The recording of ''Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake'' spanned approximately five months, with most of the work done in early1968 at
Olympic Studios in
Barnes, London. The earliest recording that may have been aimed toward inclusion on the album was a track entitled "Call It Something Nice", recorded on 21 October 1967 at Olympic. The song itself was an uncharacteristically slow and heavy number with a doleful, contemplative lyric that presaged the group's eventual move toward the harder, more rock-oriented sound of later songs like "Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am" and Steve Marriott's work with his next group,
Humble Pie. The track did not ultimately appear on the album, however, eventually only seeing release on the posthumous compilation
The Autumn Stone more than two years later in November 1969. Recording continued through the remainder of 1967, with a session in November that yielded the outwardly more whimsical "I Feel Much Better" (which saw prompt release in December as the b-side of the band's "
Tin Soldier" UK single), and another session in December backing Immediate labelmate
P.P. Arnold on her solo single, the Marriott/Lane song "(If You Think You're) Groovy". Other versions of the track were cut, including the Small Faces' own take with Steve Marriott on solo lead vocal which was earmarked for their forthcoming album, but this version was ultimately left unreleased and is now considered to be lost. After the group returned from their ill-fated
tour of Oceania with
the Who in January 1968, recording sessions for the album began in earnest through February and March at Olympic, with
Glyn Johns at the recording desk. Recording began on two tracks intended for a future single, but ultimately not released in this format: another Marriott/Lane original, "Rollin' Over" (initially titled "Bun in the Oven") was the projected A-side, with a cover version of "
Every Little Bit Hurts", as the B-side. Written by
Ed Cobb and made famous by
Brenda Holloway, the latter track - a slow, soulful ballad - features Marriott on piano instead of his usual guitar, and
Ian McLagan on Hammond organ. This track was not released at the time and did not officially appear until the early 1990s, although a longer live version would appear on
The Autumn Stone in 1969. "Rollin' Over" - another heavy rock workout - would be worked on further however, with Marriott tracking two attempts at a new lead vocal - one take appearing on the mono single release and the other on the stereo album release. Marriott also duets with himself on the verses, singing both harmonies. The mono version of "Rollin' Over" would later be released as the b-side of the "
Lazy Sunday" single in the UK, while the stereo version found itself incorporated into the musical suite on side two of the LP. At some point during the sessions the group also cut a cover version of
the Ronettes' "
Be My Baby" - a track which, in contemporary interviews in the UK music press preceding the LP's release, was declared by Marriott to be included on side one. Although an early version of the LP that included this track was alleged to exist in acetate form, by the time of the LP's release in May the track had been excised and remained unreleased. Like the band's own version of "If You Think You're Groovy", it is now thought to be lost. One of the few songs not recorded at Olympic Studios for the LP was the track "The Journey", recorded at
Trident Studios in London in February (with Ronnie Lane and Steve Marriott switching their usual instruments to play guitar and bass, respectively). Album sessions wrapped on 3 April (two days before the release of the "Lazy Sunday" / "Rollin' Over" single) at Olympic with the recording of "Mad John", and the out-take "A Collibosher" (which was again later released on the posthumous compilation
The Autumn Stone). As was usual for Immediate label recordings at this time, other artists on the label's roster such as P.P. Arnold,
Billy Nicholls, flautist Lyn Dobson and numerous other session players made uncredited vocal and musical contributions to the album. Mixing of the album was completed by Marriott and Lane through April and May at
Trident Studios, with the LP arriving in record shops on 24 May 1968. The 5 April release of "Lazy Sunday" as the album's lead single, meanwhile, had come as a surprise to the band who had not been consulted over the choice, and Marriott in particular was displeased by it at a time when he wanted the group to be taken more seriously as musicians. He later claimed that had he been consulted, he would have chosen "Afterglow" to continue in the less frivolous vein of their previous hit "Tin Soldier". Despite Marriott's displeasure, the band and P.P. Arnold appeared in session on
BBC Radio One's
Top Gear show in April to dutifully promote their new single and the forthcoming album. They performed a version of Lazy Sunday alongside three otherwise unreleased cover versions: a new performance of "Every Little Bit Hurts", an instrumental cover version of
the Temptations' "Get Ready", and an intense, rock-oriented cover of
Tim Hardin's "If I Were A Carpenter" (with the exception of "Get Ready" the session was later officially released on a Small Faces BBC Sessions collection in the year 2000). In late May after the album's release, the Small Faces recorded another similarly intense (but more downbeat) cover of Hardin's "Red Balloon" at Olympic, which later saw release on "The Autumn Stone" LP. The new album's musical and technical complexities, coupled with Small Faces live shows being still mostly confined to shorter sets as part of shared bills with other artists, meant that ''Ogden's Nut Gone Flake'' was never performed live on stage in its entirety – only "Lazy Sunday", "Rollin' Over" and "Song Of a Baker" appeared as part of their live sets. The Happiness Stan suite was performed as a whole only once, on the BBC television programme
Colour Me Pop on Friday 21 June 1968, and even then it was not performed totally live. ==Design and packaging==