Impressions From the Premiere of Brian Wilson's Smile by Peter Reum

Impressions From the Premiere of Brian Wilson's Smile by Peter Reum

It was with a certain trepidation that as I flew into
London for Smile's premiere. I had no doubt the Band
and Brian would know their stuff. I had no question
that I had heard most of the work. My questions
entering the hall were more emotional than
intellectual....

Would Smile in its final form live up to the
impossible reputation it built up to in its unreleased
state?

How would Brian himself feel about its completion?

Would Van Dyke be there and would he be satisfied with
the way it had been finished?

Would I understand Smile....would it reach out and
draw me in and move me?

Is the live form of musical presentation the best way
to present Smile, given Brian's historical ups and
downs in live performance?

What is Smile really about? And what about the
unfinished songs.....

To be present that night was truly a gift from God,
and I need to publically thank David Leaf and Dave
McHarry for making it possible. 

Many years ago I had been quoted as saying Smile began
with a spiritual invocation...Prayer...when it
happened, the impact was immediate...I shivered
involuntarily amd thought "My God, it's really
happening!" The next 45 minutes were really very
clearly a peak experience of my musical life. I tried
to write down what was being performed in sequence and
at the same time take in all of the music. It quickly
became apparent to me that Smile was a series of fully
realized songs arranged in movements with connecting
themes!

Having sung in  my community choir for a few years, I
realized that what I was hearing was an incredible
amalgam of classical forms combining elements of a
symphony, an operetta, and musical theater. The
closest form was a cantata.... but, aren't cantatas
usually spiritual in nature...of course!!! Brian's
Teenage Symphony to God. All of these thoughts ran
through my head during the First Movement as I heard
the familiar, yet unfamiliar sounds flow through me
into the hall.

Heroes, beautiful in its final Smile form, followed by
the booming tympani of Roll, Plymouth Rock, using
those familiar but unheard lyrics from so long ago.
Barnyard, finally performed in its final form....truly
bringing a Smile, no a belly laugh! God shakng His
head in His role as The Old Master Painter, lamenting
the destruction of His Creation, His Sunshine, by
unthinking Europeans as they roll across North
America.  The beauty of Cabinessence conjuring up my
memories of my own time living on the American
Prairie....quiet mornings listening to songbirds at
sunrise, booming thunderheads spawning tornados, corn
baking in ongoing draughts on land not meant for
farming. Thinking of how perfect that land must have
been before the plow. Then it ended...

All of a sudden I was hearing the familiar chords of
Wonderful, that incredible song evoking thoughts of
life beginning, of innocence begotten, of innocent
peoples before the onslaught of "civilization"....
sadness and exhiliration. I was taken back to the
memory of the birth of my own daughters..."One, maybe
not one" .....as humans we are interdependent, not
meant to live alone! Providence has given us the
ability in our youth to dream, to conceive, to bring
our conceptions into reality. We are in charge of our
destiny...or so we think! We will change the world in
our generation. In our lifetime,  the world will be a
better place! Generation after generation has had
these thoughts...we inherit the world from our fathers
and mothers and pass it along to our sons and our
daughters. The Child truly is Father to the Man. In
Ecclesiastes, a world weary Solomon says "all is
vanity, there is nothing new under the sun." As we age
we see what we have built turning ramshackle and
eventually into dust. The Eternal can ony be touched
by looking inside ourselves. Wealth, beauty, human
concerns, all is vanity. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.
On a deeper level, we are at the end of our lives
broken, and enfeebled, dependent upon the good will of
our God and our children to care for us and ease into
our later life. What hope is there? We must be as
children to touch the Eternal, which in the end is our
only hope. We can only pray to God above that we have
taught our children well and that they will be better
stewards of the Earth than we were. The cycle begins
again, repeatedly through the ages, generation after
generation. Hey, waitaminute! I thought Surfs Up is
supposed to end Smile!

All of a sudden I'm listening to a new Movement, a
flourish from Time to Get Alone segueing into I'm in
Great Shape. I am immediately thrown off course into
unfamiliar territory. We move into I Wanna Be Around,
followed by Vegetables. Once again I am brought to a
belly laugh...the land bears fruit, as we reap the
fruit of the land we have broken with the plow.
Meanwhile, the people who remember how it was before
the plow grieve, grieve deeply, hearts broken
forevermore. In time,  the merchants, the pirates, the
entrepreneurs arrive, the robber barons....when we
need a change we'll head for Dodge City or Virginia
City, where we can have a good time and blow off a
little steam..... in the town of the Heroes and
Villains, where Margarita dances, keeping the spirits
high, and where my children will grow healthy, wealthy
and wise. Change will surely come, but before the
tornado of change, there is usually an unearthly calm.
Wind Chimes barely move and we are lulled into false
calm. Civilization arrives, the swarms of people
invade our tranquil island of innocence, and we are as
if accosted by locusts. People in their greed, in
their unthinking rush to riches, can seem like a
prairie fire or a plague of locusts, sweeping away
everything, both the good and the bad. A new
generation comes...all is torn down and built up
again. Where can we find refuge from this insanity? In
a tranquil pool, immersed...we must reclaim our
innocence lost, our Paradise Lost. We can do this by
looking inside ourselves and touching the Eternal. In
the end, all is vanity, and only our soul and our
relationship to God remains. God,  waiting to bring us
home. Before we leave this life, we'd better
pray...for ourselves, for our families, and for our
world. God Vibrations...that He will restore what has
been lost, reclaim what has been snatched away,
restore what has been ruined,  reunite us with Him for
all time, and protect our childrens' childrens'
children.
 
I rose to my feet, moved to tears by the power of this
meditation on the settling of North America as
filtered through the prism of Ecclesiastes. Watching
and listening to Brian throughout the show, I heard
and saw him pass through nervousness, hypervigilance,
exhilaration, happiness, a feeling of being loved,
relief, being overwhelmed, and finally true fatigue.
In the end, his emotions had mirrored those he wrote
about in Smile. In the end, it was too much for him to
take in, as people applauded for 5 minutes before he
finally cut them off and introduced Van Dyke.

I had watched Van Dyke throughout the show, as he was
seated about ten seats down the same aisle in which I
was seated. I saw him experience the same feelings as
Brian, but from a spectator's perspective. He would
physically move in his seat, leaning forward as if to
impart his own energy to the people on stage as his
beautiul and evocative lyrics spilled forth in Brian's
cascade of sound. If Brian was the mother giving birth
to this baby called Smile, then Van Dyke was the
nervous father, concerned, pacing back and forth
waiting for the magic moment, all the while never
leaving his seat, except to stand and appaud each
stage in this incredible birth experience.

When it was over, he charged down front and onto the
stage, proudly receiving the accolades from the
audience... as a father who has brought a baby into
the world so richly deserves. Both composers raised
ther hands over their heads, triumphant. Their baby,
Smile, was finally born after the longest pregnancy in
musical history.

The tremendous musicians that brought forth this work
were also exhilarated. They knew, as well as the
audience,that they had been part of a once in a
lifetime peak musical experience. Later, at the hotel
bar, several of them relaxed and were quietly content,
justly proud of their role in bringng forth this most
complicated, yet elegant musical work.

Smile. The live performance was a brilliant stroke,
allowing Brian to experience first hand the love and
adulaton he was denied all those years by not
performing and seeing and feeling the love audiences
have showered upon those who performed his music
around the world for so long. Smile is truly a piece
of music first and formeost meant to be experienced
using human senses-sight, sound, and touch.  It is a
work to be savored in person first, allowing ourselves
to laugh, cry, soar, dive, float, and finally land
safely back in our seats, thrilled by the sensory
overload we have absorbed.

Nobody asked God what He thought of Smile. After all,
it was written to Him... so I took a few minutes that
night and sat with my Bible before turning in for bed
and after my evening prayer routine. The Spirit led me
to a verse that positively put chills up my spine. In
Matthew, I read "Well done, good and faithful son. You
were faithul with a few things, so I will put you in
charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your
Father." 

Copyright 2004 by Peter Reum-All Rights Reserved