From The Smile Shop

Sessions

August 25, 1966

While Wonderful was one of the first tracks recorded for Smile, Brian had difficulty realizing his vision for the song because in the space of 12 months Brian recorded Wonderful four times, although only one (the Smiley Smile version) was completed. The Aug 25 recording is the most complete Smile version we have. It appears on the "Nu songs as of 9/3" tape that also included "He Gives Speeches." The GV box set sourced it from a copy of the Dec 66 comp tape after the original mono mixdown tape disappeared from the tape library in 1989. It is not a final mix, however, as after Brian made this mix on Oct 6 he recorded additional backing vocals in December (the "yo de lay ee ooh" yodeling vocals), which never made it into the song. They were included in the BWPS version. A rough mix of the instrumental track with the backing vocals from Dec was on the Linett tape (see below, Smile source material). Musicians included Brian and Dennis. -- Lou Shenk, A SMiLE Primer

"Wonderful" was first recorded very early in the Smile sessions, but as the pattern went, Brian was never truly happy with it. The basic instrumental track -- a simple but lovely chiming harpsichord line (played by Brian), accompanied by bass, French horn, and ukulele -- was recorded on August 25, 1966, Brian's lead vocal was recorded October 6, and the Beach Boys recorded some ultimately unused backing vocals on December 15. This first version of the song, with just Brian and the session band, is the most widely distributed on bootlegs, and it formed the basis for many later edits. -- Ed Howard, Smile: The Definitive Lost Album</a>

There are no instruments specified on the AFM contract, but it's not hard to figure out some of who's playing what. Lyle Ritz is quite the accomplished ukulele player, so it's got to be him on that instrument. Nobody's ever heard of Alan P. Weight and none of the others can play trumpet, so that's probably him. Larry Knechtel is both an accomplished bassist and piano player, but since I've never heard of Brian playing string bass, it's got to be him on bass. Undoubtedly, Brian is on harpsichord. And, if there is a piano, it's likely Dennis. If there isn't a piano, then maybe (as Tobias speculated) Dennis started the session playing drums and Brian dropped them out of the track at some point. -- Brad Elliot, PSML

This four-hour session saw Brian initially attend to some more instrumental work on "Good Vibrations", featuring a rare cameo by Dennis on the organ. With work on the new single now all but finished up, Brian then turned the attention of the musicians present (Lyle Ritz and Ray Pohlman on bass, Alan Weight and Henry B. David on trumpet and Brian himself on harpsicord) to a new ballad titled "Wonderful", composed by Brian and his collaborator Van Dyke Parks. An instrumental backing track was achieved in an indeterminate amount of takes, with only a single mono mix available today. (Potentially this is Master No. 56550; with a labeled duration of 1:55.)

After the backing track is completed, most of the musicians leave the studio and one of the first of many SMiLE-related musical mysteries occurs. Brian, at the harpsichord by himself, proceeds to work through 18 seperate (mostly incomplete) instrumental takes of "Wonderful", not in the song's original key of C#, but rather the key of Bb. Takes 1-3 and 6-8 are played towards the middle region of the keyboard, while the unknown take and 16-18 are played one octave higher and feature a much heavier use of reverb. From the evidence available, it appears that takes 3 and 8 are the only completed lower octave takes, while the unknown take (which would fall somewhere between 9-15) is the only complete one for the high notes.

While the purpose of this solo session is unclear, it's quite apparent that Brian is repeatedly stymied by the action of the rented harpsichord at Western. By take 17, Brian is obviously somewhat angered and barks at Chuck Britz, "Some of these notes are fucked up action. I swear to God, you push them and they don't go!" "That's the best one in town, right there," responds Britz. "Make sure there's nothing touching it." -- Jason Penick, The Beach Boys Recording Guide

October 6, 1966

Brian's lead vocal recorded. Drums and some other instrumentation are recorded for the song.

I don't know what its about... maybe its about nothing... you know you go some places and people think a lot and they have thousands of thoughts a day. Other places you go, they may have one particular thought in mind all day. And I think that those... maybe 'Wonderful' was one of those songs. It was an effort to say nothing. You know, I think a lot of Brian's character is in the simplicity and the economy of his music... that he does a very good job for example in an antiphonal way, and their mixes show that, in spite of the fact that he only can hear in one ear. -- Van Dyke Parks

December 15, 1966

The Beach Boys replacing Brian's backing vocals from October 6. Per Jules Siegel, David Oppenheim and his film crew witnessed a vocal session this night that "went very badly." Vocals for Cabin Essence and Surf's Up were also recorded this night.

There was no confrontation captured on camera, as claimed by Priore in his Smile book. For one thing the band had gone home before Brian recorded "Surf's Up". To be fair, the notes were discovered after the book was published. -- Andrew G. Doe

I confronted (Jules Siegel) with this except of Domenic Priore's new SMILE-Book:

The second half of the documentary was narrated by Oppenheim, who brought his camera down to a Beach Boys vocal session for Surf's Up. Jules Siegel watched in amazement as Mike Love chose this moment, with CBS News cameras rolling, to pick a fight with Brian Wilson, questioning the validity of doing a song such as Surf's Up.

His answer: "I don't recall anything like this at all" -- Jasper, The Smiley Smile Message Board

December 27, 1966

Has anyone ever wondered about the Dec 27 and 28 1966 sessions at Columbia. 5 hrs each on two consecutive days between Christmas and New Years, Brian by himself in the studio for 10hrs working on several SMiLE songs (Heroes, Who Ran The Iron Horse, and Wonderful) and adding some vocals. does this sound like a mixing session for an album "to be released sometime after January 1st" to anyone else? Just curious. -- Been Way Too Long, The Smiley Smile Message Board

January 9, 1967

Session cards indicate that an "insert" was recorded for the original song by Brian.

Except for Brian's harpsichord, this track apparently was recorded at the Jan. 9, 1967 "Wonderful (insert)" session. The match-up between musicians and instruments is just too perfect to be otherwise. These musicians are listed as Hal Blain, Lyle Ritz, Ray Pohlman, and Carol Kaye.

Respectively, that's drums, string bass, guitar or mandolin (I don't know which either), and electric (fuzz) bass. But there's no indication that Brian did the harpsichord track at this session. My guess is he laid it down at one of the two solo vocal sessions he did two weeks previous. -- Brad Elliot, PSML

Second, listen as the track (Vegetables on the Box Set) fades out. Fading in is a piece that sounds remarkably like the "Hey, Baba Ruba" section from the SMILEY SMILE version of "Wonderful"! This was most likely just a case of the producers of the GOOD VIBRATIONS box set simply throwing in an extra snippet they found in the vaults. No indication is given as to when this short piece was recorded, what it's called, or even if it's truly part of "Vega-Tables." Could this be the missing "Wonderful" insert from January 1967? -- David Prokopy, The Prokopy Notes

April 1967

Brian returned again to this song during the Vegetables session for a B side to the new single. It was again left unfinished. On the Smiley Smile SOT Vol. 18 disc the piano instrumental track for the new version is laid down by Brian, take four being the final take. The break in the middle with Brian counting down again is presumably where an "insert" was to be placed. A tantalizingly brief look at some backing vocal overdubs can be heard on the SOT release as well. -- Lou Shenk, A SMiLE Primer

July 12, 1967

The "Smiley Smile" version of the song is recorded.

Available Session Recordings

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Archaeology

Dumb Angel Rarities Volume One

Unsurpassed Masters 16

Unsurpassed Masters 17

Unsurpassed Masters 18

Vigotone SMiLE

Official Releases

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Good Vibrations Box Set

Smiley Smile

Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE