I am reviewing here the double CD release of The Beach Boys
albums SMILEY SMILE and WILD HONEY put out by Capitol Records with six bonus
tracks in 2001.
SMILEY SMILE originally came out on September 18, 1967 on
Brother Records. It is The Beach Boys
twelfth studio album. It came out after
the much anticipated SMILE album was scrapped.
It is said to be psychedelic rock/pop music and was mainly recorded in
Brian Wilson’s home studio in June and July of 1967. It was the group’s lowest charting album to
date, reaching No 9 in the UK and No 41 on the US Billboard charts. Carl Wilson said the album “was a bunt
instead of a grand slam”. Nonetheless,
Pete Townsend of The Who and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith are fans of the
album. Dennis Wilson said it “was just
something we were going through at that time connected with drugs, love, and
everything”.
SMILEY SMILE opens with the second single ‘Heroes and
Villains’, which finds Brian Wilson on lead and hit No 12. It was meant to be the heart of the abandoned
SMILE album. It is a carefree pop story
song that begins like this: “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/Fell
in love years ago/With an innocent girl/From the Spanish and Indian home of the
heroes and villains”. ‘Vegetables’ was
also meant for SMILE. It has Al Jardine
on lead and includes the group and Paul McCartney munching on raw vegetables
for percussion. The song has quite silly
lyrics: “I’m gonna be round my vegetables/I’m gonna chow down my vegetables/I
love you most of all/My favorite vege-table/If you brought a big brown bag of
them/I’d jump up and down and hope you’d toss me a carrot”. Next up is ‘Fall Breaks and Back to Winter
(Woody Woodpecker Symphony)’. This
instrumental with some vocalizing would make for good videogame background
music.
Mike Love takes the lead on ‘She’s Goin’ Bald’. At one point Brian speeds the tape up to make
it sound like the group is inhaling nitrous oxide. This song should bring a smile to your face:
“She drew her comb acrost her scalp/And brushed what she had left/I tried to
salvage what I could/And threw it in a sack/She made a beeline to her room/And
grabbed all kind o’ juice/She started pourin’ it on her head/And thought it’d
grow it back/Ah ha haaaaaa/You’re too late mama/Ain’t nothin’ upside your
head/No more, no more, no more, no more”.
‘Little Pad’ finds the guys daydreaming: “If I only had a little pad/If
I only had a little pad/In Hawaii.../By the sea that’s where I’ll build a
pad/In Hawaii”. ‘Good Vibrations’ was
actually put out as a single in October 1966.
It was the group’s first million-selling #1 hit! Brian Wilson calls it “a pocket
symphony”. It makes use of the theremin
and cellos and was nominated for 3 Grammy’s in 1967. This terrific pop song deals with
infatuation: “I-I love the colorful clothes she wears/And the way the sunlight
plays upon her hair/I hear the sound of a gentle word/On the wind that lifts
her perfume through the air/I’m pickin’ up good vibrations/She’s giving me
excitations (Oom bop bop)”.
Carl Wilson sings lead on ‘With Me Tonight’ which has
simplistic lyrics: “On and on you go, dum be do/With me tonight, I know you’re
with me tonight/For sure you’re with me, tonight/I’m sure you’re with me
tonight”. ‘Wind Chimes’ is another track
that was meant for SMILE. It is a mellow
and sentimental song: “Now and then a tear rolls on my cheek/On a warm breeze
the little bells/Tinklin’ wind chimes/Wind chimes, wind chimes/Close your eyes
and lean back/Listen to wind chimes/Wind chimes, wind chimes/It’s so
peaceful/Close to a lullabye/The wind chimes tinglin’”. Mike and Brian share the lead on ‘Gettin’
Hungry’, the album’s third single. This
song is sometimes loud, sometimes quiet.
The lyrics make it clear that the group has an appetite for the opposite
sex: “Gettin’ hungry/Hungry for my kind o’ woman/I’m gettin’ hungry/Soon I
gotta find me a woman/I’m gettin’ hungry/Searchin’ for a pretty girl”.
‘Wonderful’ was also meant for SMILE. It includes a strange laughing interlude and
has been interpreted by some as being about a gal losing her virginity: “She
knew how to gather the forest when/God reached softly and moved her body/One
golden locket quite young/And loving her mother and father/Farther down the
path was a mystery/Through the recess, the chalk and numbers/A boy bumped into
her/Won-won-won-wonderful”. ‘Whistle
In’, a repetitive mantra set to pop music, closes the album.
To many, SMILEY SMILE was a letdown after all the hype
surrounding SMILE. I quite like the
album though. Listening to it makes you
feel like you are walking through a carnival.
There are lots of experimental sounds and nice group harmonies
here. I think it is brilliant and
cutting edge! It is an album you won’t
tire of. I’m rating SMILEY SMILE 88%.
WILD HONEY originally came out on December 18, 1967 on
Capitol Records. It is The Beach Boys
thirteenth studio album. It hit No 7 in the
UK and No 24 in the States. It leans
towards soul, pop, and R&B music. It
has sparse production and was cut in just a couple of weeks. There is not a lot of group singing on
it. Group members at the time were:
Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Bruce Johnston, Mike Love, and Al
Jardine. The front cover of the album is
a beautiful small section of a stained glass window that was in Brian and
Marilyn Wilson’s house in Bel Air.
The title track and lead single ‘Wild Honey’ starts things
off. Honey was one of Brian’s favorite
foods. The song uses the theremin and
organ and finds Carl delivering a strained sounding lead vocal. The upbeat pop song tells of one who is smitten
by a gal: “Mama I’m tellin’ you as sure as I’m standing here/She’s my girl and
that’s the way I’m keeping it now mama dear/No good will it do you to stand
there and frown at me/The girl’s got my heart and my love’s coming down on
me/My love’s coming down since I got a taste of wild honey/You know she’s got
the sweetness of a honey bee/Wild honey”.
‘Aren’t You Glad’ is a bouncy pop song that uses piano, guitar, bass,
some percussion, and trumpet. Mike and
Brian deliver the lead on this song of passion: “You know that I been a long
time needing you/You say that you been a long time needing me/And don’t you
know that there’s so much more to come/I got a heart that just won’t stop
beating for you/I got a love I just can’t stop feeling for you”.
‘I Was Made to Love Her’ is a fast-paced R&B tribute to
one of its writers, Stevie Wonder. The
lyrics begin by reminiscing: “I was born in Lil’ Rock/Had a childhood
sweetheart/We were always hand in hand/I wore hightop shoes and shirt
tails/Suzy was in pig tails/I know I loved her even then/You know my papa
disapproved it/My mama boohooed it/But I told them time and time again/’Don’t
you know I was made to love her/Built my world all around her”. ‘Country Air’ finds the group on lead. It includes a crowing rooster and
whistling. This catchy song will please
environmentalists: “Come on/Get a breath of that country air/Breathe the beauty
of it everywhere/Mother Nature, she fills my eyes/Get a breath of that country
air/Breathe the beauty of it everywhere/Rise up early, the day won’t let you
sleep/Ahahh-haaa (3X)”.
‘A Thing or Two’ is a less than stellar, jazzy rocker. It finds the Boys a bit frisky: “When I see
my baby/When I look in her pretty eyes/When I get with my darling baby/I say my
heart will start to beat like a couple of drums/She’ll get my temperature to
rise to ‘bout a hundred and one/Yeah, do it right baby/Ahhh, haaa/Outta sight
baby”. ‘Darlin’’ is WILD HONEY’s second
single. It hit #19 on the charts. It was originally written in 1963 as
‘Thinkin’ Bout You Baby’ for a record Brian produced for a girlfriend of Mike’s,
Shannon Marie. It is a great, breezy pop
song with Carl on the lead. It speaks of
how a lady can truly change a man for the better: “Ì was living like half a man/Then
I couldn’t love, but now I can/You pick me up when I’m feeling sad/More soul
than I ever had/Gonna love you every single night/Cause I think you’re too
outta sight/Oh darlin’/I dream about you often, my pretty darlin’”.
Brian takes the lead on ‘I’d Love Just Once to See
You’. It has playful lyrics: “I wash the
dishes and I rinsed up the sink/Like a busy bee/I make up a song as I’m
a-working along/No one’s watching me/I wish that you were here to help me
dry/When’s the last time you baked me a pie?/You had a way of making it come
alive/It’s not too late for you to take a drive”. ‘Here Comes The Night’ admits dependence on
one’s partner for security: “Hold me, squeeze me, don’t ever leave me/Tell me
I’m doing alright/Hold me, love me”.
‘Let the Wind Blow’ is a forgettable cut. It finds the group yearning for a long
lasting relationship: “Let the bees make honey/Let the poor find money/Take
away their sorrows/Give them sunshine tomorrow/But don’t take her out of my
life/What would I do without her/Tell me now?”
‘How She Boogalooed It’ is the first song on a Beach Boys album (not
including instrumentals and covers) written by the group members without Brian
Wilson. It has an old time rock and roll
feel to it. These lyrics from it are
good for the weekend: “Oh the boys are with me to do some outta sight
dancin’/Got a girl givin’ me some lessons/And now she’s gonna be my
confession/Aren’t you glad we found our way in here?/Put another record up on
the player”. An acapella ditty ‘Mama
Says’ ends the album: “Eat a lot, sleep a lot, brush ‘em like crazy/Run a lot,
do a lot, never be lazy”.
David Leaf says WILD HONEY was “the record that marked the
birth of the second era of great Beach Boys music”. I disagree!
The record at times doesn’t even sound like The Beach Boys. The vocals are at times shrill. The group was charting new territory, but the
album comes across as being all over the place musically. There are a couple bright spots but for the
most part this is an inferior record. It
is ambitious, yet unable to connect. It
would be like Michael W. Smith trying to make a hard rock album. I’m rating WILD HONEY 75%.
As previously mentioned, this 2001 double CD release by
Capitol Records includes six bonus tracks.
An inferior alternate take of ‘Heroes and Villains’ is up first. A couple of the tracks that partially show
how ‘Good Vibrations’ came to be are pretty neat. ‘You’re Welcome’ is an invitational chant of
sorts: “Well, you’re well, you’re welcome (3X)/Well, you’re welcome to
come”. It was the B-side of the ‘Heroes and
Villains’ single. An acapella cover of
Bobby Troup’s ‘Their Hearts Were Full of Spring’ follows. Last up is ‘Can’t Wait Too Long’ with Brian
on lead. It is the song of a lonesome
man: “I miss you darling/I miss you so hard/Miss you so hard/Now.../Way too
long/Been way too long baby.” For more
info visit: www.thebeachboys.com.
