Please Discuss This

I never saw the Caribou Ranch take sheet!

Seems to good to be true. So it most likely is.

Aside from the obvious, most of those titles were recorded elsewhere, that is not at Caribou.

Where was this found? Where/how did it first appear online?

At first glance, it is a very strange list of songs - some covers, many Dennis-penned titles, some unfinished scraps from the past, some unknown.

It feels like whoever listed the tracks may have had them auditioned to him/her, but beyond that, he/she doesn't know too much about them. The most glaring "error" is that most of these are not Brian Wilson songs. However, note that the Dennis songs are all in the second half of the list, suggesting perhaps that the nature of the list changed after the initial header was scrawled on this pad. Perhaps the writer decided to widen the scope.

With that in mind, my best guess would be that it was a list put together by James Guercio as petsite suggests. It looks to be a list of songs waiting in the wings - "songs to work on" as it says. Not necessarily songs that were recorded! More a list of "if we have time, let's get to these." Anyone who has ever written songs knows you carry a stack of them in a mental suitcase for years, waiting for that day when it will click and you'll understand how to finish them, how to actualize them, waiting for the opportunity to produce and release them. And you often make lists like this. If you are working with a producer, said producer might extract such a list out of you (and the group). None of these songs had been released in 1975, and most of them were recorded over the next two years, so it does seem to fit the timeframe. Let's look closer:

A - Sea Cruise - a cover, recorded the very next year, 1976, so not surprising that it may have been on Brian's (or someone's) mental radar as a song of interest at that point
B - Been Way Too Long - one of Brian's that was kicking around since 1967, and a perpetual candidate for many projects ever since at least through 1980.
C - Sherry - one of Brian's started in 1965 and unfinished; would be recorded the next year, 1976, so not surprising that it may have been on the radar
D - unknown, but could it possibly be the same as "Everybody Wants to Live", which was recorded 2 years later?
E - unknown, so...unknown
F - unknown - perhaps it could be the same track as Dennis' unfinished "I Don't Know" from 1967, or it's just a working placeholder title
G/L - two Dennis songs not recorded until after POB. These are surprising...but to my earlier point, for songwriters that carry tons of songs around with them (and Dennis was quite prolific at this time), this would be not at all be unusual
H - He's A Bum - first recorded in 1976 so not surprising it could have been written in 1975
I - unknown, at least to me
J/K - Dennis songs released on POB. These two songs in my mind make a strong (conclusive?) case that this list cannot be later than 1977.
M - This one is the weirdest inclusion. They recorded some Toys for Tots spots in December 1977, which might be irrelevant. I have no idea what to say about it beyond that.

It could also be possible that the list was made in 1976 after the release of 15 Big Ones, or in 1977 after the release of The Beach Boys Love You, for the purpose of OK, what do we work on next? But those scenarios I feel are pretty unlikely, because there are many more obvious candidates that could have been listed.

Given the presence of other POB tracks on the list, could “Tribute” be Farewell My Friend, Dennis’ tribute to Otto Hinsche, Billy’s dad?

The first thing I reacted to was the "3." under "BRIAN." Was there a 1. and a 2.?

My guess is that the list started as the third page of "Brian Wilson Songs To Work On", with pages 1 and 2 now missing. Then, after the first three titles (A, B, and C) were jotted down on this page, it was decided that several of Dennis' songs would also be worked on. This doesn't mean that Brian would've been involved with Dennis's songs, rather it implies a scenario where the Wilsons were at the ranch, and after working on Brian's songs with Brian, the engineering team would then be working with Dennis on his, and so they just added those to the existing list. And the two POB songs were planned remixes for a single release. That's about the only thing that makes sense to me!

I'm not saying they were...I'm just suggesting that as a possible explanation that fits the timeline.