though he'd say one thing to Brian, and then kind of turn around and go, 'This is nuts. This is crazy stuff.' And he had an opinion on everything that Brian was doing, and it wasn't good." Parks sometimes stated that he was dismissed from the project at Love's behest, but in a 2004 interview declared, "It's not because of Mike Love that I walked away. It was because of my own irrelevance that I walked away. There were too many things conspiring against the record [...] I felt like an intruder". He elaborated that this feeling emerged after receiving threats of physical violence from an unnamed party envious of his role as Wilson's songwriting partner. On another occasion, he stated that he had preferred to withdraw from what he viewed as unrelated family feuds and thought at the time that Smile could have been completed without his involvement. Drug use, Wilson's mental state and perfectionism (1966–1967) Wilson's uncompromising perfectionism, which may have been intensified by his drug use, was a major issue that contributed to the project's collapse. At one Smile session, Wilson's repeated calls for retakes elicited a horn player to sarcastically remark, "Perfect – just one more". At the end of another session, which had extended until dawn, an engineer asked Wilson's wife if she believed he would be satisfied with the final take, to which she replied, "No, when he gets home he won't be satisfied. He's never satisfied." and built a $30,000 hotboxing tent ($) in his former dining room. He installed a sandbox under the grand piano in his den and, after developing an interest in health and fitness, replaced his living room furniture with gym mats. Musician and television producer David Oppenheim, who briefly visited in late 1966, described Wilson's home as "a playpen of irresponsible people" and "a strange, insulated household, insulated from the world by money". The sandbox remained in Wilson's home until April 1967. Carl recalled that completing the album would have required considerable "willingness and perseverance to corral all of us", as everyone "was so loaded on pot and hash all of the time that it's no wonder the project didn't get done." Brian told an interviewer in 1976: "We were too fucking high, you know, to complete the stuff. We were stoned! You know, stoned on hash 'n' shit!" Jardine, who did not use drugs, compared his position to "being trapped in an insane asylum", citing an incident during a "Heroes and Villains" session when Brian instructed the band to crawl around the studio and mimic pig-snorting noises. He had openly critiqued Wilson's work in the past, yet during the Smile sessions, "he was acting so strange, I couldn't have any conversation with him." The oft-attributed remark "don't fuck with the formula" was denied by Love, who later maintained that the Beach Boys "have no formula." According to Carl Wilson, Love's main objection was that the lyrics were overly abstract; however, Parks countered that his issue was with the music. Delays, Capitol lawsuit, and departures (December 1966 – April 1967) accepting a record sales certification for Little Deuce Coupe, Shut Down Volume 2, and "Good Vibrations" at Capitol, December 1966. Wilson's paranoid delusions and increasingly erratic behavior intensified throughout late 1966 and early 1967. One incident involved Anderle secretly painting Wilson's portrait; upon viewing it, Wilson believed it had literally captured his soul, irreparably altering their relationship. He first heard their February 1967 single "Strawberry Fields Forever" while under the influence of Seconal and driving with Vosse, who recalled Wilson remarking that the Beatles had achieved "what [he] wanted to do with Smile" before both laughed. On February 28, the band filed a lawsuit against Capitol for $250,000 in unpaid royalties (equivalent to $ in ) and sought to terminate their contract before its November 1969 expiration. Subsequently, he announced that "Vega-Tables" would be the album's lead single, but Parks opposed this decision, considering it one of their least representative songs. Parks struggled to accommodate his contributions to Wilson's increasingly "abstract" music and "the people around him and the crowded house it became [...] My ideas were less and less relevant, it seemed to me, or useful for his purposes." According to Anderle, tensions between the songwriters escalated post-February over creative differences; Wilson argued that Parks' lyrics were "too sophisticated, and in some areas Brian's music was not sophisticated enough [for Van Dyke]." On March 2, Wilson and Parks dissolved their partnership, an event sometimes seen as marking the end of the Smile era. Wilson, reliant on Parks' input, faced challenges assembling the fragmented recordings and struggled to integrate his own lyrics into Parks' existing work, halting the recording sessions. Amid ongoing litigation, the Smile tapes were relocated to engineer Armin Steiner's Sound Recorders studio, and Anderle's efforts to secure a distributor for Brother Records proved unsuccessful, with A&M Records rejecting the collection of songs produced for Jasper Daily. In March, Wilson canceled three sessions, including one due to perceived "bad vibrations", at a total cost of $3,000 (equivalent to $ in ). A March 18 KMEM radio survey in San Bernardino reported Wilson "informed the Capitol bosses that he doesn't intend to 'hold back' on these projects", while KFXM reported delays to the single's release due to legal disputes on March 30. Parks briefly rejoined the project during a March 31 session. In mid-1967, Wilson and his wife moved from Beverly Hills to a Bel Air mansion; according to Badman, this was to distance themselves from his entourage. Marilyn added security measures, including a brick wall and electronic gate, while Wilson began building a home studio. During an April "Vega-Tables" session, Paul McCartney, who had been staying with Taylor in Los Angeles, previewed his song "She's Leaving Home" for Wilson. Shortly after, Wilson learned of rumors that Taylor had shared Smile tapes with the Beatles. Parks recounted Wilson's attitude changing "completely", stating he felt "raped" and grew increasingly suspicious of his team's loyalties. By April, much of Wilson's inner circle had departed. Quoted in that month's issue of Tiger Beat, he said, "I feel like I've lost my talent. I'm working harder and getting less satisfaction than ever before." Anderle at that time felt that Parks' departure was "central" to the project's collapse. He also resigned within weeks, ==Smiley Smile, abandonment, and Wilson's decline==

Wilson later reflected that he had run out of ideas "in a conventional sense" and felt "about ready to die" during this period. Declaring most Smile recordings abandoned to his bandmates, he later acknowledged that withholding "Surf's Up" "nearly broke up" the band. Between June and July, the Beach Boys embarked on a new album project at Wilson's makeshift home studio, repurposing simplified versions of selected Smile tracks. Smiley Smile is sometimes considered the fulfillment of Wilson's "humor" concept album. This belief was shared by Anderle, who surmised, "I think that what Brian tried to do with Smiley Smile is he tried to salvage as much of Smile as he could and at the same time immediately go into his humor album." Stylistically akin to ''Beach Boys' Party!, Carl compared the result to "a bunt instead of a grand slam". The album incorporated four modules from Smile'' sessions, two each from "Heroes and Villains" and "Vegetables". On July 18, Capitol announced a settlement with the band alongside Wilson's launch of Brother Records, whose product was to be distributed by Capitol. Days later, Engemann circulated a July 25 memo describing Smiley Smile as a stopgap for Smile and outlining discussions with Wilson about a pared-down 10-track Smile album excluding "Heroes and Villains" and "Vegetables". The proposal never materialized; instead, the band toured Hawaii in August with plans to release a live album titled ''Lei'd in Hawaii. On September 18, Smiley Smile''—the first Beach Boys album crediting production to the group itself—was released to tepid critical and commercial reception. After leaving the project in early 1967, Parks joined a creative circle within Warner Bros. that included producer Lenny Waronker. Later that year, the company released Parks' debut album Song Cycle, whose legacy was effectively eclipsed by comparisons to Smile. Despite poor sales, Parks remained at Warner as an arranger, and the professional and business trajectories of Wilson, Parks, Waronker, and Warner Bros. remained closely intertwined in subsequent years. In late 1967, Wilson and Parks wrote "Sunflower Maiden", a song earmarked for Hutton's new group Redwood (later Three Dog Night), though it remains lost. Wilson gradually withdrew from production and songwriting responsibilities, turning to excessive consumption of food, alcohol, and drugs. Reflecting in 2004, he stated that revisiting the Smile music later evoked "the bad feelings of the drugs" associated with its creation. In the decades after its shelving, he associated the project with personal failure and trauma. and inferior imitations of Phil Spector's work. When questioned about Smile, he typically refused to engage or abruptly exited conversations, a reluctance that persisted until the early 2000s. Parks, in a 1998 interview, minimized his connection to Smile, calling it "just a few months of work I did as a contract employee many years ago", and stating that it held greater significance for fans than himself. According to Carlin, Parks grew frustrated that his career remained overshadowed by an unfinished 1967 project, and that later Beach Boys albums did not honor his contributions on songs, including "Wind Chimes" and "Wonderful", with an official co-writing credit. ==Further recording and abandoned Warner Bros. release==

Material from Smile continued to appear sporadically on subsequent Beach Boys releases, often as filler tracks to compensate for Wilson's reduced creative output. The first examples emerged on the two albums following Smiley Smile: "Mama Says" from Wild Honey (1967) derived from a segment of "Vega-Tables", while "Little Bird" from Friends (1968) incorporated the refrain of "Child Is Father of the Man". Neither "Mama Says" nor "Little Bird" were from the original Smile recording sessions; both tracks were newly recorded for their respective albums. The Beach Boys' 1969 album 20/20 included reworked Smile tracks: "Cabin Essence" (retitled "Cabinessence") and "Prayer" (retitled "Our Prayer"), both featuring vocals newly recorded by Carl, Dennis, and Bruce Johnston in November 1968. "Workshop" was incorporated into the album's version of "Do It Again". Carlin states that Brian opposed the inclusion of "Our Prayer" and "Cabinessence" and declined to participate in their overdub sessions. Following 20/20, the group signed with Reprise Records, a subsidiary of Warner, through a deal brokered by Parks, then a Warner multimedia executive. Their contract included a $50,000 advance contingent on delivering a completed Smile album by 1973, a stipulation made without Brian's consultation. The band's 1970 Reprise debut Sunflower featured "Cool, Cool Water", a track derived from "Love to Say Dada" and included at Waronker's insistence. in the early 1970s For their second Reprise album, initially titled Landlocked, the group included "Surf's Up" with Wilson's approval. Between mid-June and early July 1971, Carl and band manager Jack Rieley retrieved Smile multi-tracks from the Capitol archives to locate and reconstruct the song's masters, with Brian joining them on at least two occasions. Recording sessions at Brian's home studio followed, during which he initially declined involvement but later contributed to the "Child Is Father of the Man" coda. The album was retitled ''Surf's Up'' and released in August 1971. At a February 28, 1972, London press conference, Carl announced plans to release Smile, stating he had worked on the album in June 1971 and that safety copies of its tapes had been created. He asserted the tapes were fully assembled with new vocal overdubs added where necessary. A Melody Maker article listed tracks proposed for Carl's Smile iteration, several grouped under the "Heroes and Villains" subtitle: "Child Is Father of the Man" "Surf's Up", "Sunshine", "Cabinessence" (incorporating "Iron Horse"), "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow", "I Love to Say Dada" (incorporating "Cool, Cool Water"), and original versions of "Vega-Tables", "Wind Chimes", and "Wonderful". These announcements may have aimed to mislead Reprise into extending the deadline for the band's next album. Asked about Smile at a later date, Carl responded: "We've all had intentions of finishing the album, but something persists that keeps that from happening, and I don't know what that is." In April 1973, Beach Boys assistant manager Steve Love sent a memo warning the group that Warner Bros. would deduct $50,000 from their next advance if Smile was not delivered by May 1 per their contract. The deadline passed without submission, resulting in the withheld payment (equivalent to $ in ). Later that year, Brian told Melody Maker there was insufficient material to compile Smile and that it would remain unreleased. Around this time, he and his group American Spring added new vocals and instrumentation to a remix of Dean Torrence's 1967 version of "Vegetables", credited to "Laughing Gravy" on Jan and Dean's compilation Gotta Take That One Last Ride. Three years later, Wilson stated that he felt an obligation to release Smile, estimating it might emerge "probably in a couple years". By 1980, he stated an intent to complete Smile in three movements, according to Gaines. ==Bootlegs, official releases, and fan efforts==

Earliest bootlegs, personalized mixes, and fan network Most original Smile recordings remained exclusive to bootlegs until 2011. These unofficial releases typically featured hypothetical versions of the album, with compilers providing liner notes that rationalized their track sequencing, and relying on the list of song titles printed on the unused 1966 album sleeves as a key reference point. Bootlegs circulating as Smile emerged in the late 1970s, combining tracks from Smiley Smile, 20/20, and ''Surf's Up''. Compilers relied solely on the jacket's song titles, often unaware most released tracks had originated after the 1966 sessions. (pictured in 2022) traveled to California in the 1970s with the goal of helping Wilson complete Smile. During the 1970s and early 1980s, Beach Boys fan groups were organized by at least a dozen individuals, including David Leaf, Don Cunningham, Marty Tabor, and Domenic Priore. These groups primarily communicated through newsletters that shared information and connected enthusiasts compiling details about the band's music. Membership growth was partly spurred by an advertisement for the official fan club, Beach Boys Freaks United, featured on the back cover of their 1976 album 15 Big Ones. Priore later described the club's newsletter as minimal but noted its "Trading Post" section served as a vital pre-Internet networking tool. In Leaf's 1978 biography of the band, he proposed releasing Smile through a series of records titled The Smile Sessions, akin to Elvis Presley's The Sun Sessions (1976). Johnston criticized the proposed Smile Sessions release as commercially unviable, stating it would only satisfy listeners with a niche interest akin to "Zubin Mehta analyzing a young composer's work." First public availability, further release rumors, and arrests Scholar Andrew Flory writes the origins of genuine Smile material reaching bootleggers remain unclear, though unverified claims suggest Dennis copied tapes for friends that were later recopied. Despite contemporaneous rumors of leaked tapes and acetates, only limited authentic material circulated before the early 1980s. In 1983, a 48-minute cassette tape circulated among fans and was later pressed as an unauthorized LP known as the "Brother Records" Smile. The compilation featured Smile-related tracks and outtakes, including the misattributed 1959 Miles Davis recording "Here Come de Honey Man" (erroneously titled "Holidays"). The LP sleeve lacked authorship credits but listed addresses for Cunningham's Add Some Music, Tabor's Celebrate, Beach Boys Freaks United, and the Australian fan publication California Music. In April 1985, the documentary The Beach Boys: An American Band premiered with previously unreleased material, including an excerpt of "Fire." That year, a "Second Edition" of the Brother Records LP surfaced, omitting the original addresses and rearranging the track order. It featured alternate mixes, implying newly accessed Smile recordings. The enhanced audio quality further suggested that cassette copies had been made from the band's master tapes by an insider. In 1987, Waronker encouraged Wilson to write a Smile-style song for his solo debut album, leading to the "Rio Grande" suite co-composed with multi-instrumentalist Andy Paley. During the production of Wilson's solo album, his engineer Mark Linett had mixed Smile tracks for a planned release. By 1988, Wilson confirmed Smile was being prepared for release but cited business-related delays. He expressed concerns about its commercial appeal, given it consisted mostly of instrumental tracks, and proposed having bandmates record overdubbed vocals. It failed to materialize, partly due to the complexity involved with compiling and sequencing the material. Was had proposed releasing Smile as an interactive CD-ROM, akin to Todd Rundgren's No World Order (1993), that would have contained session content for listeners to assemble themselves, an idea Wilson reportedly supported. According to Mike Love, after finishing the Beach Boys' 1996 album Stars and Stripes Vol. 1, discussions to complete Smile were vetoed by Carl over concerns it might jeopardize Brian's mental health. Capitol's hesitation was further influenced by the 18-month delay experienced during the release of The Pet Sounds Sessions (1997), discouraging similar efforts for Smile. Vigotone, following their 1998 bootleg Heroes and Vibrations, planned a multi-disc Smile set but ceased operations after a 2001 law enforcement raid. By 2023, fanmade Smile assemblies had incorporated the use of audio deepfake techniques to present a completed album. ==Musical impact and influence==

Following its shelving, Smile gradually attained a cult following within the American underground music scene despite its incomplete state. In Courrier's words, the project "became oddly influential. While functioning mostly as a rumor, when some bootlegged tracks confirmed its existence, Smile became a catalyst for records that followed in its wake." It served as a foundational influence on indie rock, In Priore's estimation, the "alternate-rock" generation began embracing Smile after the early 1990s, adding that his book about the album had elicited interest from musicians including XTC, Apples in Stereo, and George Harrison. In Scotland, musicians including David Scott of the Pearlfishers and Duglas T. Stewart of BMX Bandits organized a Smile-themed concert before assembling the 2000 tribute album Caroline Now!, both with Wilson's endorsement. Journalist Rob Chapman wrote in 2002 that he had "yet to meet an ambient or electronica artist who doesn't have a soundfile full of Smile bytes". According to Kevin Barnes, of Montreal's album Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies: A Variety of Whimsical Verse (2001) was inspired in part by the "screwball" quality of Smile. Released exclusively in Japan, the 1998 tribute album Smiling Pets featured cover versions of Pet Sounds and Smile tracks by artists such as the Olivia Tremor Control, Jim O'Rourke, and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. The cover artwork for Velvet Crush's Teenage Symphonies to God (1994) was based on the Smile cover. Weird Al Yankovic created a parody song, "Pancreas", for his 2006 album Straight Outta Lynwood. Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine said that his band's 2013 album MBV was inspired by the modular approach of Smile. Priore believed that Smile influence was apparent on albums such as XTC's Oranges & Lemons (1989), the High Llamas' Gideon Gaye (1994) and Hawaii (1996), the Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin (1999), Mercury Rev's All Is Dream (2001), the Apples in Stereo's Her Wallpaper Reverie (1999), Heavy Blinkers' 2000 eponymous LP, and the Thrills' So Much for the City (2003). ==Critical perspectives and legacy==

Innovations and retrospective appraisals Wilson applied editing techniques on Smile that were not standard practice until the advent of digital audio workstations. Carter identifies the album's formal complexity, varied instrumentation, and lyrical themes as anticipating progressive rock developments of the late 1960s and early 1970s; thematically, its shift from urban materialism toward natural imagery prefigured the Americana genre later exemplified by the Band's Music from Big Pink (1968). Williams characterized Wilson as one of the earliest pioneers of sampling, while Priore likened his manipulation of sound effects to techniques later employed by Pink Floyd on The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). The album cover—considered to be among the most "legendary" in rock music, according to Priore—would have been one of the earliest instances of a popular music group featuring original commissioned artwork. In his 2014-published 33⅓ book about the album, Luis Sanchez regarded Smile as a "radical" extension of Pet Sounds "glow and sui generis vision", marked by "a kind of directness that is unlike anything else in popular music". Ed Masley of AZ Central believed that while the album diverged sonically from contemporaneous psychedelic works, it "clearly" reflected an adventurous ethos "that would have been unthinkable just two years earlier." Philip Lambert, who authored book-length analyses on the music of Wilson and Charles Ives, described Smile as "a landmark artwork that could have captured the spirit of a generation"; had Wilson realized his ambitions, he would have effectively created "a whole new genre of popular music". NewMusicBox, while dedicated to contemporary non-commercial music, covered Smile in 2011 despite its standing as "an album recorded more than 45 years ago by one of the biggest (and most financially lucrative) musical acts of all time". Reviewer Frank Oteri wrote that Wilson's mid-1960s experimentation was consonant with broader genre-blurring trends, but less radical than contemporaneous efforts. He concluded that the album's legacy remained overshadowed by the Beach Boys' enduring image as a "light-hearted party band" associated with earlier hits, limiting its recognition alongside innovators like Ives or John Coltrane, though it "would have, could have, and should have" surpassed the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper as the era's defining artistic breakthrough. The 2007 comedy film Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story contained a segment inspired by the production of Smile, in which the protagonist is consumed with recording his "masterpiece" (titled "Black Sheep") before suffering a mental breakdown. Parks was commissioned to write the parody song. Sanchez felt the myth, sustained by "writers and cultists [...] rehashing hyperbole and rumor", had since lost its power to "lure and convince", though it overshadowed and "nearly consumed the artist and the music it was about." While acknowledging Wilson's musical achievements, Love wrote in his 2016 memoir, "it speaks to the self-absorption of Brian's hagiographers and sycophants who view Smile only as a musical event. [...] I cannot separate the music from the man, and I cannot separate the man from the physical and emotional turmoil that befell him." Hypothetical release scenario ''. Many commentators have suggested that the album's release could have redefined the Beach Boys' artistic trajectory and reinforced their status as rock innovators. Author Allan Moore proposed that the album might have transformed the concept album format through recurring musical motifs, "a form frankly far more sophisticated than any of its contemporaries." Spencer Owen suggested in Pitchfork that Smile might have shifted popular music's historical trajectory and reduced the Beatles' dominant cultural stature. Brian Boyd of The Irish Times rued that while Wilson's rivalry with the Beatles had contributed to the project's collapse, its release might have delayed the Beatles' dissolution due to mutual artistic competition. Given the runtime constraints of vinyl discs, much of the Smile material would likely have been excluded. According to Mark Linett, while double albums by artists like Frank Zappa and Bob Dylan emerged contemporaneously, no plans existed for a multi-disc Smile release in 1966 or 1967. Asked in a 1987 interview whether Smile would have topped his rivals' subsequent release, Wilson replied: "No. It wouldn't have come close. Sgt. Pepper would have kicked our ass." Later, he claimed that his work would have been "too advanced" for 1967 audiences. Former Record Collector editor Peter Doggett states that Smile would most likely have had the same reception as that afforded Song Cycle – namely, critical acclaim but a commercial disaster. He suggested that while the release "would surely have set the Beatles back for months while they considered a suitable reply", it lacked the mainstream appeal of contemporaneous acts like the Doors, Love, or Jefferson Airplane, potentially leaving Wilson disillusioned and the Beach Boys without unreleased material to bolster later albums. Non-definitive structure and fan interactivity The definitive structure and content of Smile remain unresolved, with debate persisting over its classification as a conventional album. Further to its fragmented legacy and film-like editing process, Toop likened the editorial challenges to unfinished cinematic endeavors by Orson Welles, Erich von Stroheim, and Sergei Eisenstein. Howard similarly suggested the material functions most effectively as an archival document of the recording process, akin to a film reel presenting multiple iterations without a singular authoritative version. ==Track table==

Adapted from The Smile Sessions liner notes and Andrew Doe's Bellagio 10542 online compendium. Key ==Reconstruction track listings==

All tracks written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, except where noted. ==Personnel==