it’s all playing in my head: the orchestration and the five vocal parts. I think it’s going to work. Let’s try it
Although it must be a frightening place – sometimes Brian Wilson’s headspace sounds like pure heaven
Well, it works in my head
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It is truly astounding how on Earth he could hear the separate vocal parts coming together in his head before cutting the track. I have to thank Nick Kent for reawakening my love of the Beach Boys following his magnificent articles in the NME.
Kent did it for me, too! saved those supplements until the paper got yellow.
Wilson never, ever ceases to amaze. Listening to the Pet Sounds Sessions, it’s astonishing how much creative and technical control was harnessed to his creative genius. Real musicians in real time being led places that only existed, as DFB says, in his head. Yes, everybody else in pop was more or less talented, but he was beyond them all.
He hasn’t entirely lost it, either. he can still pull melodic changes out of somewhere we never get to see. This is a song he threw away on an obscure compilation a couple of years back that you might not have heard:
(… please, don’t kick in with the “autotune” thing. He doesn’t use it to write.)
What about the chorus to ‘The private life of Bill and Sue’? Absolutely glorious. Right at the start of it there’s a vocal sound like ‘hummphh’ which sets it in motion which is sheer genius.
I’ve put a lot of the very early stuff like ‘Warmth of the Sun’ and the sublime ‘Surfer Girl’ on the restaurant playlist,as well as all the usual suspects. Never gets old. Always inspiring. My all-time favourite is ‘Don’t worry Baby’. I used to get out of it and listen to it with my speakers either side of my befuddled nut. Majestic.
He was sublime right from the start, and he can still reach the heights. (I’ll upload something for you, Ian).
@ian-s
@tiggerlion
I’ll second Don’t Worry Baby, Ian.
Absolute pop ambrosia.
Made the decision early that long car journeys with my two daughters would be at least partly soundtracked by the BBs, and Don’t Worry Baby became an unprompted favourite. Wonderful stuff.
I think he was 24 when Pet Sounds came out. It was his 11th album! Singing, writing, arranging and producing. Yes he had some talent.
“Genius is an overused word”, but let’s not be too afraid to use it here. “Talent” is what the other Beach Boys had.
Yes a genius and if you ever saw a drunken guy wearing a Welsh rugby shirt approaching the stage and shaking his hand at the RFH, it was me …
Heroes & Villains for me.
God Only Knows is the greatest pop song ever recorded by anyone ever.
Concur with God only knows, closely followed by You still believe in me which has the most delightful melody.
My babysitting aunt had I Get Around as a single. I thought it was great, bouncing around, singing at the top of my voice, playing it over and over. Then, we turned it over. Don’t Worry Baby was heartstopping.
Later, the track that really captured my imagination was Cabin Essence on 20/20. I still haven’t heard anything like it. Those voices intertwine in so many different, complex ways, both assuring and spooky at the same time. That’s even before considering the layering in the music. It set me off on a lifelong search for Smile, not fully complete even now!
For me, it isn’t just Brian’s ability to put so many elements together to make a heavenly sound, it’s his sense of space. The pauses and quiet moments are exquisite. Besides Cabin Essence, I’ll point you to the almost forgotten single, The Little Girl I Once Knew, as another good example. I love the acapella songs, often tacked on as an introduction or thrown away at the end of an album. Check out Their Hearts Are Full Of Spring.
Whilst I’m here, can I just say Carl’s voice is so pure it pierces my soul? His lead vocals always affect me in a very peculiar way. He should have sung lead much more often. I rank him alongside Marvin and Aretha.
Check yr messages, tig.
Thank you! You are a gent.
One minute and 35 seconds of ecstatic innocence. This Car of Mine. 1963.
Dennis Wilson’s SoCal accent just kills me. Where is this place and how can I get there??? Nothing but endorphins and a vast, vast future ahead of us.
2 more minutes of ecstasy, but now it comes at price. Nothing is free, right?
A hope, a prayer. Hard earned.
Chords used in This Whole World:
C Bb/C C F Em7 G Am FbA F#7 Bm7 E7 C#m C# C#/C F#/Bb Ab7 Bbm/Ab F#maj7 Bb Ebmaj7 Bb F G C F Em7 G Am F A F#7 Bm7 E7 C#m C# C#/C F#/Bb Ab7 Bbm Bbm/Ab F#maj7
… got that? In under two minutes. And it sounds smooth as honey, and naturally effortless.
Like tig above, I had a massive adrenalin rush the first time I heard ‘I get Around’. I even remember the moment clearly – lunchtime Radio 1, sitting in the back garden and it came belting out of my transistor radio. I’d say ‘tranny’ usually, but Caitlyn/Bruce has deprived me of that innocent pleasure.
I also agree with tig about Carl having the sweetest voice – the first couple of lines of ‘I can hear Music’ are transcendent.
I was at the ‘Smile’ concert at RFH and saw Bruce Welch and David Gilmour chatting away beforehand. Gilmour was sitting close to me in the row behind. When Brian rattled off the hits at the end of the show, I thought it a rather incongruous sight to see Pink Floyd David dancing to ‘Help me Rhonda’. Good on him.
Do It Again.
That may have been the record that spawned (yes! spawned, I say, spawned, mwa ha ha haaaa) my interest in songs and that.
I would have been 12 or so and unearthed a pile of singles belonging to my older brother.
A 12-bar groove followed by some trippy vocals, which then dips into a pretty, soft melody, then swoops back into a sock-stiffening mutli-vocal groove.
Ka-pow. And all over in less than 3 minutes.
I adore that record. It’s perfect.
Absolutely agree, Beezer!
Lus, I thought I’d bump the thread.
Plus.
And, incredibly, they did a remake recently, before TWGMTR, that was in nearly every way as good as the original. It’s a stonking great riff, something that Can (don’t laugh) might have come up with.
Disregarding the yet to be seen film, it is Love and Mercy that I run back to for perfection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMEiggGt9hg
On my iPod Nano For Girls I have to limit favourite acts to three albums. Pet Sounds (Mark Linnet’s incredible stereo version) is always there, and at the moment it’s stacked with Friends and the stereo Smiley Smile. But the Beach Boys made so many great records the top three is always changing. I have a lot of time for Carl & The Passions, 20/20, and the so-thought “lesser” albums. There’s only a handful that make me shudder: Summer In Paradise, Still Cruisin’ (but even there …), Stars & Stripes, and the most recent “live” album of the TWGMTR tour.
Brian’s solo stuff is, I think, under-appreciated. The Gershwin album is tremendous, and That Lucky Old Sun is near-masterpiece, and, and, and … it’s endless, really. Thank God for Brian Wilson.
A nano only holds so much. That begs the question ….. what colour is it, HP?