Smile (The Beach Boys Album)

''Smile'' (stylized as ''SMiLE'') is an unfinished album by the American rock band the Beach Boys that was planned to follow their 11th studio album ''Pet Sounds'' (1966). It was to be a 12-track LP that drew from over 50 hours of interchangeable sound fragments, similar to the group's 1966 single "Good Vibrations". Instead, after a year of recording, the album was shelved and the group released a downscaled version, ''Smiley Smile'', in September 1967. Over the next four decades, few of the original ''Smile'' tracks were officially released, and the project came to be regarded as the most legendary unreleased album in popular music history.

The album was produced and almost entirely composed by Brian Wilson with guest lyricist and assistant arranger Van Dyke Parks, both of whom conceived the project as a riposte to the British sensibilities that had dominated popular music of the era. Wilson touted ''Smile'' as a "teenage symphony to God" to surpass ''Pet Sounds''. It was a concept album that was planned to feature word paintings, tape manipulation, elaborate vocal arrangements, experiments with musical acoustics, and comedic interludes, with influences drawn from mysticism, pre-rock and roll pop, doo-wop, jazz, ragtime, ''musique concrète'', classical, American history, poetry, and cartoons. The lead single would have been "Heroes and Villains", a Western musical comedy, or "Vega-Tables", a satire of physical fitness.

Numerous issues, including legal entanglements with Capitol Records, Wilson's uncompromising perfectionism and mental instabilities, as well as Parks' withdrawal from the project in early 1967, prevented the album's completion and release. Most of the backing tracks were produced between August and December 1966, but few vocals were ever recorded, and the album's structure was never finalized. Afraid of the public's reaction to his work, Wilson blocked attempts to complete ''Smile'' in the subsequent years. From 1968 onward, only three more tracks ("Our Prayer", "Cabinessence" and " Surf's Up") were finished by the group. As its legend grew, the project's unfulfilled potential inspired many fans and musicians, particularly those in indie rock, post-punk, and chamber pop genres. After the 1980s, bootlegged tracks circulated widely, allowing fans to assemble their own hypothetical versions of the finished album. In response, Capitol included a loose reconstruction of the album on the 1993 box set ''Good Vibrations''.

Due to the wealth of fan-created mixes it has inspired, some commentators cite ''Smile'' as the first ever interactive album. In 2004, Wilson, Parks, and Darian Sahanaja arranged a version of ''Smile'' for concert performances, titled ''Brian Wilson Presents Smile'', which Wilson then adapted into a solo album of the same title. He stated that this version differed substantially from his original vision. The 2011 compilation ''The Smile Sessions'' was the first official package devoted to the original Beach Boys' recordings and included an approximation of the completed album. It received universal acclaim and won Best Historical Album at the 55th Grammy Awards.

Background

In late 1964, as Brian Wilson's industry profile grew, he became acquainted with various individuals from around the Los Angeles music scene. He also took an increasing interest in recreational drugs (particularly marijuana, LSD, and Desbutal). According to his then-wife Marilyn, Wilson's new friends "had the gift of gab ..All of a sudden rianwas in Hollywood—these people talk a language that was fascinating to him. Anybody that was different and talked cosmic or whatever ..he liked it." Wilson's closest friend in this period was Loren Schwartz, an aspiring talent agent that he met at a recording studio. Schwartz introduced Wilson to marijuana and LSD, as well as a wealth of literature commonly read by college students. During his first LSD trip, Wilson had what he considered to be "a very religious experience" and claimed to have seen God.

In November 1965, early in the sessions for the Beach Boys' 11th studio LP ''Pet Sounds'', Wilson began experimenting with the idea of recording an album focused on humor and laughter. He was intent on making ''Pet Sounds'' a complete departure from previous Beach Boys releases and did not wish to work with his usual lyricist, Mike Love. Instead, he worked with jingle writer Tony Asher on most of the album's songs. On February 17, 1966, Wilson began tracking their song "Good Vibrations", which was intended for ''Pet Sounds'' but omitted due to Wilson's dissatisfaction with the recording. He attempted a couple different arrangements of the track from then until April.

Wilson stated at the time that he "wanted to write ongswith more than one level. Eventually, I would like to see longer singles—so that the song can be more meaningful. A song can, for instance, have movements—in the same way as a classical concerto—only capsulized." Starting with the fourth session held for "Good Vibrations", on May 4, he began recording the song in sections, rather than tracking the full piece all the way through, with the intention of later splicing the fragments into a composite track.

Released on May 16, ''Pet Sounds'' was massively influential, containing sophisticated orchestral arrangements that raised the band's prestige to the top level of rock innovators. In the US, the album confused their fans and sold worse than previous Beach Boys releases, but in the UK, the reception was highly favorable. The UK success emboldened Wilson to take greater creative risks and helped convince the band's label, Capitol Records, to fund and promote his next project, however ambitious it may be.

Creative circle

Collaboration with Parks

In 1966, Wilson attended a party held at the home of the Byrds' record producer Terry Melcher. There, he was introduced to Van Dyke Parks, a 23-year-old professional songwriter, arranger, session musician, and former child actor. Parks had moved to Los Angeles a few years earlier, hoping to compose the scores to Disney films, but instead lent his services to the Byrds and MGM pop groups the Mojo Men and Harper's Bizarre. During this meeting, Wilson noticed that Parks had an unusually articulate manner of speaking. Wilson had been searching for a new lyricist, and soon after, approached Parks with the offer to write lyrics for the Beach Boys' next album. Parks had worries, having heard that Asher had dissociated himself from Wilson and the Beach Boys, but nonetheless agreed to collaborate.

Between July and September, Wilson and Parks wrote many songs together at Wilson's Beverly Hills home for the upcoming project, tentatively called ''Dumb Angel''. Writing sessions may have also extended to October or November. Aside from playing on some of the ''Smile'' recording dates, Parks' contributions were limited to writing words to Wilson's melodies. He said: "I had no input whatsoever in the music. I was a total lyricist and sometimes an instrumentalist." Like Asher, Parks had minimal experience as a lyricist, and Wilson had little prior knowledge of his collaborator's musical background.

Parks implied in various interviews that he and Wilson shared an understanding of the album's Americana thematic, but in 2005, he wrote a response to a ''New York Review of Books'' article that stated otherwise ("Manifest Destiny, Plymouth Rock, etc. were the last things on his mind when he asked me to take a free hand in the lyrics and the album's thematic direction"). In a 2004 article, journalist Geoffrey Himes stated that although Parks did not write any of the music, he did collaborate with Wilson on the arrangements.

Wilson's associates

Having withdrawn from the Beach Boys' concert tours, Wilson placed distance between himself and his bandmates, and continued to involve more people in his social, business, and creative affairs. As biographer Steven Gaines wrote, his circle soon "enlarged to encompass a whole new crowd. Some of these people were 'drainers', ut otherswere talented and industrious". During the ''Smile'' era, Wilson's coterie included:

* David Anderle, an MGM Records talent scout who was nicknamed "the mayor of hip" by the underground press. He initially met Wilson in 1965 through a family member. Gaines credits Anderle as the primary conduit between Wilson and the "hip" associates surrounding him.
* Danny Hutton, a singer that Parks had performed with at The Troubador in 1964. He and Wilson first met in late 1964; they became further acquainted after being reintroduced by Hutton's manager, Anderle, in late 1965. Hutton also introduced Parks to Anderle, who soon became Parks' manager as well.
* Derek Taylor, former press officer for the Beatles. He had been the Beach Boys' publicist since March 1966. Taylor said he was hired to take the band to "a new plateau", and to that end, he spearheaded a media campaign that proclaimed Wilson to be a "genius".
* Mark Volman, singer from the Turtles. He was introduced to Wilson by Hutton and has rarely spoken about his association with Wilson because it had "always made me feel like a groupie for Brian".
Many of these people became mainstays at Wilson's home and during studio sessions. Various journalists were also arranged to accompany Wilson in and out of the studio. They included:
* Michael Vosse, a magazine reporter who had been friends with Anderle in college. Parks introduced Vosse to Wilson, and Taylor arranged for Vosse to interview Wilson for the forthcoming release of "Good Vibrations". The day after their meeting, Wilson called Vosse and offered him a job recording sounds of nature.
* Paul Jay Robbins, from the ''Los Angeles Free Press''. Robbins was a New Left political activist who reported on and participated in the 1966 Sunset Strip riots. He met Parks through attending Byrds concerts, and Parks in turn brought Robbins into Wilson's fold.
* Paul Williams, the 18-year-old founder and editor of ''Crawdaddy!'' Williams stated that he had been impressed by ''Pet Sounds'' and "Good Vibrations", and subsequently "found my way to Brian's mansion at Christmas 1966 ..and eventually made my way back to New York to spread the word, like other journalists before and after me."
*Jules Siegel, from ''The Saturday Evening Post''. He was introduced to Wilson by Anderle and subsequently accompanied Wilson at his home and in the studio for two months.

The album held a grandiose importance among those involved, as Anderle said, "''Smile'' was going to be a monument. That's the way we talked about it, as a monument." Commenting on the reliability of figures such as Anderle, Siegel, and Vosse, journalist Nick Kent wrote that their claims are oftentimes "so lavish hatone 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 acknowledged that the "events surrounding the album differed so much according to each person's point of view, that no one can be certain f the facts" Williams acknowledged that he, Wilson, Anderle, Parks, Taylor, and other journalists were "very stoned" and that perhaps "had some effect on our assessment of what was going on."

Group photo

On October 22, 1966, Wilson accompanied the touring group to Michigan to supervise their first live performance of "Good Vibrations". Upon his return to Los Angeles, he requested that his wife arrange a photo shoot and ask many of his friends and acquaintances to meet him at LAX. Approximately thirty people attended the shoot, including Hutton, Parks, Vosse, Siegel, Volman, David and Sheryl Anderle, Dean Torrence, Diane Rovell, Annie Hinsche Wilson, Dick and Carol Maider, June Fairchild, and Terry Sachen, as well as cousins and friends of the Wilson family. Guy Webster was the photographer.

The photo later became well-known among fans for its historical significance. Gaines writes, "For the next few months a giant blowup of the photograph hung on Brian's living room wall. In just as much time, all of the people in the photograph would become strangers." Biographer Peter Ames Carlin noted that the photograph took on "symbolic importance, as if it marked the point at which Brian's astonishing creative arc leveled off, nosing slowly toward a descent." Hutton recalled that Brian "never said to me why he was doing that. I didn't sense, at the time, that it was the end of anything. It was just another crazy night."

Inspiration and concept

Overlap with other Brother Records projects

Wilson originally planned many different projects, such as a sound effects collage, a comedy album, and a "health food" album. Capitol did not support some of these ideas, which led to the Beach Boys' desire to form their own label, Brother Records. Plans for the label began in August 1966 with Anderle at the head. In a press release, he stated that Brother Records was to give "entirely new concepts to the recording industry, and to give the Beach Boys total creative and promotional control over their product." Anderle later said that the label was for releasing projects that were "special" for Brian, and there was initially no concern over whether the label's products would be distributed by Capitol.

Anderle said that it was "really important" to make the point that "Brian was so creative at this time hatit was impossible to try to tie things up ..we were talking about doing humor albums ..there was the ''Smile'' talk ..there was 'The Elements' talk. ..the humor concept was separate from ''Smile'', originally. ..''Smile'' was going to be the culmination of ''all'' of Brian's intellectual occupations." Journalist Tom Nolan later reported that Wilson's "incredible fantasies" included "an album of music built from sound effects ..chords spliced together through a whole LP". Nolan commented that when Wilson momentarily shifted his focus to films, it had seemed to be "a step easier to capturing more. If you couldn't get a sound from a carrot, you could show a carrot. He would really liked to have made music that ''was'' a carrot."

American identity

''Smile'' was to be explicitly American in style and subject as a riposte to the British sensibilities that had dominated rock music of the era. Wilson stated that, with ''Smile'', he intended to "'Americanize' early America and mid-America" similar to how George Gershwin "Americanized" jazz and classical music. To Parks, Gershwin's 1924 composition "Rhapsody in Blue" represented a "musical kaleidoscope" of America, a quality that he and Wilson sought to emulate.

Parks said that they "kind of wanted to investigate ..American images. ..Everyone was hung up and obsessed with everything totally British. So we decided to take a gauche route that we took, which was to explore American slang, and that's what we got." Further on the subject, he explained, "Everybody else was getting their snout in the British trough. Everybody wanted to sing 'bettah'', affecting these transatlantic accents and trying to sound like the Beatles. I was with a man who couldn't do that. He just didn't have that option. He was the last man standing."

In a 2004 interview, Wilson mentioned that while the 1965 album ''Rubber Soul'' had inspired him to match the artistic standards of the Beatles for ''Pet Sounds'', "''Smile'' wasn't the same kind of thing; it wasn't anything like The Beatles. It wasn't pop music; it was something more advanced." Numerous writers state that Wilson intended ''Smile'' as a response to the Beatles' August 1966 release ''Revolver''. In examining many books, documentaries, and articles about the subject, music journalist Andrew Sacher states that Wilson himself "never seems to mention ''Revolver''", possibly because his "main goal in late 1966 was topping his own ''Pet Sounds''". Asked in a 1969 interview about the influence of ''Revolver'' on Wilson, Mike Love stated that the record did not impact Wilson's music, adding that "Brian was in his own world, believe me."

Humor and mysticism

''Smile'' was inspired by Wilson's growing fascination with matters such as astrology, numerology and the occult. Wilson described himself as an avid reader after a friend had introduced him to Pickwick Bookshop, a Hollywood bookstore. "I started reading too many books. If I'd stuck with just a few, I'd have been all right, but I read so many authors it got crazy. ..I went through a thing of having too many paths to choose from and of wanting to do everything and not being able to do it all." According to an unnamed participant, "If you came up to the house and introduced something new to Brian's thought processes—astrology, a different way to think about the relationship of Russia to China, anything at all—if all of a sudden he was into that, it would find its way into the music. You could hear a bit and say, 'I know where that feeling came from.'"

Many firsthand and secondary accounts support that Wilson owned books that encompassed poetry, prose, cultural criticism (Arthur Koestler's 1964-published '' The Act of Creation'' was often cited by Wilson), and "diverse expressions of non-Christian religions and belief systems" such as Hinduism (from the Bhagavad Gita), Confucianism (from the ''I Ching'' or Book of Changes), Buddhism, and Subud. Much of this counter-cultural literature promoted related practices that Wilson was further interested by, such as meditation and vegetarianism.

In a 2005 interview, Wilson stated that his studying of metaphysics was "crucial" and referenced ''The Act of Creation'' as "the big one for me". He said that the book "turned me on to very special things", specifically, "that people attach their egos to their sense of humor before anything else." Anderle said that Wilson was fixated on humor and spirituality, and "had a real innate sense of spiritualism without the knowledgeable part that you learn by reading. ..Whatever manifestation it took was whatever it was. There was numerology for a while; there was astrology for a while. Then we got into the ''I Ching''." Vosse said that he was told by Wilson "that he felt laughter was one of the highest forms of divinity ..And Brian felt that it was time to do a humor album." He opined that ''Smile'', had it been completed, would have been "basically a Southern California, non-country oriented, gospel album—on a very sophisticated level—because that's what he was doing, his own form of revival music".

Jules Siegel famously recalled that, during one evening in October, Wilson announced to his wife and friends that he was "writing a teenage symphony to God". According to Siegel, Wilson felt he was moving into a "white spiritual sound" that he thought represented the future of music. In November 1966, Nolan reported that Wilson's shift in artistic focus was inspired by his psychedelic experience from the year prior. Asked where he believed music would go, Wilson responded: "White spirituals, I think that's what we're going to hear. Songs of faith."

In late 1966, Wilson commented that ''Dumb Angel'' had been a working title for the album and explained that the name was discarded because the group wanted to go with something "more cheery". In February 1967, Carl offered that the title ''Smile'' was chosen because the group was focusing on spirituality and "the concept of spreading goodwill, good thoughts and happiness". Carlin wrote that the ''Dumb Angel'' title may have been inspired by hallucinations Wilson saw while composing late at night under the influence of Desbutals. In 2004 interviews, Wilson denied that ''Smile'' was influenced by LSD, Zen, or religion. Anderle also denied that drugs were an influence on Wilson's artistic pursuits. Parks said that Wilson envisioned ''Smile'' as experimenting with "the mind-expanding possibilities of music and the mind-expanding properties of drugs".

Themes and lyricism

Although ''Smile'' is a concept album, the surviving recordings do not lend themselves to any formal narrative development, only to themes and experiences. According to Heiser, there is also a wealth of material that appears to have "little, if anything to do with nAmericana theme". Other themes involved physical fitness, childhood, and the natural environment. Web journal ''Freaky Trigger'' states: "While the lyrics are usually pretty damned literary, at their most extreme, they're divorced from any kind of meaning in the straightforward sense." Parks rebuked the suggestion that ''Smile'' was planned as a concept album and said that the work was only envisioned "to use the American vernacular at a time when there was a lot of soundalike Beatle-esque music around."

By contrast, musicologist Philip Lambert describes ''Smile'' as "an American history lesson seen through the eyes of a time-travelling bicycle rider on a journey from Plymouth Rock to Hawaii." Documentarian Keith Badman states that Wilson intended the album to be an American-themed exploration of the innocence of youth and childhood. Williams concluded that it was to be "perhaps the story of the unnatural love affair between one man's voice and a harpsichord". A melodic and rhythmic motif (sometimes called the "Bicycle Rider" theme) was configured into several tracks, which he said "rokedown the walls that give songs identities without ever offering conceptual ('rock opera') explanation or resolution."

Parks' lyrics employed wordplay, allusions, and quotations. He acknowledged that there were occasional "references" to specific historical entities, however, "I don't think that I was interested in wordplay as much as I was interested in the power of words." References to American history range from the emergence of railroads and automobiles to Western colonialism and its impact on Native American tribes. Scholar Darren Reid interpreted the focus on older American themes as a self-conscious, deeper reflection on the hedonistic, modern Americana of the Beach Boys' earlier songs. He said that, despite Wilson's later claims that the album was about humor and happiness, "the resultant album does not radiate predominately happy mood. ..Perhaps the smile Wilson refers to is an ironic one ..Humour, sarcasm, and lonely introspection are the contrasts that hold ''Smile'' together."

Some songs followed themes related to God and childhood, namely "Wonderful", "Child Is Father of the Man", and "Surf's Up". Only "Wonderful" referred to God explicitly. Parks supported that his associations with the spiritual aspect of Wilson's work were "inescapable", but professed that he disliked writing lyrics that dealt with religious belief, believing it gave the appearance of "trying to be uppity". In his recollection, "There's a lot of things about belief in ''Smile'', and its very question of belief is what was plaguing Brian at that time. What should we keep from the structure that we had, the hard-wiring that we had with religion? He had religion beat into him, and I did in my own way, too. So there's a lot of thinking about belief."

Asked what words come to mind when listening to ''Smile'' in 2011, Wilson replied, "Childhood. Freedom. A rejection of adult rules and adult conformity. Our message was, 'Adults keep out. This is about the spirit of youth.'" In another interview that year, he questioned a journalist how they would categorize ''Smile''. They responded with "impressionistic psychedelic folk rock", and said that while most rock seems to be about adulthood, ''Smile'' "expresses what it's like to be a kid in an impressionistic way" and "depicts the psychedelic magic of childhood", to which Wilson replied: "I love that. You coin those just right."

Carter summarized that ''Smile''s subject matter engaged with matters related to history, culture, and society while also traversing "complex landscapes of faith: from national allegiance and ideological persuasion to religious belief and spiritual devotion." He argued that "''Smile'' picks up where ''Pet Sounds'' left off", expanding the introspective themes of ''Pet Sounds'' into "an exploration of the nation's historical, social, ideological, and cultural identity." In his view, the lyrics also espouse "an antiestablishment skepticism toward religious institutions", "an interest in alternative belief structures", and " exceptionalist leanings".

Composition and production

Modular approach

In the 1960s, it was common for pop music to be recorded in a single take, but the Beach Boys' approach differed. Since 1964, Wilson had performed tape splices on his recordings, usually to allow difficult vocal sections to be performed by the group. By 1966, "Good Vibrations" had established Wilson's compositional approach for ''Smile''. Instead of working on whole songs with "clear large-scale syntactical structures", he limited himself to recording short interchangeable fragments (or "modules"). Through the method of tape splicing, each fragment could then be assembled into a linear sequence, allowing any number of larger structures and divergent moods to be produced at a later time. A similar fragmentary approach is common in film editing, albeit under the term "dangling causes".

Parks said that he and Wilson were conscious of ''musique concrete'' and that they "were trying to make something of it". Heiser called the album's use of jumpcuts a "striking characteristic" and said that they "must be acknowledged as compositional statements in themselves, giving the music a sonic signature every bit as noticeable as the performances themselves. There was no way this music could be 'real'. Wilson was therefore echoing the techniques of ''musique concrète'' and seemed to be breaking the audio 'fourth wall'—if there can said to be such a thing." He interpreted the methodology of using modules as consistent with the album's conceptual thread, "a return to the pre-grammatical, non-linear and analogical (as opposed to logical) thinking of early childhood – they are artefacts of ''play''." Ethnomusicologist David Toop countered that "modular" "suggests discrete components that interlock" and offered "cellular" as a possibly more accurate term.

The material was continuously revised, rewritten, and rearranged on a daily basis. Anderle recalled examples: "The beginning of 'Cabin Essence' becomes the middle of 'Vega-Tables', or the ending becomes the bridge. I would beg Brian not to change a piece of music because it was too fantastic. But when Brian did change it, I admit it was equally beautiful." Some of the songs were fully-composed with obvious verse-chorus structures (including "Heroes and Villains" and " Surf's Up") while other songs were short segments designed to illustrate a mood or a setting. Due to the fragmentary and never-finalized nature of the recordings, it is ambiguous when and where most ''Smile'' songs begin and end.

In the mid-1960s, trialing mixes required the physical act of cutting tape reels (with razor blades) and splicing them together. Creating an entire LP that relied on these processes proved too challenging for Wilson. Engineer Mark Linett argued that Wilson's ambitions were implausible to fulfill with pre-digital technology, especially with "the infinite number of possible ways you could assemble this puzzle." His colleague Alan Boyd shared the same view, stating that the tape editing "would have been probably an unbearably arduous, difficult and tedious task".

Orchestrations and arrangements

About fifty hours of tape was produced from the ''Smile'' sessions and encompassed musical and spoken word to sound effects and role playing. Many of the modules were composed as word paintings and invoked visual concepts or physical entities. According to Toop, during the mid-1960s, Wilson's style was akin to "cartoon music and Disney influence mutating into avant-garde pop". Heiser argues that attempting to summarize the whole of ''Smile'' is "a pointless exercise" and that it is preferable to write of "the many musical inhabitants of this complex, nebulous macrocosm." He lists several of these through the following descriptions:

The music itself carried on the "harmonic ingenuity" of ''Pet Sounds'', and in the belief of academic Dave Carter, "it makes little point to distinguish between the two albums in terms of their differential impact." With ''Smile'', Wilson's orchestrations emphasized traditional American instruments such as banjo, steel guitar, fiddle, mandolin, harmonica, and tack piano. Other instruments included "precipitate brass like a Tibetan horn", muted (with tape) piano, baritone guitar and upright bass played in a tic-tac style, dobro, bouzouki, and bass harmonica. There was also a greater complexity to Wilson's compositions. Jardine said that the music became "more textural, more complex and it had a lot more vocal movement. ..With Good Vibrations'and other songs on ''Smile'', we began to get into more esoteric kind of chord changes, and mood changes and movement. You'll find ''Smile'' full of different movements and vignettes. Each movement had its own texture and required its own session."" As with ''Pet Sounds'', ''Smile'' featured a more unique sense of rhythm relative to the band's earlier records.

Harpsichords and tack piano (typically played in unison) feature prominently, as well as mallets and "quirky/echoey percussion". Parks said that the "first thing I can remember in the studio" with Wilson was his use of "tuneful percussion, like a piano or a Chinese gong", which reminded Parks of early 20th-century orchestrations by men such as Percy Grainger, particularly Grainger's arrangement of "Country Gardens". Priore noted that a "flair for exotica" can be heard in "Holidays", "Wind Chimes", "Love to Say Dada", and "Child Is Father of the Man". Heiser observed that "playful" and "colorful" moods – which he likens to the music of ''Sesame Street'' – are consistent throughout the recordings.

The vocal arrangements, according to Heiser, use "a wide range of pitch centres, antiphonal effects, rhythmic variations, juxtapositions of legato and staccato figures, rounders-like echoes, and vocal effects not usually associated with mid-sixties rock records." Academic Brian Torff commented that ''Smile'' contained "choral arranging" and a "rhapsodic Broadway element". Toop wrote that the ''Smile'' vocals "willfully regresses into baby talk". Williams suggested that, "for the most part", ''Smile'' "uses words the same way it uses strings and keyboards—for their sounds." ''Freaky Trigger'' concurred that "the line between the sung word and mere sound become criss-crossed and blurred again and again and again ..where the word becomes subservient to sound, which is only six or so steps on the road to sound-for-the-sake-of-sound". The journal considers comparisons with the work of Sun Ra and John Cage, and concludes that this was a reconfiguration of doo-wop, a genre that the Beach Boys were rooted in.

Psychedelic musical characteristics distinguished the Beach Boys' mid-1960s work, particularly through the group's invocation of "greater fluidity, elaboration, and formal complexity", "a cultivation of sonic textures", "the introduction of new (combinations of) instruments, multiple keys, and/or floating tonal centers", and the occasional use of "slower, more hypnotic tempos". Guardian critic Alexis Petridis wrote that until the negative effects of LSD surfaced in rock music via Skip Spence's ''Oar'' (1969) and Syd Barrett's ''The Madcap Laughs'' (1970), "artists tactfully ignored the dark side of the psychedelic experience". He argued that ''Smile'' presented such a quality in the form of "alternately frantic and grinding mayhem" ("Fire"), "isolated, small-hours creepiness" ("Wind Chimes"), and "weird, dislocated voices" ("Love to Say Dada").

Contemporary context

''Smile'' drew from what most rock stars of the time considered to be antiquated pop culture touchstones, like doo-wop, barbershop, ragtime, exotica, pre-rock and roll pop, and cowboy films. Some of the music incorporated chanting, forays into Indian and Hawaiian music, jazz, classical tone poems, cartoon sound effects, ''musique concrète'', yodeling, and elements derivative of Sacred Harp, Shaker hymns, Mele, and Native American chants. Music critic Erik Davis wrote of the album's disconnect to contemporary rock music clichés, noting that "''Smile'' had banjos, not sitars". Wilson said he deliberately avoided traditional rock instrumentation because he wanted to employ ideas that were more "original" for ''Smile''. Also recorded were renditions of older songs such as " Gee", "I Wanna Be Around", "The Old Master Painter", and "You Are My Sunshine". Priore described this action as Wilson's attempt to expose "pre-'60s songwriting ..to the psychedelic era."

Among the many "contradictory templates" Toop felt were "buried within ''Smile'''s music legacy" were Frank Sinatra, the Lettermen, the Four Freshmen, Martin Denny, Patti Page, Chuck Berry, Spike Jones, Nelson Riddle, Jackie Gleason, Phil Spector, Bob Dylan, the Penguins, and the Mills Brothers. He wrote that collaborations between Miles Davis and Gil Evans "haunt ''SMiLE'' tracks like 'Look (Song for Children)' and 'Child Is Father of the Man'", and compared the project's "explorations of acoustic phenomena" to "similar tendencies by Charles Ives, Les Baxter's thematic LPs, and Richard Maxfield's electronic experiments with insect sounds or instruments played underwater". Furthermore, he wrote that the project may be regarded as tone poems "in oblique relationship to Third Stream, that rejected dream of the late 1950s best described in Charles Mingus's term 'jazzical'". In 2004, Wilson stated that ''Smile'' was too advanced for him to consider it pop music, and said that he admired and was influenced by Johann Sebastian Bach for his ability to construct a continuum of complex music using simple forms and simple chords.

Potential contents

Tracks listed on Wilson's 1966 note

On December 15, 1966, Wilson attempted to ease Capitol's concerns over the album's delay by delivering a handwritten note that contained an unordered, preliminary track listing. Capitol prepared record sleeves that listed these songs on the reverse side with the disclaimer "see label for correct playing order". Preliminary mixes (and in some cases many) were created for several of these tracks.

"Good Vibrations"

As Wilson neared the completion of "Good Vibrations", he asked Parks to rewrite the song's lyrics, but Parks declined, as he did not wish to alienate Mike Love. The title was written several times on one of the covers prepared by Capitol in order to boost album sales.

"Heroes and Villains"

"Heroes and Villains", the first song Wilson wrote with Parks, was envisioned by Wilson as a three-minute musical comedy to surpass "Good Vibrations". He created myriad versions of the track, some of which ranged in length from six to eight minutes. Wilson came up with the title and told Parks that he thought of the Old West when he wrote the melody, which reminded Parks of the Marty Robbins song "El Paso". Parks immediately conceived 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."

The success of their collaboration led to them writing more songs with an Old West theme, including "Barnyard" and "I'm in Great Shape". In 1978, Wilson told biographer Byron Preiss