Thinking of Brian Wilson and the Glory of Pet Sounds

(Warning this poem may ruin the nice/cute misguided impression you may have of the Beach Boys' music.  Once you listen to their songs this way you will never be able to go back.  It is like opening the window and then it is impossible to un-hear or un-see.) 

Is it weird that with every Beach Boys song I think of Brian Wilson stalking a girl that either only exists in his head or who refuses to ever talk to him again after he broke into her bedroom and serenaded her only to be cold-cocked by her father and dragged to the curb or worse her father wasn’t there?  [I know these are not original thoughts.]  

Just take their masterpiece Pet Sounds.

1.      Wouldn’t it be Nice a pedophilia Lolita fantasy as if the only reason this girl doesn’t want anything to do with him is that she is a freshman in high school. 

2.      You Still Believe In Me, after all he has done to her he tries hard to ignore what she wants him to be and cannot help how he is when she’s not around.  There are also bicycle bell sounds in the back of this song. 

3.      That’s Not Me, a guy who is clearly dependent, hung up, afraid, and clingy.  What woman actually has a relationship with such a wussy sack of estrogen?  He’s going to the city to clearly stalk a woman because she ran away to get away from this lonely psycho. 

4.      Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on my Shoulder) I see Brian Wilson with the fearful body still alive wrapped up in his basement, duct tape over her mouth cuddling with his abduction, just wanting her to listen to his heart. 

5.      I’m Waiting for the Day  Wilson imagines himself as the “friend” to sweep in after the “bad boyfriend” broke her heart.  This is clearly a fantasy as this has never happened in the history of male-female dynamics as assuming the role of the wussy sack of listening has ever produced female to male attraction.  In real life her boyfriend was a decent guy, who was a little bit of a bad-ass and Wilson sat at home obsessing. Yeah he is sitting back and watching.

6.      Let’s Go Away For Awhile  Clearly another abduction fantasy song like a dream sequence inside Wilson’s twisted Buffalo Bob-like fantasies.  If this had lyrics, it really could have been played in Silence of the Lambs instead of Goodbye Horses.

7.      Sloop John B , Wilson is drunk at sea dumping the body after a bender.  He had to kill her grandfather as well or possibly this is his name for her real boyfriend as an older male-figure.  Wilson feels trapped and is trying to convince himself he just had to do the deed.  The police are on his tail.  Corn is also another word for meth in this song.

8.      God Only Knows, Wilson is clearly remorseful after all his misdeeds and has to re-rationalize his obsessive love.  Like most weak men he is turning to God and contemplating suicide as his individual worthlessness is overwhelming when considering the absence of his girl who clearly tried to leave him in his mind after all the restraining orders did nothing to help.

9.      I Know There’s An Answer, After calling the girl’s home sixty-seven times in a twenty-four hour period taking on several alternative personalities to try to get through the pre-caller ID firewall, Wilson is wondering what made the girl so defensive.  He refuses to give up.  He has to find the answer.  He knows his way is better.

10.  Here Today, He is seduced by spotting new obsessions, how it starts his obsessive abductions in hotel lobbies, joy-riding in his convertible, beaches and school cafeterias.  Today it’s here and tomorrow that perfect target is a mad-downer in his basement headed for a boat ride.

11.  I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times, Wilson is on the verge of suicide thinking about how all his thoughts are meant for another setting for what he can barely hold in his head anymore.  The inspirations he can no longer handle and looking for a place to turn with no one to help him with what goes wrong, his sickness, his sadness and his imaginary loves.

12.  Pet Sounds, Wilson is turning far into psychedelics to answer his madness.  Regular women start to appear as his prior obsessions.  The worlds of was and is, are intertwining.  The obsessions are now his pets, the caged murmurs muffled screams from his processing facilities, which don’t have to really exist, but occupy his deranged beautiful mind.

13.  Caroline, No, Poor Caroline has her hair chopped off.  Her languid bloodless body sits limp and pale in his arms dead.  He loved her and refuses to let go of the dream.  The dogs (pet sounds) are barking, the trains are stalking him at the end of the song.    

14.  Hang On To Your Ego, Wilson is battling to hold onto what he has left of a self, a repressed morality of knowing what he is doing is wrong.  He knows he is guilty. He is reassuring himself that what he did was not so bad.  

Now Brian Wilson only gets credited with writing eleven of this songs, but it is clear that the Beach Boys are using Pet Sounds as Wilson’s public confession for his guilt and no one takes his darkness as criminal, simply as a beautiful humanity so close to the horribleness that love can turn some people towards after being unable to process loneliness in a healthy way.  If you ever were misguided into thinking the Beach Boys were about Surfin’ USA, my 409, or Fun, Fun, Fun, well those were cover ups and stalking grounds for Wilson’s insatiable appetite for imaginary relationships.   

Yes, the darkness in Pet Sounds is why this is a top five album of all time and anyone that doesn’t see that and just sees a nice happy high school dance, well the veil is now lifted.  After thinking of the Beach Boys in this way I was never able to listen to any of their songs without this darker-twinge as the actual intended setting.  Now you are burdened with a similar curse. 

Good Vibrations (I love the clothes you wear and the way the sunlight plays upon your hair.)  

Happy listening.