Yet another great SMiLE mystery, what exactly is/was "I'm In Great Shape"? Originally conceived as a section of "Heroes and Villains" and tracked on October 27th, 1966, by January 1967 it seemed to have been promoted to its own self-contained track according to the memo of the SMiLE tracklist submitted to Capitol Records. This is supported by Brian recording the "Bicycle Rider" chorus on the 5th and then "In The Cantina" section on February 7th, sections that replaced "I'm in Great Shape" in "Heroes and Villains". Van Dyke Parks has also stated that Brian put the song's concept in "another place".
The problem is, then, that "I'm In Great Shape" is less than a minute long with takes ranging from 30 to 45 seconds. Was there more to it? Or was that it? We have no direct evidence that it was, or even what Brian's intentions were for it outside of "Heroes and Villains". We only have a few clues, with the first being that "Friday Night"/"I Wanna Be Around" was labeled "Great Shape" on its tapebox; was this an engineer's error or indicative that that segment was meant for "I'm in Great Shape"?
Another clue is the possible existence of a "Barnyard Suite". In the mid 1970s, Brian had this to say:
"[It] was going to be four songs—in four short pieces—combined together, but we never finished that one. We got into something else."
Was "I'm In Great Shape" this "Barnyard Suite"? Maybe, but that creates more questions: what else was included in this "Barnyard Suite", something that has absolutely no primary source that corroborates its actual existence? Unfortunately, the Landy-controlled era of Brian Wilson is not necessarily a reliable source, and it's possible that Brian had misremembered in the first place, confusing the Barnyard Suite with "The Elements" or possibly even the early constructions of “Heroes and Villains”.
The final clue—honestly a bit of stretch—was that session logs state that vocals were recorded for "I'm In Great Shape" on October 17th (yes, ten days before the backing track was recorded!). Although this master tape has never been found, it has been speculated that what was actually recorded was the early 'Cornucopia' version of "Vege-Tables" (more on that later). With the ‘healthy’ association between vegetables and being in great shape, it is anyone's guess what "I'm In Great Shape" actually was.
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