The Elements: Fire

"Fire" (also known as "The Elements – Part 1" and "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow") is an instrumental by American musician Brian Wilson that he originally composed for the Beach Boys' never-finished album Smile. Named after Catherine O'Leary and the Great Chicago Fire, the track was originally conceptualized as part of "The Elements", a four-part movement based on the four classical elements: Air, Fire, Earth, and Water. Wilson's friends, family, and colleagues later referred to its recording as heralding his period of psychosis and the unraveling of the Smile project.

Wilson produced "Fire" on November 28, 1966 at Gold Star Studios with 15 session musicians, including three bassists, four flutists, and a string sextet. The track was arranged to evoke images of a conflagration and was recorded under unusual conditions. To help set the mood, Wilson instructed everyone in the studio to don a fire helmet, and had a bucket of burning wood placed in the recording space so that the area would smell of smoke.

Within a few days of the session, Wilson was frightened to learn that a nearby building had burned down shortly after the recording was made. He believed that the recording had somehow contributed to the fire and decided to shelve the recording.

In 1967, the band reworked the piece as "Fall Breaks and Back to Winter (W. Woodpecker Symphony)". In 2004, Wilson rerecorded "Fire" under the title "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" for his album Brian Wilson Presents Smile. It earned him his first Grammy Award, winning in the category of Best Rock Instrumental Performance. In 2011, the original Beach Boys recording was released for The Smile Sessions.