Beach Boys – "Pet Sounds" (1966)

A few days ago, Brian Wilson’s “Pet Sounds 50th Anniversary World Tour” stopped at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

Wilson and his band – including original Beach Boy Al Jardine, who met Wilson at Hawthorne High School almost 60 years ago – were originally scheduled to perform at the Kennedy Center in May, but had to postpone that show and several others when Wilson needed emergency back surgery.

Brian Wilson and Al Jardine

The years have not been kind to the 76-year-old Wilson’s body.  He needed help from his assistant to walk to the white Yamaha grand piano that had been positioned front and center on the Kennedy Center stage.  Once he took a seat at the piano, he didn’t move until the end of the no-intermission, two-hour-long show, when his assistant returned to help him walk offstage.

The years haven’t been kind to Wilson’s voice either.  At times, he struggled to sing on pitch.  

But none of that mattered.  HE'S BRIAN F*CKING WILSON, the genius who created Pet Sounds – which is the greatest album in the history of pop music.  I was thrilled to have the opportunity to see him perform live and in person.

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The concert got off to a great start with “California Girls,” which was followed by other pre-Pet Sounds hit singles (including “Little Deuce Coupe,” “Dance, Dance, Dance,” and “I Get Around”).  

Those songs couldn’t be more dated.  They depict a southern California teenage-boy-centric world that became extinct decades ago – assuming it ever really existed.

Brian Wilson masters “Pet Sounds” in 1966

Did the Beach Boys and their buds really sit around and debate the relative merits of hip east-coast girls, midwestern farmers’ daughters, and northern girls who “keep their boyfriends warm at night,” before deciding that tanned, bikini-clad California girls are the “cutest girls in the world”?   (I’m sorry, but to me there is no higher compliment for a young woman than “cute.”)

And did the hot-rodders who spent their weekends going from town to town in search of street-racing action really eschew going steady because “it wouldn't be right to leave [your] best girl home on Saturday night”?

The lifestyle the Beach Boys sang about in those songs was as foreign to a kid growing up in Joplin, Missouri, as life in Paris or Tokyo.  God knows I wanted to experience it, but that wasn’t happening.

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Latter-day Beach Boy Blondie Chaplin then joined Brian and the boys to sing “Feel Flows” and “Sail On, Sailor,” which teed it up nicely for what the audience had been waiting for: a performance of all 13 tracks of Pet Sounds.

That album kicks off with the rollicking, up-tempo, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” which is followed by “You Still Believe in Me” (a slow song).  Next comes another fast-slow pair of songs – “That’s Not Me” and “”Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder).” 

The "Pet Sounds 50th Anniversary
World Tour" band on  stage

After “I’m Waiting for the Day,” which is a real tour de force, the audience had a chance to catch its emotional breath during “Let’s Go Away for Awhile” (an instrumental) and “Sloop John B” (which is the only non-original song on Pet Sounds).

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The audience rose to its feet and burst into applause when it heard the opening notes of “God Only Knows,” the first track on side two of the album.

The woman sitting to my left had warned me before the show started that she would cry when “God Only Knows” was played.  I told her that I might join her because that was the song that my oldest son and his wife had chosen for their first dance together at their wedding reception – hearing me play the album when he was a child had apparently made an impression on him.  (That story was enough to start her tearing up.) 

“God Only Knows” is a tough act to follow, but the next three songs on the album – 

“I Know There’s an Answer,” “Here Today,” and “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Time” (a song that seems to sum up Brian Wilson’s troubled life) – are just as good.

Pregaming in my car on the
drive to the Kennedy Center

Next was the album’s title track – today’s featured song – a catchy, lighthearted instrumental that allowed the audience to gather itself before what was the emotional high point of the evening for me: “Caroline, No,” the closing song on Pet Sounds.

Paul McCartney has said that “God Only Knows” is his favorite song of all time, but I think “Caroline, No” is better.  Who are you going to listen to – Paul McCartney or me?

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There was no way for Wilson and his band to top Pet Sounds, but we sixty-somethings in the audience weren’t ready to go home yet.  So they gave us “Good Vibrations” – which took longer and cost more to record than the entire Pet Sounds album – and several more classic pre-Pet Sounds singles (including “Help Me, Rhonda,” “Barbara Ann,” “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” and “Fun, Fun, Fun”).

Wilson then closed the show with a solo performance of “Love and Mercy,” the opening track of his eponymous debut solo album (which was released in 1988).  

“Love and Mercy” also provided the title of the 2014 Brian Wilson biopic, which included some amazing scenes depicting the 23-year-old wunderkind (portrayed by Paul Dano) supervising the recording of Pet Sounds.  If you haven’t seen the movie, DROP EVERYTHING AND WATCH IT RIGHT NOW!

While you’re at it, watch the 2017 Showtime documentary, Making Pet Sounds.  Click here to watch the trailer for it.   

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The “Pet Sounds 50th Anniversary World Tour” kicked off in Auckland, New Zealand, on March 26, 2016.  

By the time the tour ends later this month, Wilson and company will have performed over 200 times in over two dozen countries – including Japan, Finland, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Iceland.

Why is Brian Wilson is putting himself through this ordeal?  

My ticket

It’s not because he enjoys airline travel.  (His assistant once asked him what went through his mind as they took off on a flight, and Wilson answered, “Don’t blow up, don’t blow up, don’t blow up!”)

And it’s not because Wilson needs the money – his net worth is estimated at $75 million.

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Wilson has a long history of mental illness – which was probably caused at least in part by his taking LSD and other drugs when he was younger – and suffers from auditory hallucinations.   His recent autobiography, I Am Brian Wilson, suggests that he may continue to tour and perform because it helps him cope with the voices in his head that tell him “terrible and scary things.”

“Songs help me with my pain,” he writes in that book. “Music happens and the voices stop happening.”

He talks about dragging out performance of “Good Vibrations” because “any minute playing ‘Good Vibrations’ is a minute I don’t have to feel afraid or tired or haunted.”

Touring seems to be a form of therapy for Brian Wilson.

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The title of this blog refers to the two or three lines from each post’s featured song that are quoted at the beginning of that post.  So you may wonder why I’ve chosen to feature an instrumental today.  After all, “Pet Sounds” has no lyrics for me to quote.   

They tell you to “live in the present moment.”  But I often find that the anticipation of an event is more satisfying than the event itself.  For me, the best part of a vacation is the night before it begins – because once the vacation starts, I find myself counting the days until it ends.

The same is true of music.  Once you hear the opening notes of a song, it’s only a matter of a few minutes before that song is over.  But if the song never begins, it can never end.

“Pet Sounds” immediately precedes “Caroline, No” on the Pet Sounds album.  Every time I listen to it, I’m anticipating hearing the best song on the best pop album of all time.  

That’s why I’m featuring it on 2 or 3 lines today.

Click here to listen to “Pet Sounds.”

And click on the link below to purchase the song from Amazon: