Top 10 songs you wish were completed

[Menace Wilson]

I've always thought that the Lonely Days fragment was stunning.  Other bands would kill for leftovers like that...   

[punkinhead]

*not me, didn't think it was finished

[punkinhead]

sadly, the demo for Sail Plane Song is far superior than the finished cut of Loop De Loop

[Jonas]

sadly, the demo for Sail Plane Song is far superior than the finished cut of Loop De Loop

Agreed, I thought I made it pretty evident with the little guy falling face first into the floor. LdL is over produced and kind of boring. Sail Plane Song has a lot of character, imo!

[Sheriff John Stone]

Odd... most odd... the way people nominate songs that are manifestly completed ("Michael Rowed The Boat Ashore", or "(Wouldn't It be Nice To) Live Again"*), or were always intended as demos ("Sail Plane Song" - which was also finished - it's called "Loop De Loop").

Maybe people don't consider certain songs "completed" until they're released. It's quite common, especially with the Beach Boys, to add a couple of overdubs, add/subtract a verse, along with a final/different mix, and even the specific mastering, before the song is ultimately made available. And that doesn't even include the changing of the song titles themselves.

[Mr. Cohen]

1. "Do You Dig Worms?" - The lyrics were supposedly found,  but I wonder if the lyrics weren't recorded back in '66 because Brian had a new idea for the song based off of the pun. "Do You Dig Worms?" is a non sequitur following the lyrics we know the song for now. The phrase 'do you dig worms?', besides being a play on words on the phrase 'Plymouth rock, roll over' (and see the worms and dirt underneath the rock), gives the song a more childlike bent, like kids digging up dirt in their backyard.  You could do the same thing with the phrase 'who ran the iron horse?', which makes me think sometimes of a kid in a rocking horse pretending that he's a cowboy. A bicycle rider is also a childish image. For all of the talk about SMiLE being anti-imperialist by Van Dyke Parks or Brian at the time, only "Cabinessence" and "Roll Plymouth Rock" directly comment on that theme. Could it be that Brian flip-flopped on how serious the anti-imperialist undertones of "Cabinessence" and "Do You Dig Worms?" should be? For whatever reason he never recorded , as far as we know, the relatively simple verses for "Do You Dig Worms?", but he did go through the trouble of recording the nonsense Hawaiian syllable chants. Take that for what you will. Anyway,  , the point of this was that I wish there was a completed '66 version, more than for any other SMiLE song.
2. "Child is Father of the Man"
3. "Old Man River"
4. "Lonely Days"
5. Whatever Brian was working on in Miami right before L.A. was recorded that he abandoned after a couple of studio sessions. People who were there said that the recordings were very ambitious for Brian at the time.
6. "That Special Feeling"
7. "They're Marching Along/Little Children". I know he completed it for BW88, but I wish there was a BB version, and the BW88 version doesn't live up to the song's promise, IMO.
8. "Honey Get Home". It was originally supposed to close Wild Honey. Another Wild Honey original would've been cool.
9. Cows In The Pasture. Brian Wilson's 1970 country album that he never finished. It probably wasn't that good, but still, Brian Wilson doing a country album in 1970 just sounds crazy enough that I want to hear it.
10. "Lucy Jones"/"Rooftop Harry" (yeah, I cheated) - To early to mid 70s Brian Wilson songs, and we could always use more early to mid 70s Brian Wilson songs.

[Chris Brown]

Mine are mostly things that others have mentioned...

1.  Do You Like Worms (1966)
2.  Child Is Father of the Man (1966)
3.  Surf's Up (1966)
4.  The Elements (1966)
5.  Sherry/Sandy She Needs Me (like Wrightfan said, only with 1965 Brian)
6.  Barbara
7.  Thank Him
8.  Paley songs with the Beach Boys' voices
9.  Can't Wait Too Long

I really can't think of a tenth, but those would be good enough for me.