Brian was a French horn

Some say ‘Pet Sounds’ is the greatest album ever made etc etc blah blah blah. It may well be, but for what it’s worth, ‘Abbey Road’, ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’, ‘Hunky Dory’, ‘Grand Prix’ by Teenage Fanclub and ‘Blonde On Blonde’ (or ‘Bringing It All Back Home’, Highway 61 Revisited, Nashville Skyline, yawn) have been or are currently my own personal ‘Best Album Ever’. Even ‘Life’s Too Good’ by The Sugarcubes is in my eyes/to my ears one of the best albums ever made. Honest. The fact is, there is no one ‘Best Album Ever’. But for many, ‘Pet Sounds’ is right up there. I saw the Brian Wilson ‘Pet Sounds’ tour a couple of times in 2002, and the show at the Edinburgh Playhouse was fantastic, way better than the Glasgow show earlier that year. My memories of Glasgow were of folk continually shouting out combinations of “Genius!” or requests for the next song, when everyone there knew what was coming next. Duh. It was the ‘Pet Sounds’ show. We all had the album. Edinburgh was better. We were 3 rows from the front, right in front of Brian. At one point I was convinced he was smiling at me. Then I realised he was screwing up his big fat hang dog face to read the auto-cue. True. The one major blip came at the end of the night, right after I had acquired a typed out set list from the stage. There at the top were the immortal words. ‘Brian Wilson. Pet Sounds. Edinburgh, England.’ Genius? Not at geography.

Anyway. The music. Before I go on, a disclaimer. There are plenty, plenty of Beach Boys trainspotters out there. Some of you may even stumble across this site. If you do, please don’t take great delight in correcting any inaccuracies I may write with regards to ‘Pet Sounds’. For this reason I am keeping any such info at a minimum. In fact. I’m not going to write any. There are plenty, plenty of Beach Boys websites, blogsites and fansites scattered throughout hyperspace that do just that. There’s a very good one right here in fact. Me? I prefer to focus on the music. Or lack of, as today may be. What follows is the 11 songs from ‘Pet Sounds’ done in acappella style. No music, except for the odd leakage of backing tape that the assembled Beach Boys could hear in their headphones. Beach Boys stack-o-vocals, as Brian liked to call them. All the harmonies, coughs, whispered count-ins, duh-duh-duh-duh-duhs you could ever want to hear. In fact, it might all be too much for the one sitting, but it does make a great wee compilation. If it does appear all too much, I’d suggest going for the version of ‘Here Today’. But really, you need all of this, you really do.

In a rare fit of praise, Murry Wilson once said of his son, “Brian thinks in six-part harmony instead of two or three part. He’s not only a writer, he’s an arranger and he has a concept of harmonics which is uncanny.” These six-part harmonies blew the socks off of 1970s slush merchant Eric Carmen (‘All By Myself’ etc). In a famous quote he says, “Their vocal harmonies are unsurpassed…..I think Brian was a French Horn, Carl was a flute, Al Jardine a trumpet, Dennis a trombone and Mike Love (booooo!) a baritone sax, before their incarnation as The Beach Boys.” So here you go….the human orchestra that was the Beach Boys:

Wouldn’t It Be Nice

You Still Believe In Me

That’s Not Me

Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)

I’m Waiting For The Day

Sloop John B

God Only Knows

I Know There’s An Answer

Here Today

I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times

Caroline, No

*special bonus track God Only Knows (alternative ending – very nice!)