This is a wonderful song by Bruce & Terry and I've always wanted to know more about the track - it was apparently recorded 2/15/1966, the same day as That's Not Me (before or after? Bruce and Terry were both at that BB session). But what studio was it recorded at? What musicians play on the track? If anyone in the know could help me out, that would be great.

Brian may have wanted to use the extended bridge all along, but had to trim it down to first release it as a single; and keep in mind that the single was already long enough as it was.

At 3:35, it was the longest song to hit #1 in 1966. The next highest was Paint It Black which was 3:19; and coincidentally, the previous #1 single that was longer than GV was (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction at 3:45.

Most hit singles then were three minutes or less, and had the cut section been included, the song would have been closer to four minutes, which wouldn't have been feasible then. I actually didn't notice how long the song was for the time period until I read about it in Mike's book.

Had SMiLE been properly released back then, the extended bridge probably would have been included on the album version. But instead, the single version was slapped onto Smiley Smile (against Brian's wishes) and it basically became the official version at that point.

This isn't true. It became the official version when Brian created a final mix and released it as a single in 1966. There's no evidence that for Smile, Brian would've gone back to the tapes, included some random backing vocals he didn't use, and edited it back together. It seems he was done with the song

I don't know, there are a couple of moments on the session tape (LTSDD part 2) where the rhythm instrument sounds very electric - on TSS box, disc 4 track 11, at 1:17, there's a specific upstroke that sounds very guitarish, and like it's coming out of an amp. Same goes for 0:28, when the instrument is playing alone. The strumming style and voicings (only a couple notes per chord) do make me think it could be a ukulele though.

Speaking of flutes and Pet Sounds era tracks, I just had a listen to the first Good Vibrations session on UM, and it seems as if there's a quartet of flutes/alto flutes/piccolos on the verse (with one playing the melody, and the other three forming chords around it). However, the sessionography in the Smile book gives Bill Green a credit on contrabass clarinet, which I'm not hearing anywhere. What does the AFM contract say?

Also, the 4/9 session has Arthur C. Smith credited for ocarina and piccolo in the book, but I'm just hearing piccolo throughout the session. I'm guessing ocarina was tried in early rehearsals and not kept?

At some point in that first session, Brian calls out the contra clarinet by name. Maybe he misspoke, or maybe that instrument was replaced by the final take, but the assignment is based on that. What I have down as a tenor flute could well by an alto flute.

As for the 4/9 session - yes, quite possibly.

Another important note on naming conventions - within the Clarinet family now; "contra clarinet" is not really a thing -- there are contra-alto and contrabass clarinets.  Contrabass clarinets are really quite rare, even moreso than bass flutes.  If there is a clarinet lower than a bass clarinet on a BBs record, I'd expect it to be a contra-alto clarinet, which, while still relatively rare, seems more likely to even be manufactured let alone purchase-able at that time.

For a beautiful example, see: https://www.wwbw.com/Selmer-Paris-Model-40-Contra-Alto-Clarinet-620602.wwbw

And as you can see, it costs about the same as a luxury sedan.  So you have to know you're gonna use it before you take out a loan on that!

What do you make of the "contra clarinet" on the 4/9 session? On The Smile Sessions, disc 5, track 2 at 5:40, it plays some very low Bbs and Ebs during the bridge (I can't tell what octave). Then at 6:12 it plays the bass line. Is this firmly in the contra alto range?

Speaking of flutes and Pet Sounds era tracks, I just had a listen to the first Good Vibrations session on UM, and it seems as if there's a quartet of flutes/alto flutes/piccolos on the verse (with one playing the melody, and the other three forming chords around it). However, the sessionography in the Smile book gives Bill Green a credit on contrabass clarinet, which I'm not hearing anywhere. What does the AFM contract say?

Also, the 4/9 session has Arthur C. Smith credited for ocarina and piccolo in the book, but I'm just hearing piccolo throughout the session. I'm guessing ocarina was tried in early rehearsals and not kept?

OK, so the lower flute on Caroline actually does have to be a bass flute--it goes down below the Alto Flute's compass.

So I'm thinking the lineup is:

1 concert flute, 2 altos, and a bass?

In this video of the Caroline backing track, at what time stamp in the track do you hear the low note that suggests it's lower than an alto flute?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RypKTz1Kmpg

If you sing the lyrics to the melody at the end that the flutes play, the "did" in "where did your long hair go" is a middle C on the lowest flute and should be the lowest note an alto flute can play, but the melody goes much lower (to at least an F3, can't tell if the low Db is even played on the bass flute).