The Beach Boys - SMiLE (Peace in the Valley Edit)

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This is my edit of The Beach Boys' unfinished masterpiece, SMiLE. This is not an attempt at a historically accurate reconstruction but an attempt to create the most cohesive, concise and complete-sounding, double-sided LP version possible of what should have been the most important album in the history of popular music. The tracklist is as follows:

Side A:
0:00 - Our Prayer
1:15 - Heroes and Villains
4:29 - Vege-Tables
8:02 - Do You Like Worms?
10:59 - The Old Master Painter
12:48 - Cabin Essence

Side B:
16:22 - Good Vibrations
20:30 - Wind Chimes
23:29 - Wonderful
25:37 - Child Is Father of the Man
27:50 - Surf's Up

Whilst I have taken some cues from Brian Wilson's original intention for the album, this is ultimately SMiLE as I want to hear it. I have largely followed the "official" 1966 tracklist (although its finality is debated) albeit with the omission of "I'm in Great Shape" and "The Elements". As far as I'm concerned, recreations of either of these tracks are follies due to either missing or never-recorded material and a great deal of uncertainty regarding what they were to actually contain. Historically plausible elements such as opening and closing the album with "Our Prayer" and "Surf's Up" respectively, have been maintained as well as kicking off each side with the album's main singles, as per Smiley Smile. I have also opted for banded tracks that do not flow into one another and to not include any link tracks, also for historical reasons.

Most of the songs on side A feature custom edits with "Heroes and Villains" being the most heavily edited. I believe the "music box" section which constitutes the chorus of the official versions to have been cannibalised from "Do You Like Worms?" quite late in the song's production due to the lack of an obvious chorus. I do not believe it would have appeared in two separate tracks on a hypothetical 1967 release. For this reason, I have made my own chorus using the verse backing vocals and this is reciprocated at the end of the song over the "prelude to fade" section. I have also streamlined the middle sections of the song so it feels less disjointed and isn't constantly interrupting itself. A similar rationale informed the omission of the final chorus of "Vege-Tables," which instead features a smooth transition from the "ballad insert" section to the tag.

"Do You Like Worms?" has been shortened slightly and given an a capella intro so as to hide the fact of its missing vocal sections. The completed chorus repeats with a fade at the song's end for the same reasons. "The Old Master Painter" retains the same structure as per The Smile Sessions version, but features the alternative version of the tag due to its greater instrumental similarity to the first section.

The remainder of the songs appear as they do on The Smile Sessions with the minor exceptions of the fade to "Good Vibrations" and the intro to Wind Chimes both being shortened. Brian seemed to favour intros that featured immediate vocals as evidenced by his original edits of the SMiLE songs from the Good Vibrations box set and this approach has informed mine in compiling this album. The only other minor change I've made is in increasing the gap between tracks as The Smile Sessions feels somewhat unrelenting to me.

Anyway, I do hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think.

P.S. I do not claim ownership of any of this material.

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