Why Does This Exist?: "Album Tag Song" by Dennis Wilson

Cover illustration by Richard Powers from Arthur Sellings' Telepath, 1962

I admit that I bought into the myth of Beach Boy Dennis Wilson's solo album Pacific Ocean Blue from the first time I heard of it (I was deep in the throes of SMiLE bootleg obsession at the time). So the two-disc reissue of Pacific Ocean Blue, including the unreleased Bambu album, was very exciting for me. I was intrigued by one of the tracks included on the Bambu sessions disc called "Album Tag Song" - the title is simultaneously cryptic and clinically descriptive. What album? Where was this "tag" to go? According to some sources, this song was intended to close Pacific Ocean Blue (after the album's big closing track "End of the Show"), so maybe it doesn't have anything to do with the Bambu project at all. The song's puzzling title and origin aside, it's one of my favorite solo tracks by Dennis Wilson, composed of a single sloppily drawled verse from Wilson bookended by two lengthy sections of SMiLE-style symphonic cantillation. It's an "Album Tag Song" without an album to tag (or tag itself to?), but I like it.

Note: When I put this post up, I linked to the wrong audio file - sorry for any confusion.

"Album Tag Song" by Dennis Wilson