The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds Classic Albums

This programme contains some strong language.

TRAIN HORN

We experimented on Pet Sounds.

I tried to write something better

than the surf songs and car songs.

It taps into all those feelings that we have as we're growing up

that somehow he's been able to express, musically and lyrically.

# Wouldn't it be nice if we were older

# Then we wouldn't have to wait so long... #

Pet Sounds, to me, is this beautiful marriage of a childlike innocence,

emotional vulnerability and

an adult sort of musical genius.

# I keep looking for a place to fit in

# Where I can speak my mind... #

It was totally different to anything that was going on at that time.

It was the leader, and everybody followed that.

# I know there's an answer

# I know now but I have to find it by myself... #

Brian was a master of the studio.

No-one was his equal.

It'll always be somewhere.

As long as you can hear music.

# If you should ever leave me

# Though life would still go on, believe me... #

One of the greatest songs I've ever heard.

That's the genius of it.

People think, "Oh, I can do that." But they can't.

It's something that only Brian could do, you know.

# God only knows what I'd be without you... #

My dad played a lot of music.

He taught me how to play...

HE PLAYS BOOGIE WOOGIE

That kind of a bass line.

Like boogie-woogie music.

He had a song called His Little Darlin' And You.

# He must return to his queen bee

# for his little darlin' and me... #

He wrote that song.

And then he said, "Do you like it? And I said, "I love it!"

He had a father in Murry Wilson who was classic showbiz.

There was a lot of pressure on him, on many levels,

to keep the family business going.

As children, Mike and Brian would

frequent the family singalongs, even back when they were little tykes.

You know, they'd be in the car together, singing the stuff

on the radio and making up silly words, so it was automatic.

Just like it was automatic when Dennis was tossed the drumsticks

and became a drummer overnight.

It's like all of it just fell in.

Brian's cousin Mike would help him

with the words in the very beginning.

They had a lot in common with, you know, their taste.

There were the earlier rock and roll hits that were an inspiration

to so many of us.

Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and The Everly Brothers.

Those three were big influences

on both The Beatles and The Beach Boys as well.

We had the additional influence of The Four Freshman

who did this amazing harmony.

Brian loved The Four Freshman so much.

# Day by day you're making all my dreams come true

# So come what may, I want you to know... #

The Four Freshman taught me how to sing, you know, like high falsetto.

And Brian just melded that sweet vocal harmony kind of a thing

into something that was just sensational.

Mike was big into doo-wop,

with the bom-boms and the doop-doops.

It started when we were asked to do a folk song, and we said,

"Well, we like folk music,

"but we're really more into R&B and rock and roll."

Brian and I got around the piano,

and came up with the song Surfin', a very simple song.

-# We're going surfin'

-(Bom bom dip di dit)

-# Surfin'

-(Bom bom dip di dit)... #

It was a R&B-influenced song with the bom-bom dip-di-dip-dit-dips,

but it was about surfing.

It was a way of life, a way of dress, a way of talking,

an attitude, a lifestyle.

Capitol were always looking for the younger acts.

Murry Wilson there, The Beach Boys' dad, had sent in a demo record

to Voyle Gilmore, who was then head of A&R at Capitol.

And Voyle gave it to Nik Venet, who was one of our producers there,

to listen to, and Nik came running into my office and said,

"You got to hear this."

I listened to it, it just knocked me out.

And I said, "Oh, my gosh, we got to sign them right now

"before we lose them," you know.

And we did Surfin', and it did really well

in about half a dozen markets.

But then Surfin' Safari became a reasonably big hit.

# Let's go surfin' now

# Everybody's learnin' how

# Come on and safari with me... #

Well, the sun was always shining for a start.

And everybody was gorgeous, and on the beach and all that.

I never aspired to go surfing or anything like that, frankly,

but just to be there and see all these people and, you know,

maybe go on a date with a guy like that would be smashing.

That's what we liked.

I spoke to Brian about it after, and he said, "I love the lifestyle,

"and I'm an observer, I love the sunshine and the whole

"kind of fashion thing that go es with it, but I'm not into surfing

"because I don't swim."

That was a bit of a revelation.

And then Surfin' USA in 1963 was number one.

Surfing and girls.

Girls, big on girls songs.

And school.

So it kind of appealed to everyone, really, didn't it?

The Midwest...they didn't know from surfing.

It was the hotrod songs that got those guys going.

# Little deuce coupe

# You don't know what I got

# Little deuce coupe

# You don't know what I got

# Well I'm not braggin' babe so don't put me down

# But I've got the fastest set of wheels in town

# When something comes up to me he don't even try

# Cos if I had a set of wings man I know she could fly

# She's my little deuce coupe

# You don't know what I got... #

I mean, they loved the surfing records,

they loved the hotrod records, I'm talking about the marketing guys

and the promotion guys who had to go out and promote these things.

But I can remember when Brian wanted to put out...

I think it was Little Surfer Girl.

And the guys, the promotion guys, went,

"Oh, this is going to kill it, it's a ballad," you know.

Brian said, "No, this is going to be..." You know. And Surfer Girl was a wonderful record.

I copied the Four Freshman singer, the high singer.

And I wrote Surfer Girl like...

# Little Surfer...

# Little one

# Made my heart come all undone

# Do you love me

# Do you, surfer girl...? #

So, you had your surfing and your beach life, your car songs,

but also everybody had to go to school.

So we wrote a song called Be True To Your School.

# Hey, hey, take it away, get that ball and fight

# So, be true to your school

# (Rah rah rah rah sis boom bah)

# Just like you would to your girl or guy

# (Rah rah rah rah sis boom bah)

# Be true to your school now... #

I mean, we had our education pretty much set out for us.

Brian was our music teacher,

and just being on the road was our Rhodes scholar stuff.

We were on the road 100 days a year or more,

and in the studio that many.

So it was getting tough.

I think Brian went through a crisis.

I mean, the end of '64, The Beach Boys had been touring relentlessly,

as they did in those days. They used to work those bands so hard.

And then the British invasion scared him to death.

He thought, "It's all over,

"The Beatles are going to take it

"over and that's it, we're out of business."

And he was the centre of this,

because obviously he was the main man with The Beach Boys.

So, in addition to doing all of the work in the studio and the writing,

he'd have to do all the publicising and all the promoting.

Look at all those jobs he had.

And anybody would cave in at some point, it's too much.

We observed him being quite unhappy being out on the road

and away from home, and not everyone is suited for that life.

He couldn't handle a lot of the things that went along with that,

like the travelling, the loudness of it, it hurt his ear,

he was having trouble hearing out of his... He's deaf in one ear.

I saw him have a breakdown on an airplane.

I was sitting right next to him, thinking,

"Well, this is it, it's over. He's not going to recover from this."

Well, I wanted to spend more time at my house, writing songs at home.

And...

So, I told the guys, "I'm going to stop touring."

Nobody could sing like Brian in terms of that falsetto,

and he played the bass with us in our live shows.

So, it was not a happy occurrence to see

him leave the live group.

Capitol, on the other hand, was thinking,

"Well, if he can make some more records, and make them as good

"or better than they are, there's an up side to that, too."

So, there wasn't a great deal of worry, as far as Capitol was concerned.

Brian Wilson's decision to get off the road and to get into the studio

is one of the most profound moments in rock history,

because it really is when Brian Wilson, I think, intuitively decided

that he was going to be an artist.

That he could spend more time writing, arranging and recording

the tracks, to which we would sing

when we would come back off of a tour.

He found that his instrument was the recording studio.

You could really hear instrumentation that was unique to rock music.

And I personally think the opening strands of California Girls

is like an overture.

It sounds symphonic to me.

Just the whole dynamic of it, it's beautiful.

# Well, East Coast girls are hip, I really dig those styles they wear

# And the Southern girls with the way they talk

# They knock me out when I'm down there... #

Brian was growing exponentially,

out of that three to four year time period since we started.

He really blossomed.

Everybody can see Brian evolve as a songwriter-composer.

He even said so himself when our first album was just released,

that he was already talking about down the road, when he was going to

produce all of this wonderful music.

And he just kept true to his word.

# I wish they all could be California

# I wish they all could be California girls... #

The Beach Boys were, up till that point,

sort of an embodiment of the California dream.

And the success of girls/surf/cars/school

brought in the ability to have budgets to keep recording and

experimenting, and now he's got

a pack of brilliant musicians in the studio.

Most people know them as The Wrecking Crew, and they were

basically the top LA session players, people who'd come up

through the jazz scene, who played on everything from Sonny and Cher

to Frank Sinatra to Mamas and Papas, and a lot of Phil Spector's records.

They were on pretty much everything.

He didn't rely on The Beach Boys' band so much any more,

because he didn't have to.

The minute those guys were on the road,

he was really in the lab, experimenting.

One of the tracks he did was Sloop John B, which...

The idea for that came from Alan Jardine.

Growing up as a teenager in Hawthorne, California, we were all

mesmerised by this folk...this evolution of folk music that

happened around the late '50s, early 60s.

And here comes this amazing trio, The Kingston Trio.

# We come on the Sloop John B

# My grandfather and me... #

So I wanted to share my joy of that with the guys.

And I started messing around with some folk songs again.

And, by golly, that darn old Kingston Trio stuff started coming back.

# Well, I feel so break up

# I want to go home... #

Al Jardine loved folk music so much, and when he was in high school,

he would sing the Kingston Trio music,

and he always wanted to record it.

Without Al's interest, I don't think Brian would have ever recorded it.

I thought, "If I put it in his language, put it in a way that he'll

"understand it, and give it a little oomph, a little power,

"a little change, get off the folk rhythm,

"get on to the Beach Boy rhythm...."

He actually showed Brian the chords and so on, like that.

This is probably how I played it.

HE PLAYS UPBEAT RHYTHM

A little more tempo.

And here's the difference.

HE PLAYS MINOR CHORD

There's the key, there's the turnaround that actually makes the vocals work.

They become magical.

Because we've added a minor.

And we did it together.

I told him I would adapt the melody and make an arrangement to it.

The next day, he had an arrangement done on it.

He surprised the hell out of me.

And he came up with quite a stunning track.

Let's have the flutes one more time.

Could I hear...?

One more.

Right there, don't move! Don't move.

All right, let's make it. Here we go, Sloop John B.

# We come on the Sloop John B

# My grandfather and me

# Around Nassau town we did roam

# Drinking all night

# Got into a fight

# Well, I feel so broke up

# I wanna go home

# So hoist up the John B's sail... #

Downbeats. Unheard of. Just downbeat.

# Call for the captain ashore

# Let me go home

# Let me go home... #

Building a track was something that Brian was very good at.

It was a very simple part, obviously.

It would get more elaborate.

And, except for the intro, the horns and the flutes haven't played yet, they will come in here.

# The first mate he got drunk

# And broke in the captain's trunk

# The constable had to come and take him away... #

It's somehow the visualisation of being on that ship,

watching those waves, watching the sails.

To me, it's all visual.

Just something to spice up the feeling of being on the ocean.

So, we're towards the end of the song...

and you'll see that Hal's part changes.

DRUMS BECOME BUSIER

"Now another 16 bars. We want it bigger."

DRUMMING INTENSIFIES

And it's still changing.

So, the rougher seas, maybe.

And it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger,

and now I'm playing straight eighths.

With two drums.

Which is one of the tricks I always had with The Beach Boys.

Snare drum and a floor tom-tom.

So, you're getting the highs of the snare,

the lows of the floor tom-tom.

# So hoist up the John B

# Hoist up the John B... #

Of course, he didn't invite me to the session,

which I thought was kind of rude.

But, you know, I quickly forgave him, because, you know,

he was on a roll, man.

He was on fire. So I just backed off.

I thought, "You know what? He got it. I got through!"

And that was the main thing.

What you see with The Beach Boys, right before Pet Sounds,

is that rock and roll was about getting a hit.

It was always about the next hit and just giving you something that maybe

sounded enough like the last one to get another hit.

Oh, man. We became like a touring jukebox.

Yeah.

We were like a jukebox band.

Really, that idea of the rock and roll album was just beginning

to exist, you know, it's really...

The Beatles, around Rubber Soul, step up the game in a major way.

Anything and everything The Beatles did was worth paying notice to.

And it was an inspiration, Rubber Soul in particular.

Brain Wilson is very introspective, melancholy.

He might have been afraid to express himself that way.

The Rubber Soul album by The Beatles, I think, might have

sparked Brian, opened a little window for him.

# Nowhere man, please listen

# You don't know what you're missing

# Nowhere man

# The world is at your command... #

"Maybe I can be, you know, introspective in my art and

"express my melancholy through songs and stuff."

You could see there that he was, you know,

something's going on in this guy's head.

It's not the average, "My girlfriend left me at the high school dance."

There was something more going on.

I experimented on Pet Sounds, I tried to write something better

than the surf songs and car songs.

Maybe my favourite Brian song of all time is

I Just Wasn't Made For These Times. It's where he hits the truth.

# I keep looking for a place to fit in

# Where I can speak my mind... #

The first line.

How many people in this world haven't felt that way?

I'm looking for a place to fit in.

"I'm just looking for a place where I can speak my mind."

I think that really crystallises

a lot of the impetus behind Pet Sounds.

Brian was finding a place to really express himself.

# And I've been trying hard to find the people

# That I won't leave behind... #

That was like a social statement, like saying I thought that I was

a little bit out of time.

I thought I was a little ahead of my time.

We had talked about that idea even before we did some of the other

songs, so I think it was something that kind of up came up occasionally

as we were discussing lyric ideas.

They're not clever-clever.

None of the lyrics on those, on Pet Sounds are clever-clever.

They all just get right to the heart and say what they've got to say.

# They say I got brains but they ain't doin' me no good

# I wish they could... #

It just had a feeling of, like,

"I wish I could find people that could help me find a cooler place,"

you know?

It's a simple song.

But when you hear the vocal stuff on it, it's not a simple song,

it's not that easy to do.

The harmonies are the distinctive quality of The Beach Boys' recordings.

I think that's the one thing that is very, you know,

unique to The Beach Boys, the refinement of the harmonies and the

closeness of the harmonies,

and the warmth of the harmonies, and the blend.

There's something that is in their DNA, I guess, you know?

They've got that... They come from the same heritage.

Singing is an expression of your self, you know?

Your feelings.

And... So, me and my brothers sang together, because we're a family.

Three brothers and my cousin Mike,

so we blend together very well, very good.

Al Jardine, Mike Love, Carl Wilson, Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson.

Those timbres. In fact, now slide me in there - zip! Now there's six,

and listen to, on the Pet Sounds album, this track called

I Just Wasn't Made For These Times.

There's six of us singing!

# Each time things start to happen again

# I think I got something good going for myself

# But what goes wrong?

# Sometimes I feel very sad

# Ain't find the right thing I can put my heart and soul into

# Sometimes I feel very sad

There's a quality and a blend about the voices that they...

that nobody has copied.

I mean, there's been tribute bands who, obviously, copied them,

but nobody has been able to reach that height of...

To me, it's quite jazzy, and that's one of the reasons I like it.

But that height of sophistication, musically, and the sound...

It was unique.

# I guess I just wasn't made for these times

# I guess I just wasn't made for these times

# I guess I just wasn't made for these times... #

I Just Wasn't Made For These Times is kind of an artistic statement,

saying, "I am not going to fit into my times,

"I'm going to determine them." And he did.

You know, he did, the Beatles did, and Bob Dylan, they all

stopped trying to make pop music in the traditional sense and tried to

make art, and that's why popular music became art.

I met Brian Wilson the first time at Capitol Recording Studios.

I was working for an advertising agency.

It was part of my job, I was doing jingles and writing commercials.

# Lucky Locket Kiddles Lucky Locket Kiddles. #

That was it. That was the whole jingle. And it was two notes.

And so effective.

And so, I go outside the studio, and I walk down the hall, and I guess

I just ran into Brian, and the two of us were standing there.

We started talking. He said, "Hi, how are you?" You know...

-IMPERSONATES BRIAN:

-Hi, how are you?

It's kind of a Brian thing.

And I said, "Great, how are you? What are you working on?"

And he said, "Oh, we're doing some stuff. Hey, you want to listen to this?"

I was very impressed with some of the stuff I heard

in that session, because they were not finished tracks.

It was sublime.

I mean, it was really... I couldn't have imagined anything better, you know?

Tony was a very mellow person. He was a very nice guy.

Kind of low-key, he wasn't a real peppy guy,

he was kind of low-key.

I went back to doing what I was doing and I didn't know

if I would ever see him again.

A few weeks later, I got a phone call.

I was surprised, because I thought, "Why would he be calling me?"

You know, I mean... Just to say,

"Hey, it was fun the other day," or something, you know?

It didn't seem to make sense.

Well, he was good with words for those advertisements.

I asked him if he could write lyrics, and he said, "Sure, I can write lyrics."

And he said, "Well, I'm just sitting around at the piano, I thought maybe

"you might want to, you know, do some stuff together.

"The boys are in Japan." And he said, "I don't really have anybody to write with."

So, he came to my house and we started writing Pet Sounds.

# Wouldn't it be nice if we were older

# Then we wouldn't have to wait so long

# And wouldn't it be nice to live together

# In the kind of world where we belong

# You know it's gonna make it that much better

# When we can say goodnight and stay together... #

Tony Asher's contribution is fantastic.

He is a marvellous writer.

Well, I knew he was great, you know.

He liked the way I wrote melodies, and I liked his lyrics.

We wrote during the day, and he would come to my house, and he would

have his paper and his pen, and I would write a little bit

and then he would write a little lyrics.

He must have just felt it was someone who would listen to him,

and who could help channel him through lyrics.

They're all great,

and I really like the work that Tony Asher did.

The fact that Brian just meets a guy who's in advertising and somehow

ends up writing some of the most important lyrics of all time

with this man, Tony Asher, that are timeless.

It's just... It's kind of inexplicable.

Well, he had the knack for making people feel good.

I thought that was a nice, young idea for a song, which is...

You know, "Wouldn't it be nice if we were older?"

When I was 14 and I came into the business...

Well, when I was 14 and whatever I'd have done,

I thought I was so grown up.

We were, the girls, anyway.

The fellas...

But we...we thought we were so grown up.

And we wanted to be older, to be able to be free to do this

and to do that, and not have our parents tell us, "No, you can't."

Asher was clever in that way, and the way that he had an ambiguity

to his lyrics which had essentially a very simple message

taken at face value.

But if you go into it, you find that there's a more...

spiritual side to it, and a more complex message coming across.

The album is the sound of him trying to explore becoming an adult.

Because I think he may have had a sort of delayed go at that.

Great song.

There's the explosion...

You're trying to get Hal to play the intro the way you want.

Right.

STUDIO RECORDING: Hal, here's how I want to do it.

Take it... It's like this. Da-da-da-da-da-da-boom!

-Two...three...four...

-Boom.

I wanted Hal to hit the drum as hard as he could

so that we can get an echo.

# Wouldn't it be nice if we were older

# Then we wouldn't have to wait so long

# And wouldn't it be nice to live together

# In the kind of world where we belong...? #

Everybody was doing that.

You know, double voicing, double tracking.

So, we tried it. We wanted to do it like everybody else.

DOUBLE-TRACKED VOCALS

The thing I've always loved about this track is that when you take the

leads out and just play the backgrounds and the backing track,

if you will, it's such an amazing...

Where are the voices? In the background.

There they are.

The Beach Boys.

# Wouldn't it be nice if we could wake up

# In the morning when the day is new

# And after having spent the day together

# Hold each other close the whole night through...? #

Yeah.

Wouldn't It Be Nice?

Total stress.

Brings back good memories.

That was one that was just never quite right.

And it just...in his mind,

he could not... He just didn't hear it. He wasn't hearing it.

You know, "Come on, guys, you can do better than that."

Brian was between a hipster and...

one of your famous British Generals that was tough.

He was tough.

He demanded everything from everybody.

Wouldn't It Be Nice is upbeat and fabulous, it's a great arrangement.

We worked many hours doing...

perfecting the harmonies on that one.

That was a labour of love.

That's for sure.

Do you remember why you decided to put Mike back in the bridge

on Wouldn't It Be Nice? To back up...?

Yeah, because I wanted him to take part in that song.

# Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray

# It might come true

# Baby then there wouldn't be a single thing we couldn't do

# We could be married... #

I was stunned, sometimes, by how much he...

had going on in his head that I never dreamed was there,

because, you know, you can't hear it until you can hear it.

I wanted to record Wouldn't It Be Nice at Gold Star

because it has a good echo chamber, and I like the echo.

Be My Baby, Brian has probably listened to that more than he's

listened to any other song, or songs combined.

He would play it repeatedly, incessantly.

He was mesmerised by Be My Baby by The Ronettes,

but produced by Phil Spector.

And then the bass line...

It had a great bass line and a great melody and a great singer, Ronnie.

# So won't you please

# Be my, be my baby

# Be my little baby

# My one and only baby

# Say you'll be my darling

# Be my, be my baby

# Be my baby now

# Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh... #

Phil had a huge impact on him.

Brian loved that "wall of sound" that Phil Spector had,

and he loved the records that Phil Spector made,

and Phil was a genius, too, you know,

he was making hit after hit after hit.

# Be my, be my baby

# Be my little baby

# My one and only baby...#

Phil Spector got word about us,

and Phil came and we started working at Gold Star for Phil.

Almost everything we touched with Phil Spector became giant hits.

Big hits.

And he was calling us the Wall of Sound.

There would be four or five guitar players,

three or four piano players, always one drummer.

Two bass players, he liked to use an upright bass player

with a Fender bass player.

And then he would have a percussion section, and that was it.

We were all in one room.

But it made a wonderful sound.

And Brian fell in love with that sound.

He wanted the same enthusiasm,

he wanted the same musicians.

There were four or five of us who were always with Brian.

The Wall of Sound, you have to give Phil Spector credit for building it.

But I think the wall that Brian built was more textured,

and much more subtle.

There's just sort of a musicality to Brian's work that goes beyond

what Spector ever dreamed of.

# I came along when he broke your heart

# That's when you needed someone

# To help forget about him... #

Well, I wanted to mix up a love song with a happy song.

Put the two together.

It's too easy to give all the credit to Brian and Tony Asher.

I'm Waiting For The Day is great, and that's not Tony Asher,

that's an example of Mike having real skill as a writer.

We were dealing with emotions, and Waiting For The Day is a

beautiful way of saying that you find something special in someone

and they may not be ready at that moment in time to engage.

But you find that they're worth waiting for.

# I kissed your lips when your face looked sad

# It made me think about him

# And that you still loved him so... #

Brian is such an artist that he allowed the genius of these players

to also come into the equation.

No-one appreciated these great players more than Brian.

This was the very beginnings of rock and roll, remember.

Many musicians refused to play rock and roll music.

They said it's junk, it's garbage, it's rotten, it's dirty.

Because they were always in suits and ties, you know, very straight.

No smoking, you know.

Who knew that we were going to move in and take over this kind of thing?

And then the guys that were doing all the movie calls, the film calls,

said, "Those guys are going to wreck the business."

The tracking was fun, I think, for him,

because he got to hang with The Wrecking Crew, and just experiment

to heck, and spend as much money as he wanted, you know.

He was like a kid in a candy shop.

These players could play anything, and Brian just had this

baby symphony pool of amazing musicians to work with.

# I'm waiting for the day when you can love again. #

It was extremely unusual to see

a female musician working in the studios.

Carol Kaye was a standout woman in her own right in that capacity.

She was the best, she was better than any men around, so, you know,

why not use the best?

WALKING BASS

I always love that walking line.

STUDIO RECORDING: In fact, go like this...

Dun-doo-de-doo-de-doo-de-doo-de-doo- de-doo-de-doo-de-boom!

WALKING BASS

Carol Kaye's bass sound

is a really subtle undertone to a lot of Pet Sounds.

But it's there like an anchor. It's there in I'm Waiting For The Day.

Quite driving guitar and drums, really pushing the song along,

and then you've got her cool bass notes in there, just anchoring it,

you know, keeping it grounded.

Well, she was very creative, and she played right on the beat, you know.

She wouldn't, like, flub up, she would play right on the beat.

When we used to record in those days, we made decisions.

Nothing was left until later,

because we only had three to four tracks.

If you were putting the rhythm all on one track, and when you got your

sounds, you put your delays in, you did your echo, you did it live,

and that's the sound I hear in my head,

that's what I want, let's record it.

# It starts with just a little glance now

# Right away you're thinking about romance now

# You know you ought to take it slower

# But you just can't wait to get to know her

# A brand-new love affair is such a beautiful thing

# But if you're not careful

# Think about the pain it can bring... #

it's very much the album of someone in their 20s.

That youthful exploration of love.

And there's existential angst in there.

I was experiencing, you know, love and...

having those kinds of...

You know, it was that time in my life, you know.

The quest of the mid-'60s was to define what love is.

That's what the counterculture was all about.

It feels genuine to me, when I listen to that stuff.

# Right now you think that she's perfection

# This time is really an exception

# Well, you know I hate to be a downer

# But I'm the guy she left before you found her... #

We experimented with the musicians a lot, you know.

It was all experimentation, and it went on and on for about two months

to get the album recorded.

He had different relationships with different people, from the best I can tell.

And that's why he would go from studio to studio

searching out a particular feeling that he was looking for.

And that was a real departure,

because all the other Capitol artists had to record at Capitol,

or it was a slap in the face at Capitol.

But we let him record where he wanted to record.

He was bringing in great records.

Brian never came in before two o'clock.

It was almost always at Western Studios, Studio Three,

which was a small studio, and

he'd say, "I have a new song.

"I'm writing a new song, and I want to record it."

He would start out... He basically knew where it was going to go.

A lot of times, we didn't know,

and you've got to remember that we were looking at songs

that didn't have titles on it.

It was just the chord sheets,

or maybe a few sketched out lines that Brian would write.

I would hand them all their manuscript papers that I wrote,

then I'd take each guy and say,

"Let me hear the bass player play it for a minute." We'd get them.

Then I'd do the guitar players, the pianos, and the horns.

I talked to them individually and collectively.

They were all good, good for it, for me.

He would sing parts to the guys, and they would write it down.

He would lay out the rhythm the way that he wanted it,

and the bass lines.

I mean, he would work the chart in the room

before he went into the control room.

Because he had it up here.

They took my direction.

I would tell them what to play and they'd play it.

That's organ...

tack piano together.

There were always three pianos.

And it was a special tuning that we arrived at.

I worked with the piano tuner to try different things, and I did put

tacks on the head of each hammer,

and Brian immediately was attracted to it,

and it became kind of a signature sound.

TACK PIANO PLAYS

# Love is here

# Today, and it's gone

# Tomorrow, it's here

# And gone so fast... #

They knew he was a special guy, musically.

And sometimes they'd help him write something down in a part,

but it was all up here in his head,

and he somehow communicated it to all the players, and sometimes...

"Brian, you can't do that." And then they'd play it and you'd get,

"That's pretty good, Brian." You know, it was so cool.

I would try to develop the arrangement

to fit the song, the melody.

You know, I would write the melody and then I would try to make the

arrangements kind of like surround the melody.

And we started getting reports about it.

"Brian's doing something really special, guys.

"He really is."

But we were on tour in Japan.

As soon as we got back, we began to listen to the material.

I mean, he couldn't wait for us to get down to the studio.

He didn't care about jet lag or any of that stuff.

It didn't mean anything to him.

But it was... It was sobering.

We had to really buckle down.

Now, in the case of Here Today, and about half of Pet Sounds,

Brian cut the vocals at CBS up the street.

I think, primarily, because they had the only one-inch eight-track in town.

A couple three-tracks of backgrounds.

# Right away you're thinking 'bout romancing... #

HARMONY VOCALS

-Again, they're probably doubled or tripled.

-Doubled, yeah.

I think he's a visionary.

He is a musical visionary, as well as a social...

In a social context as well, a visionary.

He sees things I don't think the rest of us see.

You know, and hears things, certainly, that we don't hear.

So, he's one of those special...

He's got a special receiver going on up there in his brain.

Brian truly is the most gifted music person that I've ever met.

I hate it when they call him genius, because... And they're right, but

don't do that, that's too big of a load to carry on your shoulders.

But he's so gifted.

He didn't realise his talent.

I still think he doesn't.

One of the magical things about Brian is he was able to describe

without having it on the written page

exactly the sound that he heard.

Boy, then you'd hear them as they were

transformed, really, in that process.

It was staggering.

And when he heard it, that was it.

And that was The Beach Boys' sound.

I don't know what your definition of genius is,

but he certainly might be.

I think genius just means clever.

I don't think it really has any real meaning.

It just means you're good at something, genius-like, you know.

Like Albert Einstein was a genius.

# Hang on to your ego

# Hang on, but I know that you're gonna lose the fight

# They come on like their peaceful

# But inside they're so uptight

# They trip through the day and waste all their thoughts at night

# Now how can I say it

# And how can I come on

# When I know I'm guilty...? #

There was a lot of LSD around.

Brian heard that sometimes the acid

gives you certain colours that you didn't know existed, et cetera, et cetera.

Well, I think he was experimenting a little bit then, too.

He told us that he was doing acid during California Girls,

so... "Oh."

I was very sceptical about doing any of that stuff.

I looked askance at anything

having to do with that kind of drug culture influence.

# Hang on to your ego

# Hang on, but I know that you're gonna lose the fight... #

Mike disagreed on Hang On To Your Ego, which allegedly is...

if you take LSD, you have to hang on to your ego.

You know, and he didn't really think that fit the image

of The Beach Boys to allude to that.

To me, that...

that was a little too drug-influenced.

You know, this track has been subject to all kinds of speculation

and contention that, you know, this was the track that got fought over

and that Mike didn't like the lyrics.

ISOLATED VOCAL TRACK: # They come on like they're peaceful

MOCKING: # But inside they're so uptight... #

Why don't I do a Jimmy Durante?

They come on like they're peaceful, but inside they're so uptight!

OK, I'm sorry.

-We'll do another take for our own, OK?

-OK.

-Another take like that as soon as we're done, OK?

-Check.

All I was saying is I would make my feelings known if I felt it was

going too far out on a limb lyrically,

or conceptually, having

some relationship to some kind of drugs and stuff like that.

I didn't know what an ego was at the time,

but I learned very quickly.

So, I came up with an alternative lyric

called I Know There's An Answer.

# I know there's an answer

# I know now, but I had to find it by myself... #

But the two exist.

But I Know There's An Answer is what came out on the Pet Sounds issue.

It is my great suspicion that the experimentation that had to happen

for Brian to become the great artist that he was

had nothing to do with chemicals.

If drugs made you a genius, we'd have a lot more Pet Sounds,

and we do not.

He didn't necessarily explain what it was he was trying to do,

but he acknowledged that this was different stuff.

He said, "I don't want to keep doing the same stuff over and over."

If you went back and looked at all of The Beach Boys' stuff

that was created prior to that, there was a sameness to it.

And it was good, very good, and it wasn't like anybody was getting

tired of it, really, I don't think,

but, you know, what Mike said, "Don't fuck with the formula."

He said, "Why are we trying to...?

"We've got this great thing, and until somebody can show me that it's

"not working, why are we

"fumbling around trying to find something else?"

Well, that's not a crazy question,

I mean, that's a reasonable question to ask.

But Brian saw it a whole different way, which was,

"God, I've done that, it's boring, I'm tired of it."

And that was something that would never have occurred to Mike.

And he said, "Don't mess with the formula,"

and I said, "I want to advance to a better music place."

We wouldn't have had as good an album if I didn't. You know?

Part of that, I think, led to me getting a bad rap for,

quote-unquote, not liking Pet Sounds or something, which is absolute...

You know, it's just an absolute falsehood.

Because not only did I name the album Pet Sounds,

and went with Brian to present it to Capitol Records,

but I sang on every single song that was sung on.

I was very satisfied. Tony was, too.

We both were.

We both thought we'd really achieved a good album.

Brian and I went off to Capitol Records to

play it for Karl Engemann, who was the A&R man for Capitol Records.

Capitol Records loved The Beach Boys.

I mean, they didn't criticise them in any way, except they thought that

maybe going in the direction that Pet Sounds wasn't something that...

It wasn't going to be as wonderful as

the hotrod records,

the surfing records, those kinds of things.

Well, I couldn't understand why they didn't like it. I said, "This is good music."

They said, "But it's not commercial music."

Brian thought it would never be released,

because Capitol wanted that surf thing, that's what was selling.

So they didn't release it, and a little bit later,

a few weeks later, they said, "OK, we'll release it."

So, they released it on the market, and it didn't sell very good.

It hadn't gone the same height on the charts as some of the prior

records, so Capitol, right away, in order to make quota,

they went and put out a Best Of The Beach Boys.

We were in competition with our history.

The faith of the label was right there, everybody.

"We have Pet Sounds out!

"By the way, we're going to put out Best Of The Beach Boys, Volume One."

Can you believe that?

It's just so asinine.

And it didn't do as well as some of the other albums,

and it might have if there had been more of a spirit

within the company of, "No, this is great and we're going to

"push this thing and take it right to where it should be."

Well, it's not what we were expecting. I would say we were actually grateful for that.

My God, you know. Why do you want only what people expect, you know?

That's... How sad, you know, that is.

They just didn't understand it, you know.

The direction...

They didn't know what to do with it. They're a marketing firm.

How do you market The Beach Boys with Pet Sounds?

"Well, we'll send you down to the San Diego Zoo

"and we'll photograph you with a bunch of damned goats."

I mean, what's that all about?

That was the biggest miscarriage of justice of all.

MUSIC: Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys

After the album was mixed, Bruce is off to England.

I took two copies of Pet Sounds with me.

With the sole intention of promoting the album

and playing it to people for the first time.

You know, and Derek Taylor was our publicist,

and he just set up about 25 interviews for me.

I got to meet him at the Waldorf Hotel.

Journalists came over.

I think that's where I met Keith Altham.

And one of his people came and said,

"Oh, Lennon and McCartney are in your room.

"They want to hear the album. Can you go up and play it to them?"

I played them the album, and they heard it two times,

and they were delightful.

And he played it to them twice. They loved it.

Paul McCartney said God Only Knows was the perfect song.

STUDIO RECORDING: This will be take one. Take one. God Only Knows.

One, two...

INSTRUMENTAL TRACK

Nice. Nice, Don...

OK, could we go to the spot where the ba-dah, duh-dah, doo-doo-doo...

That spot?

Well, that part was...

HE PLAYS LONG NOTES

And it was bothering Brian.

And we had done it a number of times.

And my suggestion was,

"Brian, why don't we play it short?"

He said, "What do you mean?"

HE PLAYS SHORTER NOTES

Almost pizzicato.

-Brian?

-Yeah.

Why don't we do it short, like this?

HE PLAYS TACK PIANO

We'll try it.

Yeah, I remember that.

Bom-bap! Yeah.

-Don Randi kind of came up with that...

-Right.

-..to play it staccato.

It's so musical that it's a pleasure to play with it.

I don't think Brian ever realised that what he was doing was

so incredibly wonderful.

God Only Knows makes a deep love song, because Tony Asher had

a lot of love and his heart, and he wrote great love lyrics.

A match made in heaven for those two.

The could evolve something like that into such perfection.

One of the greatest love songs of all time begins with

"I may not always love you," which is, you know,

the antithesis of what people want in a love song.

We held each other up to a certain standard, and said,

"You know, we don't want to do that same old stuff,

another love song, "I love you because..." You know, whatever.

So, that's how...

When I would come up with a line like "I may not always love you,"

Brian might have said at the time,

"What?" You know.

But he would only have said it once.

And if I said, "Don't worry about it, Brian, that's a good line," he would have said, "OK,"

and then he would listen to it a few times and say, "Yeah, I like it."

I think "I may not always love you" was the great line that he wrote.

# I may not always love you

# But long as there are stars above you

# You'll never need to doubt it

# I'll make you so sure about it

# God only knows what I'd be without you... #

I'm surprised Brian didn't sing it himself.

But he wanted Carl to have it.

# Though life would still go on, believe me

# The world could show nothing to me

# So what good would living do me

# God only knows what I'd be without you... #

Carl had an ethereal voice. Beautiful.

Brian understood the great character of the voices in The Beach Boys,

and wrote to those characters beautifully.

And it's not like Brian was the best voice for all of his songs.

I remember when I first ever heard the record of God Only Knows,

when that came out, I was blown away.

Again, the harmonies, the intricacy of the arrangements.

It was wonderful, and to actually be asked to go on tour with them

was a thrill.

And now come the backgrounds.

ISOLATED HARMONY BACKING VOCALS

# God only knows what I'd be without you

# If you should ever leave me

# Though life would still go on, believe me

# The world could show nothing to me

# So what good would living do me?

# God only knows what I'd be without you... #

I think they liked the lyrics,

because it's a great love song and a great love lyric.

They all told me they liked it. They said, "I love this song!"

They told me that.

There's Bruce.

-# God only knows what I'd be without you...

-#

And there's the part you didn't use.

-Bam-bop-bop...

-Right.

Although I always liked it.

-I didn't use that.

-No.

The first time I really got what he was doing was God Only Knows.

We talked about...

something very esoteric, within, like a family,

a brother has a secret but allows you to know it in an art form.

He was able to organise his thoughts to a point where they were

hypnotic, but yet entertaining, meaningful, and spiritual, too.

For want of a better phrase, it's where rock and roll

becomes a religious experience.

This sentiment in it, that he has in it, towards...

God only knows how much I love you, you know, only God knows,

because it's a feeling within myself,

that nobody else can know except God.

# God only knows what I'd be without you

# God only knows what I'd be without you

# God only knows... #

# God only knows what I'd be without you... #

I was so inspired that I wrote a great album.

I knew people would like it. I knew they would.

Half a century later, we're still reckoning with this record

because Brian went as deep as pop music can go.

It put the standards up.

It said, "This is how good it can be, and you better go away and think

"about it, Mr Lennon and McCartney,

"Mr Jagger and Richards, Mr Townshend.

"You better go away and think about what you're doing next,

"because it could be this good."

It was...

Something that hadn't been done before,

and everything else came after that.

It took 20 years for it to go platinum.

It was ridiculous how long it took.

And yet, at the same time, it was regarded so highly.

One of the great albums of all time,

maybe the greatest album of all time.

It's a piece of art.

Sonic art, vocal art, that'll last forever.

It has everything in it.

It has really fabulous chord structures, arrangements,

performance, great songs to sing.

Yeah, he did something in Pet Sounds, all right.

He opened the door for a lot of people.

But especially me.

A lot of people are uplifted by it.

He grew immensely during that time,

and he's being rewarded for it now, 50 years later.

Isn't that nice?

My love for music inspires me.

I love music.

# I had to prove that I could make it alone now

# But that's not me

# I wanted to show how independent I'd grown now

# But that's not me

# I could try to be big in the eyes of the world

# What matters to me is what I could be

# To just one girl... #