I'm a fan of the description Brian coined, 'psychedelicate'.

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It is kind of interesting, though, that the Beach Boys were apparently at least somewhat open to recording songs whose origin was from outside the group, with two Don Goldberg songs ("Sweet and Bitter" & "In the Country") and a Rick Henn song ("Won't You Tell Me") at least attempted (to one extent or another) by the Beach Boys around that time. Perhaps that made it easier for all of them to accept the idea of Blondie & Ricky contributing songs to C&TP and becoming members of the band.

I'd add Seasons in the Sun to that category, they even let Terry Jacks produce it!

Not disagreeing with anything you said, just worth noting that Out in the Country is primarily a Brian song, so it's a little different to those others.

To Carl and anyone other than Brian reviewing the Dada tapes in the 70s, that's just Cool Cool Water with 'Love to Say Dada' written on the box. Only three weeks later when the group were introduced to it it'd actually already turned into Cool Cool Water. That's probably why that myth started.

The "truck driving man" lyrics are definitely Van Dyke Parks - whatever the prayer comment's all about, it's not Dennis writing something for Cabin Essence.

I think there are some really interesting implications in the April '67 Wonderful. The signs all point to that reworked Child section being briefly intended as its bridge, which would mean at different times Brian thought to recycle material from Child into both Wonderful and Surf's Up, and in some way made a connection between those things in his head all the way back then (even if suites with transitions was far off in the future).

BWPS didn't exactly find natural key links though, it had to add modulations or invent new material to make those songs segue together. Wonderful into Look is the exception, and that's only if you're playing it through in an altered way, not trying to do something with the original recordings.

Do we know for sure when Blondie's vocal was added to "It's A New Day"? While true he wasn't an official Beach Boy until early '72, and the track was cut in the summer of '71, isn't it possible Dennis hired him to sing it anyway, since it was being pitched as a commercial jingle?

Were the Flame in the US around then and is it known when they were recording their second LP with Carl? I'm wobbly on my Flame timeline.

Howie said on here once that Blondie told him his 'audition' BB recording was playing bass on Student Demonstration Time (is there a session tape to verify that?), which could set a precedent for doing other studio things before joining the group.

apologies for not getting things right.

Don't worry! We're not all suffering from terminal Smile Brain!

Also: "My vega-tables" - The Elements came from a conversation with Van Dyke about the concept rather than anything written down" is fascinating. Is this from a convo you had with the man himself, or another text? If that's okay to ask

That's from Cam Mott talking to the Frank over the phone years ago, hope he won't mind me sharing what he wrote down:

Frank was supplied with lyrics of the songs-in-progress one at a time. Sometimes Van Dyke gave him the lyrics over the phone and sometimes they were handwritten, once on the back of sheet music for one Van’s brother Carson’s song ("Cab Driver"? He didn't say or I didn't note it.) In the case of “ ‘My Vega-tables’ the Elements”, Frank was not really given lyrics but Van Dyke discussed what they were trying to achieve conceptually with an emphasis on natural and healthy food, the “snapshot” is of a body of water.

On the other hand, just to hedge my bets, Salty makes an extremely good point in saying:

It wasn't me who said that

Reporter confusing Cabin Essence for Child if Dennis played or mentioned both sounds plausible to me, that's the way I've always read it. Of course the "this is the prayer I'm working on for it" comment is just bizarre without context in either scenario.

I believe those Worms lyrics were known about in some capacity from a 1997 issue of ESQ, if not even earlier. I don't think they were fully transcribed. As far as I know they had access to Frank's original lyric sheets, handwritten by himself and Van, which only included the songs he did illustrations for - Heroes and Villains, Surf's Up, Do You Like Worms, Cabin Essence. "My vega-tables" - The Elements came from a conversation with Van Dyke about the concept rather than anything written down.

There ain't much in the Inside Pop reel notes to support anything about Child lyrics, it just says:

1. hands to face     CR  angle
     can't see hands  pan to hands in dark
   child Is the Father of man  

2.  Heroes & Villains plays
        Vandyke Parks has been working on lyrics
        sings open country song

Not that it matters, but the group vocals it describes them working on appear to be the Wonderful yodelling, the Cabin Essence verse doings and re-recording the 'iron horse' chant, no Surf's Up 'til Brian does it alone.

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