Yellow Balloon was not on the recording, having been in a recent near-fatal car accident. The week of May 20, 1967, the Yellow Balloon's version placed at #25 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, while Jan & Dean's version placed at #111. This was due largely to the fact that many disc jockeys around the United States played only the Yellow Balloon version of the song. The B-side was the song played backwards, entitled "Noollab Wolley". However, several radio stations banned the song in fear that the song was about yellow hallucinogenic pills for a drug trip, just like the Donovan song "Mellow
Mellow Waves project. One track, "Mellow Yellow Feel", dates back to 2012. Lyrics for two of the album's songs, "If You're Here" and "Dear Future Person", were written by Shintaro Sakamoto. Another track, "The Spell of a Vanishing Loveliness" was written by Miki Berenyi, who Oyamada learned a decade earlier was a distant relative. Distinct sounds have been used to represent sonic themes on previous Cornelius albums—a glass wind chime for "Sensuous", and water for 2001's "Point". Oyamada said the tremolo served a similar function on "Mellow Waves", likening the sound to that of a continuous wave. Similarly, Oyamada chose the album's