"Rio Grande" is a psychedelic western saga co-written by Brian Wilson and Andy Paley and co-produced by Brian Wilson and Lenny Waronker for Brian Wilson's first solo album. Its modular set of movements hearkened back to the style that Brian Wilson used during the "Good Vibrations"/Smile era with musique concrète. "Rio Grande" was evidence that he could still create brilliant, pictorial landscapes of music similar to Smile whenever he had the freedom, confidence, and courage to do so. It is the longest piece of music in the Brian Wilson catalogue at eight minutes and 12 seconds.

Although it did not contain Van Dyke Parks' imagery or have the out-of-the-box, ambitious enlightenment of the Smile-era work, it gave Brian Wilson the progressive relativity of a genuine comeback album. Mostly, "Rio Grande" unmasked a notion of the old Brian Wilson and helped bridge a gap between the original Smile and the long-awaited, eventual 2004 release of Smile.

Waronker and Seymour Stein, the President of Sire Records, encouraged Wilson to make an impressionistic collage that had made Smile an interesting listening experience. Eugene Landy suggested to Brian to make a suite about the development of an individual. However, it was Lenny Waronker who insinuated to Brian to undertake a more complex, revealing, and provisional composition with an Old West theme inspired by the Howard Hawks film Red River and also the movie Rio Grande. A Hawaiian theme was also being considered at the time but was dropped in favor of a Western theme. Work on "Rio Grande" began on October 1, 1987, which happened at the same time as a Los Angeles earthquake. A similar concept being worked on during the same period involved "Saturday Morning in the City" and "Saturday Evening in the City" about describing an ordinary Californian suburban weekend but was soon dropped. Early titles before "Rio Grande" was chosen included 'Baby, Child, Adult,' 'Child, Adult, and Parent,' and "Life's Suite." The lyrics of "Life's Suite" (pun intended), written by Landy, were brought in at the last moment and were rejected out of hand by Waronker.

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