The Elements (Beach Boys song)

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This article is about a song from the Beach Boys' unreleased album "SMiLE". For the Tom Lehrer song, see The Elements (song).

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The Elements would have been a suite of short sections by The Beach Boys for the abandoned album SMiLE that represented the classical elements (earth, air, fire, and water). Most of this suite was recorded but never finalized in its original form. Brian Wilson resurrected this set for his re-recording of SMiLE.

The first section of the piece was an organ-and-bass driven section (which, in its original Beach Boys recorded form, was labeled as an intro to "Heroes and Villains") to represent the sound of fire engines. Another section was subtitled "Fire", with weird instrumentation to represent fire. It has been said that Wilson was so bothered by a series of fires in the Los Angeles area that were taking place at the time of the original recording that he later suffered a mental breakdown and burnt tapes of the sessions. The musical motif of the "Fire" portion would be re-used for the Smiley Smile track "Fall Breaks and Back to Winter (Woody Woodpecker Symphony)".

Another section would be the "Water Chant", another abandoned section of SMiLE, and the fourth was what became "I Love to Say Da-Da" (aka "In Blue Hawaii").

Brian Wilson has said that the original air section is lost, but "Wind Chimes" is substituted. Earth is represented by "Vega-Tables".