From The Smile Shop

Sessions

September 1, 1966

This early version of what eventually became "She's Goin' Bald" on SMILEY SMILE was recently uncovered and presented on the Vigotone SMILE bootleg. Elliott makes no mention of the original SMILE-era version of "She's Goin' Bald," presumably because (during the SMILE sessions) it went under a different title. Leaf mentions in the SMILEY SMILE notes that an early version of "She's Going Bald" "had a completely different lyrics about a speechmaking businessman," obviously referring to this version. (My guess is that the lyrics above are Parks' original words, and that the ones on the SMILEY SMILE version were augmented by Mike Love. "She's Goin' Bald," on SMILEY SMILE, is credited to Wilson/Love/Parks.)

It's possible that this track could be one of the dozens of titles that have surfaced in connection to this period. Judging from the rather abrupt ending of the track, it sounds as if it were possibly meant as a section of another song. (Priore suggests placing it immediately before "Wonderful"--perhaps implying that it's the missing January 1967 edit piece.) But, given the fact that most of the songs from this period were recorded in sections, that certainly doesn't narrow down the possibilities. Other than these bits on information, nothing else about this track is known. -- David Prokopy, The Prokopy Notes

Recording date unknown, likely Sept 1, 1966.

The Parksian lyrics date it to the early Smile period. The tape box of the sessions was unmarked, but the song also appears on a comp reel titled "Nu(sic) songs as of 9/3" with Wonderful (version 1) which makes Sept 1 the most likely date for the recording, presumably after the Good Vibrations session that day. The title of the comp reel suggests this was part of a new song that was abandoned early in the Dumb Angel phase of the project. The song was recast in July 1967 as the first section of Smiley Smile´s She´s Goin´ Bald. -- Lou Shenk, A SMiLE Primer

Per Keith Badman's The Beach Boys, September 1st is also listed as the recording date for Brian and Van Dyke Parks' heretofore unreleased "He Gives Speeches"; the tale of a gentleman who is possibly the male protagonist to the woman who is later described in the words to "Wonderful". (A lyrical parallel seems to exist between the former's "he fell into her friendly persuasion" and the latter's "a boy bumped into her won-won-won-wonderful".)

Unfortunately there is not much in the way of surviving tape for "He Gives Speeches", perhaps due to the fact that the song itself is quite sparsely arranged. Initially Brian leads the musicians (more than likely just himself, Dennis and Carl at this point) through a minute-long backing track comprised solely of piano, drums and electric bass. Next up comes Brian's single-tracked lead vocal overdub, on which he can be heard singing the lines "he was a two foot sunuvabitch" and "strawberry chap(stick?)" as the tape begins to roll. This take is followed by another overdub of a wordless falsetto backing vocal, again by Brian, with some soft harmonies buried in the mix. This demo-like cut is now finalized with the addition of some hand clap effects, added either before or during mixdown.

Both "He Gives Speeches" and "Wonderful" soon appeared on a comp reel of Brian's called "Nu(sic) songs as of 9/3". Additionally, the melody to "Speeches", as well as a line from its lyrics, were later recycled on Smiley Smile's "She's Going Bald" (recorded July 5, 1967). -- Jason Penick, The Beach Boys Recording Guide

July 5, 1967

One of these fragments is a short vocal melody which was released as the first part of "She's Goin' Bald" on the Smiley Smiley album. This segment was attempted several times during the Smile sessions, and like many of the shorter songs from this era it may have gotten its start during a "Heroes & Villains" date. Two different versions of the song exist from this era, the first featuring an early lyric about someone giving a speech (it was called "He Gives Speeches" in this incarnation), and another featuring the more familiar lyric from the Smiley Smile version. The original lyrics were written by Van Dyke Parks, and Mike Love rewrote them (typically) to be less circuitous and more narrative for the official release. The short "She's Goin' Bald" as recorded for Smile forms the basis for the intro to the later three-part released song -- the second section is a wild, haphazard play with distorted voices speak-singing Broadway style, and the third is a nice little boogie-woogie sing-a-long with the lyrics "you're too late, momma/ ain't nothing upside your head." These two later bits were recorded specifically for Smiley Smiley, and the group also re-recorded the first part based on the original Smile track.

Brian recorded many short snippets like this for Smile -- "Whistle In," "You're Welcome," "Do A Lot," the existing short versions of "Da-Da" and many others -- and it's really not certain what the purpose of this piece might've been. Van Dyke Parks, on his Song Cycle album (recorded and released after Smile collapsed), included a few similar short ditties as separate tracks, but it's doubtful that Brian would have done anything similar. Domenic Priore would probably bring up his notion of link tracks -- that the various snippets would have served as connectors between proper songs -- but as with many of Priore's speculations, this idea seems to be based more in wishful thinking and guessing than any actual evidence. As with many of these short pieces, "She's Goin' Bald" was probably recorded specifically for "Heroes" and abandoned when it was removed from that song. -- Ed Howard, Smile: The Definitive Lost Album