Smile

It's fantastic, isn't it? It's like a magical mystery demo.

But Daylim's big project was Smile.

Smile is probably the most famous unfinished album in rock history.

In 1966, Brian Wilson started on the follow-up to Pet Sounds.

He recorded dozens of little sections and fragments that were supposed to fit together somehow.

And then he couldn't finish it.

In this period, Brian Wilson was struggling with drugs and mental health, and Smile got tangled up in all of that.

He shelved it in 1967, and it became one of the great legends in pop music, the masterpiece that nobody got to hear.

They still loved Sgt. Pepper.

They had heard stories about the Beach Boys' Smile Sessions and how they were never finished.

And I think...

The goal, ultimately, especially for Olivier Tremor Control, was to imagine their own version of Smile.

I mean, that's the thing.

I

The next project, however, was to consume him.

Working at an even greater distance from the band, Wilson had welcomed a host of new collaborators into his fold, most significantly the lyricist Van Dyke Parks, and through an atmosphere of great levity and experimentation, began creating the album Smile.

In keeping with the times, Drugs played a major part in the increasingly zany proceedings, with session players dressed as firemen and Brian composing songs with his piano in a

sandbox.

This is not a Beach Boy record.

When in Brian's mind, this was totally a Beach Boy record.

The combination of doubt and pressure finally forced Wilson to surrender, and Smile was abandoned.

The unreleased album immediately entered popular folklore, the lost masterpiece of a troubled genius.

Probably David Bowie, Heroes.

And the third one would be The Beach Boys, Smile.

I was going to say, if you were going to say The Beach Boys, I would be like, Mike, what's wrong? It would have been Pet Sounds, but now The Smile is out.

I would take The Smile out.

You'd take The Smile.

Yeah.

Good choices.

A classically trained musician, Parks had already appeared on records from The Byrds and Judy Collins.

Wilson's ambitious Smile project ultimately fell apart, a story that's been told many times.

But the collaboration opened the door at Warner Brothers Records, where Parks made his own debut album, Song Cycle.

The record was a psychedelic blend of folk music, ragtime, and elaborate orchestrations that became a cult classic.

This is The Business, and I'm Kim Masters.

[upbeat music] We're talking with Van Dyke Parks about his life in music and film.

The songwriter, composer, and producer says working on the Beach Boys' Smile project with Brian Wilson taught him how to bring out the best in the people around him, a lesson he carried into his career as an arranger.

The experimentation on Smile came with complications.

Don't get mad.

But Pet Sounds and then there was an album The Beach Boys were working on after that called Smile that literally drove Brian Wilson crazy.

He finally re-released a finished version of it way, way, way deep into the 2000s.

But the Smile album became three other albums.

One of them's called Surf's Up, one of them's called 20/20, and I think the other one's called Smiley Smile.

Those three albums along with Pet Sounds are The Beach Boys to me.

Anything after that, anything before that-

I think the other guys were more in tune with, "Our music means something.

We know we've really created something special here." I think it took Brian longer to really understand that, because w- when you go back to the '60s and you get to 1968 when he releases the Friends album and it's not well-received, or Smiley Smile instead of Smile and it's not well-received-

Right, right

... you know, he begins to question whether or not what he's doing ...

Oh.

What is you, now what is this one based on, or can you talk about it? Is it too early?

Uh, well, I can tell you it's gonna be called Do It Again: Um, Conversations With The Beach Boys from Smiley Smile to 15 Big Ones.

Ooh.

We've really created something special here.

I think it took Brian longer to really understand that because – When you go back to the 60s and you get to 1968 when he releases the Friends album and it's not well-received, or Smiley Smile instead of Smile and it's not well-received, he begins to question whether or not what he's doing...

The only thing that matters to him was music.

So if his music isn't being received well, and of course that's subjectively... by how well something does on the music chart, not versus is this really good music or not.

Oh.

Now, what is this one based on? Or can you talk about it? Is it too early?

Well, I can tell you it's going to be called Do It Again, Conversations with the Beach Boys from Smiley Smile to 15 Big Ones.

So it's picking up right where the first book left off.