Recently, a photo has emerged which might revise all previous notions about the concept of Smile! The photo is an enlarged segment taken from photos shot at one of Mike Loves homes by a real estate agent. The agent was taking the photos for prospective house buyers after Mike's bankruptcy. One of Mike's walk-in closets just happened to be full of tapes. The photos were forgotten once the house sale was finalized, until an employee was cleaning out files at the real estate agent's office. He happened to be a music fan (and SMiLE fanatic) and found the photos showing Mike's memorabilia at home fascinating. When he enlarged the closet photo on his computer, he was amazed at the song titles!

*Evidently, Mike Love was coming up with "alternate" lyrics for Van Dykes often cerebral ones. Mike must have considered that while the Americana theme is workable, it must be in a language that the normal fan can understand. One night while watching a corny western on late night TV, Mike hit upon an idea! "What about the Settlers of the old west? That's something that everybody can relate to!" Mike started writing down all the simple themes he could think of: smallpox, farmyard accidents, shotgun weddings, old time religion, fishing, Indians, quilting, etc.

After a week of fine-tuning his lyrics, Mike showed them to Brian in December of 1966. Mike thought, "hell, I helped with the lyrics for 'Good Vibrations' and look how well that sold!" Unfortunately, Brian had just delivered his handwritten memo to Capitol, finalizing the SMiLE album lineup. Mike was furious, the band was divided and SMiLE was cancelled the following year…

Some of Mike's SMiLE titles included:

Love to say Ma Ma Do You Really Like Worms?
Do You Like Fishing?
I'm In Bad Shape (the smallpox suite)
Red Meat & Vegetables
Settlers' and Injuns
Barnyard Accident (with an ax)
QuiltingEssence
Old Masterful Preacher (follows Prayer)
Church Chimes (at my shotgun wedding)

*Note: this is based on pure speculation, using only the recently found song lyrics as a basis for conjecture!