Hi Guitarfool, when I said 'surprising' I didn't mean to imply that Vosse's two accounts were - either deliberately or accidentally - likely to be inaccurate, or should be held to a higher degree of scrutiny than other accounts. Simply that in a three year window it's quite possible for memories to fade or alter, and yet where both 'Teen Set' and 'Fusion' relate the same incident, the details related in them chime very closely. The recording/mixing of the 'Wind Chimes' tag and the origin of the past-tense 'You Are My Sunshine' spring particularly to mind. (Also, as I wrote above, that the dates given in the 'Teen Set' article in particular, despite its origins as a 'puff piece' for the Capitol mag, prove right on-the-money when cross-referenced with the recorded chronology.) So I think, in fact, we're making the same point here.
I agree it's a shame Vosse hasn't written/said more on the subject, as his two substantive articles provide, for my money, the most in-depth, specific, and yes, consistent accounts of the late '66 period, particularly as regard the writing and recording aspects of SMiLE. (Siegel's article provides a useful larger context, as well as making a case for Brian's emotional and creative state at the time, but in terms of the songs/recording really only goes into any depth on 'Fire' and 'Surf's Up'. Anderle and Williams' is a revealing but comparatively freeform trawl through Anderle's thoughts on his relationship with Brian.)
It's good to excerpt by song, yes, but at the same time I think a reference where the articles are presented verbatim as they appeared may be just as if not more valuable in order to have the original context that anyone can see for reference, especially if these words start getting parsed and pulled out of context as so often has happened.
I might not be understanding you here, but one of the reasons for the collation was to provide a different prism through which to view the differing accounts of the songs and, to an extent, the development of the album. (I could also have done sections on, 'where the project started to falter' and 'Brian's relationship with the Boys/Murray', etc, but I feel these discussions have been a) well-covered on the Board, often with reference to the articles above and b) were less appropriate to apply the 'oral history' approach to than the development and recording of, say, 'Heroes and Villains' or 'Surf's Up'.)
I absolutely concur that a full reading of each article, with the observations presented in context, is crucial - and, in fact, rather assumed that's what LLVS is for, and had been employed as such by many of those here. For those who don't own that tome, all of the articles I extracted and excerpted in the text above from are easily available online, some of them as scans on this very board. Mujan posted some useful links to these pieces early on in this thread, in fact.
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