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To some an unfinished masterpiece, to others just a masterpiece, the Beach Boys' “Heroes and Villains” was to be the centerpiece of the abandoned Smile album. Consumed by the prospect of overtopping the success of “Good Vibrations” and besting the Beatles, Brian Wilson dragged the band through a grueling 20 session recording process. Wilson’s chosen lyricist, the famed Van Dyke Parks, was not popular with the other members of the band. During one studio session, Mike Love reportedly berated Parks for his cryptic lyrics, while Brian Wilson cowered in the booth.
Written by Wilson and Parks, they envisioned the song as an Old West-themed musical comedy that would surpass the recording and artistic achievements of "Good Vibrations". The version that was released as a single and on the down scaled album, "Smiley Smile", sounds extremely rough and incomplete, but it still managed to peak at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100, a testament to the strength of the Beach Boys brand at the time. But the relatively poor showing compared to their #1 smash “Good Vibrations” put the final nail in the coffin of Smile; Wilson wouldn’t release a completed arrangement of the album until 2004.
Parks characterized the song as "historically reflective" and a "visual effort" that was meant to match the ballads of Marty Robbins. He said the lyrics were based on the early history of California, including references to the involvement of the Spanish and American Indians. Some accounts suggest that the song developed partly from a Wilson reworking of the standard "You Are My Sunshine". Early versions included sections with lyrics about farm animals ("Barnyard") and physical health ("I'm in Great Shape").
"Heroes and Villains" had the most complex making of any song in the band's history. Recording spanned virtually the entire Smile sessions, as Wilson experimented with at least a dozen versions of the track, some of which ranged in length from six to eight minutes. Wilson discarded almost everything that was recorded, with expenses totaling around $40,000 (equivalent to $330,000 in 2021). Most of the final composite was produced in three days at his makeshift home studio. The chorus featured a theme that was cannibalized from another Smile track, "Do You Like Worms?".
Wilson's bandmates and associates later voiced dissatisfaction with the released version, believing that the mix was vastly inferior to his earlier, lengthier edits. Commentators blame the record's failure on the esoteric lyrics, the "muddy" sound quality, and the late timing of the release. It remains one of the lesser-known songs in the Beach Boys' catalog. For Wilson, the single's failure came to serve as a pivotal point in his psychological decline, and he adopted the song title as a term for his auditory hallucinations. In 2004, Wilson remade the song and its related pieces for Brian Wilson Presents Smile. In 2011, The Smile Sessions was released with an entire disc devoted to the song's original recording sessions.
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