Brian Wilson Bears "Smile"

Thirty-seven years after he abandoned it, Brian Wilson will revive Smile onstage. He and his backing band the Wondermints will perform the Beach Boys' legendary lost album -- or, rather, Wilson's 2004 interpretation of what the uncompleted 1967 album eventually would have become -- at London's Royal Festival Hall, February 20-24th.

Smile was to be the follow-up to critical darling but commercial failure Pet Sounds. The then-twenty-four-year-old Wilson wrote the album with lyricist and arranger Van Dyke Parks, and described the elaborate work-in-progress as a "teenage symphony to God."

The rest of the Beach Boys, who were on tour singing the band's more standard surfing songs during much of Smile's creation, were less than enamored with Wilson and Van Dyke's symphony. Wilson, shaken by real pressures to produce hits and less rational factors such as believing that his song "Fire" was actually causing fires in his Los Angeles neighborhood, abandoned the project, though Smile tracks like "Heroes and Villians," "Cabinessence" and "Surf's Up" and "Wind Chimes" would be re-recorded for subsequent Beach Boys records.

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
• 
  MOVIES 'Star Trek' Is Crazy Good
• 
  TV 10 Shows to Watch This Summer
• 
  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“Time to Pretend”

MGMT | 2008

Listening to MGMT’s breakthrough song, one might interpret it as being about the excesses of rock stardom, but it’s actually about the duo’s pet praying mantis. Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden told Rolling Stone they got the idea from the insect's jerky movements. The mantis died, but the two bandmates kept the egg sack and allowed the hundreds of eggs to hatch. “We tried to name them all, but they died after a day,” said Goldwasser, with VanWyngarden chiming in, “But the praying mantis dance inspired us.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter