"Look" (also known as "I Ran" and "Untitled Song #1") is an incomplete musical piece that was composed by American musician

Brian Wilson Brian Douglas Wilson (June 20, 1942 – June 11, 2025) was an American musician, songwriter, singer and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys. Often Brian Wilson is a genius, called a genius for his novel approaches to pop compositio ...

for

the Beach Boys The Beach Boys are an American Rock music, rock band formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian Wilson, Brian, Dennis Wilson, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and their f ...

' aborted ''

Smile A smile is a facial expression formed primarily by flexing the muscles at the sides of the mouth. Some smiles include a contraction of the muscles at the corner of the eyes, an action known as a Duchenne smile. Among humans, a smile expresses d ...

'' album. Wilson produced the backing track at the start of the ''Smile'' sessions in August 1966. It is theorized that a missing session tape may have contained a vocal track that he recorded with his bandmates in October. In 2004, Wilson rerecorded the track as "Song for Children", with new lyrics written by

Van Dyke Parks Van Dyke Parks (born January 3, 1943) is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, arranger, record producer, singer, and former Warner Bros. Records executive whose work encompasses orchestral pop, elaborate recording experiments, Ame ...

, for his album ''

Brian Wilson Presents Smile ''Brian Wilson Presents Smile'' (also referred to as ''Smile'' or the abbreviation ''BWPS'') is the fifth studio album by American musician Brian Wilson, released on September 28, 2004 on Nonesuch. It features all-new recordings of music that ...

'', where it segues between the songs " Wonderful" and "

Child Is Father of the Man "Child Is Father of the Man" is a song by American rock band the Beach Boys that was written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks. It was originally recorded for the band's never-finished album ''Smile''. In 2004, Wilson rerecorded the song for '' ...

". The 2011 compilation ''

The Smile Sessions ''The Smile Sessions'' is a compilation album and box set recorded by the American rock band the Beach Boys, released on October 31, 2011, by Capitol Records. The set is the follow-up to ''The Pet Sounds Sessions'' (1997), this time focusing on ...

'' included a version of the original Beach Boys recording with additional vocals sampled from their 1971 song " Surf's Up".

Background

"Look" was one of the earliest pieces recorded during the ''

'' sessions. Musicologist Philip Lambert speculated that some parts of the music possibly evolved from one of the riffs in "

Good Vibrations "Good Vibrations" is a song by the American rock music, rock band the Beach Boys, produced and composed by Brian Wilson with lyrics by Mike Love. Released as a single on October 10, 1966, it achieved immediate critical and commercial success, ...

Recording

The instrumental track for "Look" was recorded on August 12, 1966 at Western studio. It was titled "Look" on the tape box, but on the AFM sheet, it was logged as "Untitled Song #1" with a runtime of 2:16. The instrumentation featured upright bass, vibraphones, keyboard, French horn, guitars, organs, trombone and woodwind. Take 20 was marked as best.

Capitol Records Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007), and simply known as Capitol, is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-base ...

documentation suggests that, on October 13, all six Beach Boys were involved in a vocal overdubbing session for the track, now logged as "I Ran (Formerly Untitled Song #1)" with a 3:10 runtime. Writing in ''

'' liner notes, Craig Slowinski said that "a tape from that session has not turned up in a search of the Capitol and BRI vaults." In November, journalist Tom Nolan wrote about Wilson in ''The Los Angeles Times West'':

"Song for Children"

Wilson rerecorded "Look" as "Song for Children" for his 2004 version of ''Smile''. According to

Darian Sahanaja Darian Sahanaja (born May 20, 1963) is an American singer, songwriter, keyboardist, and arranger who is best known for co-founding Wondermints in 1992 and having played with Brian Wilson's supporting band since 1999. He has also performed alongs ...

, during the album's assembly, "I was moving things around in

Pro Tools Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed and released by Avid Technology (formerly Digidesign) for Microsoft Windows and macOS. It is used for music creation and production, sound for picture (sound design, audio post-productio ...

, putting things together to show Brian. I dropped ' Wonderful' next to 'Look', and we listened to it. Brian's eyes lit up, and he said 'That's ''it''! That's how we'll do it!'" After

joined the project, "Look" was renamed to "Song for Children", and Parks provided lyrics to further establish connections with other tracks on the album, especially those within the second

movement Movement may refer to: Generic uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Movement (sign language), a hand movement when signing * Motion, commonly referred to as movement * Movement (music), a division of a larger co ...

. The track serves as the link between "Wonderful" and "

", thus being the second track of the album's second movement. In this version, the "Twelfth Street Rag" section is not performed.

Personnel

Per band archivist Craig Slowinski. The Beach Boys *

Carl Wilson Carl Dean Wilson (December 21, 1946 – February 6, 1998) was an American musician, singer, and songwriter who co-founded the Beach Boys. He was their lead guitarist, the youngest sibling of bandmates Brian Wilson, Brian and Dennis Wilson, ...

– vocals (sampled from a 1971 recording for ''

'') Session musicians (later known as " the Wrecking Crew") *

Hal Blaine Hal Blaine (born Harold Simon Belsky; February 5, 1929 – March 11, 2019) was an American drummer and session musician, thought to be among the most recorded studio drummers in the music industry, claiming over 35,000 sessions and 6,000 singles. ...

– drums * Jimmy Bond – upright bass * Frank Capp – bongos, tambourine,

glockenspiel The glockenspiel ( ; or , : bells and : play) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a Musical keyboard, keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the v ...

* Ray Caton – trumpet * Dick Hyde – tuba * George Hyde –

French horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most o ...

Barney Kessel Barney Kessel (October 17, 1923 – May 6, 2004) was an American jazz guitarist. Known in particular for his knowledge of chords and inversions and chord-based melodies, he was a member of many prominent jazz groups as well as a "first call" gu ...

– 12-string electric guitar *

Larry Knechtel Lawrence William Knechtel (August 4, 1940 – August 20, 2009) was an American keyboard player and bassist who was a member of the Wrecking Crew, a collection of Los Angeles–based session musicians who worked with such renowned artists as Sim ...

– harpsichord * Al De Lory – grand piano * Jay Migliori – flute * Bill Pitman – Danelectro fuzz bass * Ray Pohlman – Fender bass

References

External links

* {{authority control 2011 songs 1960s instrumentals The Beach Boys songs Song recordings produced by Brian Wilson Songs written by Brian Wilson Songs released posthumously Songs written by Van Dyke Parks