The Mamas & the Papas for the fourth album eventually stalled completely, and in September 1967 John Phillips called a press conference to announce that The Mamas & the Papas were taking a break, which they confirmed on "The Ed Sullivan Show" which aired September 24. The plan was to give concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London and the Olympia in Paris, before taking time out on Majorca to "get the muse going again", as John Phillips put it. When the group docked at Southampton on October 5, Elliot was arrested on a charge of having stolen two blankets and a hotel key
The Mamas & the Papas the record in the fall of 1966, playing a series of precarious and reportedly bizarre shows. At a September 1966 concert at Fordham University in New York City, the band was noted by Gus Duffy and Jim Mason of their co-headlining band, Webster's New Word, as being clearly "high, drunk, or tripping. When they got on stage, it was clear that these people shouldn't be on stage ... They tumbled onto the stage, shambled around, and just got nowhere. After completing their brief East coast tour, the group started work immediately on its third album, "The Mamas & The Papas