Best song on Pet Sounds

Agh. This was supposed to be a poll. I'll go hide now, bye.

Its obviously "god only knows" anyway.

Only in the same way "Tomorrow Never Knows" is "obviously" the best song on Revolver.

You Still Believe In Me for the outro

this is as hard as the Discovery poll

My vote is with "Wouldn't It Be Nice." From chat a few minutes ago:

"Wouldn't It Be Nice" is maybe the saddest song in the world. Not because it's about death or anything so obvious... because it's about wishing things were different.

Only in the same way "Tomorrow Never Knows" is "obviously" the best song on Revolver.

;_; I am a double culprit

No, I voted for "Tomorrow Never Knows," too, but I don't give half the shit about that album as I do about this one.

i don't think Wouldn't It Be Nice is that sad really, apart from maybe the kind of sadness you secretly relish, which is this whole album's thing i guess.

yeah, I think it is. OTM.

I mean, none of it's actively depressing, but people always know I'm wallowing and pitying myself when I pull out Pet Sounds. My last girlfriend would be like, "Pet Sounds. Oh no. This will not end well."

yeah, I know how that is. People know not to fuck with me when I'm listening to Too Hot To Sleep by Sylvester.

hm. Never heard it.

I think a lot of it's actively depressing. Not "till I die" depressing but still.

It seems to actively ride the line between adolescent self-pity and adult self-awareness, which is also kinda depressing.

My second place is "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times," which is a perfect example.

Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder) has always been my favorite. I guess that's because I'm a nerdy ex-jazz student who likes "Surprising Chord Changes"

And the melody too! I mean how many songs start on a7#9 chord with the melody going from the major 6 to the minor 7 to the 11?

you're right.

You're a nerd.

;)

I really do love "God Only Knows" though. It was my "me and nick" song. So now it makes me really sad, which is a damn shame :(

He may not always love you. You knew that going in.

I mean, that's kinda part of the point.

Actually it went the other way around, but never mind.

(and the point of the line is the next part - "but as long as there are stars above you/you never need to doubt it"!)

God Ive made myself all sad now.

the point of the line is the next part - "but as long as there are stars above you/you never need to doubt it"

well, we're both right, i think. I'll make you so sure about it, BUT I still may not always love you. It's like "Something"... "You're asking me will my love grow/I don't know, I don't know."

What, the idea is that we pick a song as being better than all the others?

party pooper

That's kinda what's amazing about both those songs, they're talking about the parts of relationships that the people in relationships never talk about.

"What good is the dawn that grows into day?"

Just bought the sessions for 38CDN and it's signed by mike love :O
non-stop listening enjoyment!!! Hang on to your ego is the best!!
Oh sorry mike I mean "I Know There's An Answer"!

Probably motivated in part by anxiety over his replacement as Wilson's writing partner (as Wilson increasingly relied on Pet Sounds lyricist Tony Asher and, later, Smile collaborator Van Dyke Parks), Love became increasingly hostile towards Wilson and his new material between late 1965 and early 1967, a period that critics and fans now widely acknowledge as the most creative phase of Wilson's career.
He reportedly led the group's opposition to the Pet Sounds material and particularly objected to the song "Hang On to Your Ego"—directly inspired by his cousin's LSD experiences—which at his insistence was partly re-written and re-titled as "I Know There's an Answer." However, at this stage Brian Wilson still held sufficient sway to overrule his bandmates, and the album was completed more or less as Brian had intended.
Another factor that is likely to have influenced Love's views is that, while Brian had withdrawn from touring in late 1964, Love and his bandmates had to perform Brian's increasingly complex music on stage. There is no doubt that Brian's rapid musical development placed the group in an increasingly difficult position, since they were being asked to perform material that, in the case of "Good Vibrations," Brian had recorded over a period of many months using the best musicians available. While the Beach Boys were equal to the task as vocalists, Brian's intricate arrangements were becoming all but impossible for them to perform as a five-piece band.

Agh. This was supposed to be a poll.

This should be the new ILM quote :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii2IqIdpY-E

those ten seconds in "Here Today" with just the organ and the guitar before the vocals come back with "keep in mind..."

Mike Love's vocal on "Here Today" is so beautiful. I think I've said that on here before!

But yeah, that whole instrumental section, in three parts, is seriously virtuoso songwriting.

That poll of 'worst song on Pet Sounds' had "Here Today" as the highest non-instrumental, non-cover (making it #4). That poll might have just been wack but... People don't seem to mention Here Today a lot, so I'm glad to see fellow support.

I don't have a 'favorite song' on the album but a favorite side: side two

"I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" by a mile

also wins a "song that went over my head as a 20-something and that I feel in my bones as a 40-something", plus that pre-chorus.

I Know There's An Answer
Here Today
I Just Wasn't Made For These Times

^ This stretch imo

otm

the first six seconds of "wouldn't it be nice" is the best part of the record

Sometimes I feel very sad :’(

Dunno neando, that song punched me in the gut as a moody 17yo!

GOK and IJWMFTT are the only two songs I love so those

i'm genuinely fucking embarrassed by how much i love ijwmftt

mostly from the way it feels like a laser-guided missile directly pointed at my heart... and i know there are probably millions of people who feel the exact same way...

i guess wilson and asher were just that fucking good, to be able to make a song that feels like it expresses something, i don't know, _unique_ about my experience, even though that experience isn't even remotely unique.

Otm

Dunno neando, that song punched me in the gut as a moody 17yo!

― H.P, Wednesday, October 11, 2023 9:36 PM bookmarkflaglink

had I heard it at that age, it probably would have for me too!

the song never fully 'hit' me until the early-onset midlife crisis I went through that has yet to end.

my favorite is Waiting For The Day <3

rushomancy otm.

A lot of these sentiments could so easily have come off as jejune, possibly trite, not a million miles away from the teenage angst of 90s/00s nu metal and emo.

But these sentiments are delivered in a way that feels like they're being put into words for the first time; as though universal aspects of the human condition are being unlocked and laid bare in the simplest, barest, most melodic terms.

It's like therapy: The revelations were always there - they were nothing new. They just needed letting out

Yeah I can remember being legitimately embarrassed connecting to IJWMFTT, thinking “how the hell am I connecting to this most base, simplistic emotional reproduction that sounds like it could have been written by Good Charlotte/Simple Plan”. I didn’t really think that thought through enough to give an answer (which I dunno, would have pointed to the difference between the performative and the substantial?)

This same sentiment can be applied to most songs on this album. Wouldn’t It Be Nice and God Only Knows come to mind first.

This is not a negative criticism, I think it’s incredible how sincere and true the lyrical content of this album is, and how the music amplifies that content by 100x. This album is a great litmus test for whether or not you have a cold, cold dead heart or not (sorry pet sounds haters)

Nothing makes me more emotional than surf’s up (the song) though. That one rocks me even deeper than IJWMFTT.

my favorite is Waiting For The Day <3

― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, October 11, 2023 11:20 PM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

ooh yeah.

these songs have such a powerful hold on my subconscious that i sometimes get goosebumps just thinking about them

the instrumental reveries/bridges in songs like that one and “don’t talk” are so powerful, and bring a special kind of joy to chord progression connoisseurs everywhere

Call me a sap.

It's one the few (only?) albums I've been listening to for 25+ years that I still maintain a direct connection to the emotional space I was in when I first heard it. It strips away time and age and pretentions to knowing. It makes me raw. I can access these emotions without self-consciousness. I dive in, it hurts, but it's also ok. It did this then and it does it now.

It is also one of my favorite albums to sing along (badly) to. All those gorgeous backing and harmony vocals, bridges, outros, etc. That false ending and outro to You Still Believe In Me might be my favorite moment on the album, but I love every second of this album.

"They say I got brains but they ain't doing me no good" is probably the line that hurts the most for me. It's the feeling of "I should be doing better than I'm doing right now, everybody says I have my head on my shoulders, so why isn't it so?".

not to mention Brian's voice sounds like an anguished wail when he sings that verse part every time, and it doesn't feel like a performance.

the other damning part of the song is how it sticks with you over the years - wait, I've been saying "i wasn't made for these times" for 20+ years. What times WERE I made for? why do I feel left behind?

ugh....this is too much emo for the morning.

It's like picking a favorite child.

"God Only Knows" has to be it.

"They say I got brains but they ain't doing me no good" is probably the line that hurts the most for me. It's the feeling of "I should be doing better than I'm doing right now, everybody says I have my head on my shoulders, so why isn't it so?".

not to mention Brian's voice sounds like an anguished wail when he sings that verse part every time, and it doesn't feel like a performance.

the other damning part of the song is how it sticks with you over the years - wait, I've been saying "i wasn't made for these times" for 20+ years. What times WERE I made for? why do I feel left behind?

ugh....this is too much emo for the morning.

― real warm grandpa (Neanderthal), Thursday, 12 October 2023 17:02 (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

all of this

xpost that song was my favorite when I was in my 20s, still probably in my top 3. Carl's vocal on it one of his best.

I won't claim it's the best track on the album, but their rendition of "Sloop John B" is really, really great

yeah it's awesome.

I wanna go home

Pet sounds ruined me because it tugged on the fundamental concern of 16-20yo me, the loss of childhood innocence. This album, catcher in the rye, the tree of life; these spoke to me so directly back then that I get sad now realising I’ve become muted to this theme that used to effect me so much. The inescapable corruption of adulthood in its cold critical nature which supersedes pure childhood innocence for all people. I work with children; this theme isn’t just conceptual for me, I get to see the purity of childhood everyday and it is a consistent challenge to my adult coldness that I’m thankful for.

I even had a nice moment with my wife last night which was probably helped by listening and thinking about this album yesterday. We were having some silly minor “not talking” fight for an hour over really nothing. She eventually came in and apologised and even though I wanted to do the cold, “adult thing” and stand justified and be serious and discuss this and ra-ra-ra, I just burst out laughing, and she burst out laughing, and we realised how silly we were and why would we ever hold any form of grudge about anything, what a sad way to live!

All is love in Pet Sounds world

A lot of these sentiments could so easily have come off as jejune, possibly trite, not a million miles away from the teenage angst of 90s/00s nu metal and emo.

But these sentiments are delivered in a way that feels like they're being put into words for the first time; as though universal aspects of the human condition are being unlocked and laid bare in the simplest, barest, most melodic terms.

It's like therapy: The revelations were always there - they were nothing new. They just needed letting out

― ...eh you get the gist of it (dog latin)

see i come at it from another direction, if you get that feeling from good charlotte or simple plan, that's fine as well! i knew someone, when i was involved in the mythopoetic men's movement, who was truly, genuinely moved by the lyrics to "king nothing" by metallica. i mean, you ask me, that's a terrible fucking song, just awful. but if it helped him come to terms with his relationship with his abusive father, you know, that's cool. something doesn't have to be great art, or even good art, to have a positive impact on people.

i like straightforward, simple sentiments! i like complex sentiments too. they do things for me, help me in ways that simple sentiments can't. i guess that's the genius of pet sounds, the genius of brian wilson in general... in wilson's hands, "sometimes i feel very sad" becomes a _complex_ statement.

i guess maybe that's why it feels personal... it hits parts of me that i feel like _aren't_ universal, _aren't_ what everybody feels. it hits those things even though the words... i mean, if i think about it, if i get wise-minded about it, i absolutely was made for these times, at least as far as anybody was made for these times. i guess nobody was made for these times. _Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis_, as they say.

"sometimes i feel very sad", as they also say, and it is true. sometimes i feel sad in ways that nobody else can understand (this same statement is true of everybody), and "i just wasn't made for these times" touches that part of me.

it’s a trip listening to the instrumental version of this album. without the vocals anchoring everything it sound pretty weird and proggy a lot of the time.

You lot are making me feel very warm and fuzzy right now, I will say. Much like this album

I really didn't want to denigrate anyone who gets those feels from Good Charlotte et al btw. That's obviously very valid.

It says something about me that in the years I was falling in love with the Beach Boys (my very early 20s) that all that current teenage pop-rock was anathema to me

Perhaps it's the medium. These were not simple rock songs, really. An incredible amount of thought had been put into the arrangements. And then you have, as you say, "sometimes I feel very sad", which feels throwaway - literally showing not telling. But the way it is carried amplifies it tenfold

*telling not showing, apols I've had a couple of drinks

I tried to listen to wild honey this morning after spinning this and just could not do it. Hilarious juxtaposition going from B. Wilson singing “sometimes I feel very sad” to “ I'd love just once to see you In the nude” lol

Not that wild honey is a bad album, but it’s not what you want to put on as soon as Caroline No finishes playing

Nothing makes me more emotional than surf’s up (the song) though. That one rocks me even deeper than IJWMFTT.

That sounds wonderful. I’ve made it part of my piano teaching repertoire which has taught me how to keep an emotional distance, but if I listen to it on my own with my walls down it just breaks me

No one wants to help me look for places
Where new things might be found

Never thought about it before, but these lines are kind of an indictment of the rest of the rest of the Beach Boys', no?

It's kind of incredible how well Asher did in tapping into Brian's psyche at that time.

kind of