What Can The Matter Be?

[bluesno1fann]

I remember checking the Sunflower Wikipedia page not too long ago, and it said that one of the songs from the early sessions was called "What Can The Matter Be?". I just checked the same page today, and the song is not listed anymore for some reason. So I went to Bellagio, and it was indeed a song that was worked on in early 1969:

http://esquarterly.com/bellagio/gigs69.html

But aside from that, there seems to be no info whatsoever about this song. I've been searching around the web, to no avail. I even searched here, and there hasn't been any discussions on it as far as I know.

It'd be great to find out for example who wrote the song, what the song's like, it's genre, and all that. Anyone have any info?

[Niko]

It's a Dennis song as far as I know. There has been some discussion on it.

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php?topic=5504.30

It seems no one has heard it, whatever it is.

[c-man]

It's a Dennis song as far as I know. There has been some discussion on it.

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php?topic=5504.30

It seems no one has heard it, whatever it is.

Well, it's SPECULATED to be a Dennis song, but it could in fact be written by any of The Beach Boys, or maybe even a non-Beach Boy. There's an AFM contract, which I have a copy of, and all of The Beach Boys are named on the contract, except Brian. Even Mike is named, which is rare for that era - but no Brian. The contractor is Jon Parks, who contracted most of Dennis' sessions during that time, hence the speculation that it's a DW track, but Parks also contracted Al's "Loop de Loop" sessions. Arranger/horn player Roger Neumann is the only outside musician listed - he worked extensively with Dennis during the late '60s, and also Al -but not Brian, to my knowledge.

[retrokid67]

this is completely new to me, this band never runs out of surprises!  hopefully one day we'll find this song on another compilation album.

[superunison]

This title has always stuck in my head and I thought maybe I'd see it on the Feel Flows set. Anyways, I was digging around on Spotify this week and came across this track by The Poppy Family (Terry Jacks' group), clearly based on the nursery rhyme but totally its own thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_7GpQCF3CQ

The timeline kind of fits with Seasons in the Sun? Assuming the BBs had some sort of friendship with Terry Jacks, I forget... Al did Don't Fight The Sea.... Any thoughts on this? Was the track ever found? I think Alan or Mark seemed surprised at the time to see it in the session logs in a thread from years ago, saying they hadn't heard it....

Can't imagine the Boys singing something as explicit as the "smoking pot" line, but I could see them reworking that line, or maybe it was just a throwaway studio jam based on the track that didn't go any further?