The Beach Boys recorded a myriad of songs, instrumentals, and alternate versions of tracks that have never been officially released. Only recordings that have been reliably confirmed to have existed are listed here. Some of these tracks circulate on
bootlegs, but many of the tapes have been lost since their creation.
This list is ordered chronologically, by recording date, and does not include non-substantial rehearsal tapes or jam sessions recorded by the group. Live recordings are included if there is no studio equivalent. Some tracks listed under certain album subheaders may not have been recorded for that particular album, but are listed as such simply to note the band's then-current album project at the time of recording.
Key
White denotes an unreleased alternate or early version of a released track
Pink denotes a recording that has been reported lost, missing, or out of circulation
Cyan denotes a recording that has been confirmed to still exist
No color denotes a recording that lacks sources on this article to support whether it still exists or not
Missing tapes, presumed lost or erased.[11] These include the reels for sessions held on May 11, December 13, December 19, and December 28, 1966,[11] as well as January 20, January 31, February 24, February 26, and March 15, 1967.[12]
Reported to have existed by Stanley Shapiro, a friend of the Beach Boys that had written songs with Dennis. Dennis had asked engineer
Stephen Desper to set up the tape on a reel-to-reel before Brian ripped it off the playback and yelled "Don't you ever touch that again! That's between me and God!"[18]
Asked in 2016, Desper wrote on a message board, "Never did Dennis and I hear such a song, nor did Brian come barreling into the studio." He described Shapiro's recollection as "replete with imagined gestures and simply put not true."[19]
Evolved into the coda of "Fantasy Is Reality/Bells Of Madness."
According to Alan Boyd, "sounds an awful lot like 'I'm The Pied Piper,' except Brian has overdubbed himslef [sic] a couple of times singing 'Clangin' clangin', dingin' a dangin' and-a clangin' clangin'....' over and over and over again. And again. And again."[32]
Christmas medley featuring the Beach Boys and their children singing as a group. The songs are "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", "O Come All Ye Faithful", "Hark The Herald Angels Sing", and "We Wish You A Merry Christmas".[1]
Intended for Keepin' the Summer Alive, it was cut at a refurbished
Western Studio 3 with Brian as producer. "Little Girl" was later adapted into an original song and renamed "Sunshine" , as Bruce Johnston explains: "Well, 'Sunshine' was originally called 'Little Girl'. And I can't remember who recorded it, probably a Phil Spector record, and so we cut this track and then we decided to write a new song to the track, so we took part of the old song, '
Smoky Places', and whatever Mike and Brian came up with, recorded on the existing track, didn't have enough room because the song was too short, so we tape-copied the track a few times, put 21 splices in the 24-track tape and stretched the song out and came up with 'Sunshine'."[43]
For historical interest, the following is a list of studio outtakes and live recordings that later appeared on Beach Boys compilation albums. It is partially adapted from Andrew Doe[59] and Phillip Lambert.[60]
Some of these releases are currently out of print. California Feeling 2 was a limited-edition CD offered with a 2015 issue of Endless Summer Quarterly, an unofficial Beach Boys fan/collector's magazine. Misc Tracks 1971 and 1972 Release were among several releases (the others not being listed here), most of which were briefly offered online (commonly through Bandcamp, YouTube, and/or AllMusic) and then quickly taken down, to preserve copyright under the 2013 European Union copyright extension legislation.