This is some of the artwork in the booklet which was to be included
in the Smile album when Capiol made 450,000 covers and books in anticipation of the new
Beach Boys album. "Pet Sounds" changed the course of Rock and Roll and
"Good Vibrations" effected the music industry even more and was the start of
psychedelic rock . The next album by the group was anticipated to change music even more.
I believe, as others do, that the album by the Beatles, "Sgt. Peppers", also was
a major change in music but it may have damaged rock. It was the final reason Brian gave
up on his Smile album. If Smile was released before Sgt. Peppers, I feel the Beach
Boys would have gone in a totally different direction than they did and this may have also
changed music in this era. The Beatles and The Beach Boys were the two major groups of the
era and at this time the Beach Boys had beaten the Beatles in popularity. Brian had
described the new Smile album as a happy album and a symphony to God. The album was
basically finished recording but Brian still had to mix the songs together.
Without a doubt the Smile album is the most famous unreleased album
ever. The album went places where music had never gone before. To the left is the
artwork from the song "Vegetables" which even had members (and assumedly even
Paul McCartney) chewing on celery in order to make music, and it even sounded great!
My favorite song on the album, and also a reason why the album was stopped, was the song,
"Mrs. O'Leary's Cow", also called "Fire". On the day of
recording Brian noted that there was an unusual amount of fires in Los Angeles and Brian
blamed the song.
Brian made everyone wear firehats and started a real fire in the
middle of the studio while he recorded the fire burning. The song is strictly an
instrumental, but I feel it is one of Brian's greatest works. This song was listed as
"The Elements" which was going to be four songs: "Earth" - which
some say was "Vegetables"; "Wind" - which was the song
"Wind Chimes"; "Fire" - which was the song "Mrs. O'Leary's
Cow"; and "Water" - which some say is the the song, "I Love To Say Da
Da" or the song "Cool Cool Water".
To Page #3