A Cork on the Ocean: Beach Boys and Wilson Brothers song-by-song

Three Blind Mice

Oddly kind of great, would make excellent movie soundtrack music.

3/5

 

My only takeaway from the Dick James tracks is that, as much as we've been talking about certain Beach Boys tracks (Graduation Day etc) as "old-fashioned," things could get a whole lot more old-fashioned than that in 1965.

 

Great thread and I can't try to come up with anything better to add to the descriptions so far for The Little Girl I Once Knew.
However, I just wanted to mention how the song is an important step to Pet Sounds.
Brian starts to take an harmonic approach very different than what came before. It is not as complex as the songs from Pet Sounds but it has some ideas that he would later take to extremes.
Just a few.....
Lots of modulation......the tonal center never really takes hold for long. For instance the verse alone modulates quickly. And to boot, uses modal inflections.
The chorus changes key as well but sounds a little more grounded using a usual rock and roll turnaround.
The use of alterations and inversions in the bassline.
His love of Gershwin starts to become evident with this song and he would later take those ideas even further and make them his own.
5/5 for Little Girl.

 

"Things are Changing" - I'm all for equal rights and opportunities, trust me, but Phil's lyrics are banal at best, just a PSA, and coupled with his overblown production, it just sounds insincere. The music's good, though. 2.5/5

 

"Three Blind Mice" - I'm not hearing the connection with the nursery rhyme. This just seems to be a well-orchestrated basic motif repeated over and over. 2/5

 

The Dick James tracks - this seems like stepping back in time, even for 1965. Is he the same guy who handled the Beatles publishing? I've never heard Dick James before (or of him, if he's not the publishing guy), but the latest thing I could compare this to would be Sinatra album tracks from the mid-'50s, with regard to the orchestration - the vocal style itself seems to belong to the '40s, or really the '30s.

The arrangements are quite good, and a little astounding that Brian was this accomplished at a very different type of music than the contemporary rock and pop he was used to arranging.

 

Tomorrow, I’m going to start holding up songs from The Beach Boys 11th studio album, Pet Sounds.




Pet Sounds’s story begins almost immediately after the recording for Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) was completed, when Brian cut the backing track of “Sloop John B.” in July 1965. Realizing that he was at his peak, he resolved to make, in his own words, “the greatest record ever made.”

Brian seems to have written small demos throughout 1965, that he would eventually layer together to make the melody-rich tapestries of Pet Sounds, while The Beach Boys toured. In his own words, he spent five months planning the album in his head before he began recording more.

It wasn’t until November 1965, when Brian really began recording songs for Pet Sounds, mostly instrumental backing tracks. Through Brian’s eclectic circle of friends, he was introduced to Tony Asher, a UK-born commercial jingle writer who was said to be good with words. Brian, being part of a circle of LA hipsters, was aware that in the post-Byrds, post-Dylan landscape of American popular music, the Beach Boys were regarded as unhip, no matter how much the teenagers continued to scream during the concerts, and he asked Tony if he’d be interested in writing some songs with him. Also in November, Surfin’ U.S.A. and Surfer Girl albums were both certified gold, as the culture continued its slow shift from singles to albums.

Brian’s original concept for Pet Sounds, before any lyrics were written, seems to have concerned the maturation of a boy into a man -- or a girl into a woman. On December 6th, not long after Dennis’s 21st birthday the US version of Rubber Soul, a compilation of the UK album, with some songs removed and one yet-unreleased (in the US) song from the UK version of Help! included, was released to great critical acclaim, capping off a year that had been somewhat dominated by folk rock. Brian loved the album, and it cemented his resolve to make a great album with equally great, mature lyrics, a tidbit which, over the last sixty years, over hundreds and hundreds of interviews, not a single interviewer has not asked Brian about.

Brian contacted Asher about collaborating with him on songs for the next album, just around the time Carl turned 19 years old.

In January, 1966, the rest of The Beach Boys left the country for their first tour of Japan, where they were greeted with rapturous audiences — Japan would end up being one of The Beach Boys largest markets for decades. Back in LA, Brian began writing songs with Asher and recording backing tracks for them. Over the course of thir

Brian’s collaboration with Asher seems to have been unique, resembling most his early collaborations with Gary Usher. Typically, Asher would show up to Brian’s house and wait around for a few hours until the nocturnal Brian got up sometime in the afternoon. Once Brian made his way downstairs, the pair would smoke weed and talk about various issues that were important to Brian: His wife, his love life, his various crushes, his hopes and fears, and concerns, the evolution of pop culture. Asher would take notes, jotting down ideas and phrases that the pair came up with.


After some time, Brian and Tony would begin working on a song that Brian had written. Tony would write what he called “dummy lyrics”, i.e., placeholder lyrics that were not meant as final drafts. Then he would go home, and write revise the dummy lyrics for the song they’d been working on, often using their conversations from the early afternoons as springboard for ideas. Then, he would bring the rewritten lyrics to show Brian and they would shape the songs together. In this process, Brian would edit the words, cutting some and sometimes suggesting lyrics of his own; and on a couple of occasions, Asher would suggest a change of melody.

The concept Brian had originally had gradually involved into a set of songs that captured different stages of evolution in relationships and the emotional complexities of those, as well as songs exploring maturity, youth evolving into maturity and songs exploring different kinds of escape and the inner emotional state of the hypersensitive Brian.

In Asher’s description, while the words were mostly his own, they were very much directed by Brian and were the product of Brian’s concepts and ideas, with Asher mostly just serving as the interpreter to Brian’s inarticulate, yet specific, lyrical vision.

Unfortunately, but part of the story, is that, after the songs were written and it had come came time to divide royalties, Brian told him that in his opinion, he, Brian that is, had written all of the music and some of the lyrics, and told him to talk to Murry, who was Brian’s partner and main administrator of the Sea of Tunes publishing company. Asher believed he was entitled to 50% of the songwriter royalties, (i.e. 16.5 percent of the overall royalties, with 66% automatically going to Murry & Brian’s publishing company.) However, when he met with Murry privagtely, the contract Murry offered Asher— and which Asher accepted — gave him only a 25 percent share of that the song writing royalty (8.25%.) Which was the same deal that Mike Love and possibly others (I don't know) had accepted from Murry. Asher wasn’t happy, of course, but he accepted the deal.

As of the mid-eighties, Asher reported to Stephen Gaines that he had earned about $60 000 in songwriting royalties over the previous twenty years from Pet Sounds, although that has doubtless tripled by now.

Brian recorded the backing tracks of Pet Sounds mostly with The Wrecking Crew, and mostly at his favorite studio ,Western Recorders, eschewing for the most part The Beach Boys' instrumentation. Even Carl’s role was reduced, for the first time, though he did contribute guitar to a few songs, and Dennis would make a cameo on drums on one song. This reduced role of the band has led to Pet Sounds being characterised as a Brian Wilson solo album — albeit it’s hard for me to consider it that when it has lead vocals by Mike, Carl, Al, and complex backing vocals by The Beach Boys; and, ultimately, it was The Beach Boys whose name the songs were recorded under and who doubtless footed the bill — which was $80,000: one of the most if not the most expensive album ever made at that point. (SMiLE: hold my beer.)

The backing tracks for the 13 songs seem to have been recorded in fifteen or sixteen sessions, mostly recorded live in a room, with a few instrumental overdubs; though it’s possible that Brian had already recorded demos for many of them at demo studios or at home that are not on the records.

A photo shoot at the San Diego zoo in February resulted in both the cover of the album, and The Beach Boys being banned for life from the zoo. Apparently Dennis had attacked a goat when it bit him.

Also in February, Carl married Annie Hinsche, whose brother Billy had played harmonica on the Party! Album.


In March, Mike turned 25 years old and not long afterwards, The Beach Boys fired their management team, moving to Julian Lefkowitz & Company. The management company continued their investigation into Capitol’s questionable accounting that had been started back in the days of Murry Wilson’s management.

The Beach Boys' account was managed by Nick Grillo, who became the band’s general manager. Grillo’s and The Beach Boys' office happened to be opposite Derek Taylor’s. Lefkowitz & Co’s main strategy was to take The Beach Boys short term, but sizeable cash injections and invest them into long-term investments, which proved difficult as at least some of The Beach Boys at that point had difficulties with the concepts and preferred to buy cars and other expensive toys.

Derek Taylor was a British independent copywriter who happened to be the most brilliant rock publicist of the age and maybe of all time; hitherto he had worked solely for The Beatles and had been largely responsible for the ultra-successful hype of The Beatles from the beginning.


Having recently gone freelance and moved to LA, and being a Beach Boys fan, Taylor began working for the band and it was he who first spun the “Brian Wilson is a genius” catchphrase, a catchphrase that worked, in his words, because it was true. His press releases and copy for the band would have a great effect especially in the UK, where Beach Boys mania began in earnest.

Throughout the winter and spring, after they returned from Japan, The Beach Boys sporadically played concerts, netting thousands of dollars per night, to the usual scenes of violent teenage mayhem, with a few oases of calm when they played at universities: a welcome change for the fraught band, who were by now exhausted of the teenage Dionysian frenzy and began to look into booking more and more university shows. But, as was typical of their schedule, they mostly stayed in LA during the winter months.

Brian threw parties in his house in the huge tent he had had erected there, where he played the backing tracks to his friends and brothers to enthusiastic response. Al, Mike and Bruce were not invited to these parties, meaning they first heard them when they were brought in to sing on sessions.

In the studio, Brian’s quest for perfection became an all-consuming passion during these vocal sessions, which took place mostly in the state-of-the-art eight-track recording studio at Columbia; but Brian also worked in a few other studios, and even at one point had the Boys record on a portable four-track recorder in his living room.

Vocal sessions for Pet Sounds could last as long as twelve hours, and eventually led to tension within the group, who simply couldn’t hear the mistakes that Brian was sure was there; this tension was intensified by mounting pressure from Capitol who were beginning to get very frustrated with Brian’s slow pace of work, their relationship having become rather fraught as Brian began to resent Capitol’s interference with what he knew was going to be his greatest work. At one point, Capitol called a meeting with Brian and Mike, and Brian brought along seven or eight reel-to-reel tape recorders, with short answers like “Yes”, “No”, , NO Comment”, “That sounds like a good idea"“I Don’t Know”, and other short phrases. Refusing to speak directly to the executives, Brian would simply play the appropriate reel-to reel recorder when asked questions.

This did not endear him to the record company.

On top of that, by most accounts, Mike was concerned that the lyrics that Brian and Tony had written for Pet Sounds were depressing and would not connect with the public; Al has admitted that he thought the music was too strange, and didn’t quite get it, though later he came to recognise its brilliance. This created some friction in the band.

Nevertheless, rumours that there was strong opposition to the music on Pet Sounds has been called “********"by Carl Wilson and dismissed by Dennis who said that he couldn’t imagine anybody in the band [at that point] resisting Brian’s leadership. Mike, too has said that he did not have a problem with the music, and at any rate waxed rhapsodic about the album in his memoirs; but he did feel that Brian should have given him a crack at at least some of the songs, which may have driven his discontent; while Bruce has never been anything less than rapturous about considered it to be a great honour to have been a small part of it.

It sees that Al’s worries were mostly about having to reproduce the songs on stage. Recorded with string orchestras, flutes, horns sections, accordions, ukuleles, vibraphones, pianos, organs, up to three different basslines per song, bass harmonicas, several guitars, mando-guitars, and a variety of percussion instruments, it does seem a tall order for a four-piece, two guitar-bass-drums combo to pull off.

Brian initially finished Pet Sounds on April 4th, 1966. But after assembling the album, he decided it wasn’t finished and went back into the studio to work some more on vocals, re-assembling the album in mid-April, only go to back the next day to put the finishing touches on one song. Finally he delivered the completed master to Capitol on April 19th.

Not knowing when or even if Pet Sounds was going to be completed, unable to communicate with what they saw as an increasingly unreliable, impulsive and impetuous Brian and feeling that the songs Brian was working on were uncommercial and weird, Capitol had already begun making plans to release and market a compilation album, which they knew they would be able to sell.

The album was entitled Pet Sounds. It's not certain who came up with the title: Brian credited Carl and Carl credited Brian; Mike Love credited it to himself, saying it came from his quip to Brian that Brian " the ears of a dog", able to hear imperfections beyond the range of normal human beings; and also tying in with the dog sounds at the end of the album and the album cover while being a play on words: pet sounds=favorite sounds.

Pet Sounds was released, at long last, on May 16th, 1966. Bruce Johnston, proud of the album, flew to England with Taylor to conduct interviews there and went wild on the town with Keith Moon, and also played the album several times at a party to John Lennon & Paul McCartney themselves, who were in the midst of making their own masterpiece, Revolver. The pair were fans of The Beach Boys and Paul, in particular, fell in love with the album and has gushed about it many times -- a fact which has made its way into every single press release and article written about the album over the last sixty years.

Pet Sounds charted at #10 on the US charts, and spawned no fewer than four top forty singles.

This, however, was considered a disappointment by Capitol and by Brian himself, who craved commercial success as the ultimate validator of his toil. The underperformance at the time, if it could be called that, was blamed on the fact that Capitol underpromoted the album, in favor of throwing their promotion money at the following Best of The Beach Boys compilation album, which was released only about six weeks later.

However, it seems that Capitol may have deliberately underreported sales to avoid paying royalties, which The Beach Boys believed had been happening all along. In 2008, Capitol admitted, not to deliberately underreporting sales, but to having made “an accounting error” regarding the sales of Pet Sounds.

While it was not certified as a gold record until 2000, it seems that Pet Sounds did sell 500,000 copies by the summer of 1967 — a slower seller than Today! or Summer Days (which went gold in February 1966), but actually a steadier seller.

By 2012, Pet Sounds had gone platinum and sold over 1,600,000 copies in the USA — The Beach Boys #1 highest selling non-compilation album in the US, and their seventh highest selling album in the States overall. The 1997 4 CD Pet Sounds Sessions box set has sold an additional 75000; data for the 2016 box set or any reissues after 2012 is not available to me.

Meanwhile, in the UK, Pet Sounds was anything but a disappointment. On the wings of the brilliant hype generated by Derek Taylor, the album was rapturously received by the press, and became a huge hit, going to #2 in the charts, and staying in the album sales chart for nearly a year. It was the second highest-selling rock album of 1966, I believe, (after Revolver -- whose sales it more or less equalled), being certified double platinum in the UK (over 600,000 copies.) It has also charted in several other countries.

Additionally, Pet Sounds, like the Christmas Album, has re-entered the charts of various countries at various points in history: in 1972, in 1990, in 1995, in 2001, 2006, 2015 and 2016.

Pet Sounds is considered by many to be one of the most influential albums of all time and an album that clearly set out a case for the pop music-as-high-art movement that characterised the sixties and the now bygone album era. It is usually included in articles that list “The Greatest Albums of All Time”, often quite high on the list, a fact that seems to rankle more people and generate more controversy than most such placements. Pet Sounds has been reissued several times, and two separate box sets devoted to the album have been released.

The original album was mixed only in mono, and many original copies were released in unfortunate duophonic fake stereo, or, perhaps worse, in the UK, in mono fold-downs of the duo phonic mix.

A stellar mono version, in a remastered overseen personally by Carl Wilson, was released in 1972 on Brother/Reprise Records as part of a twofer with Carl & The Passions: So Tough, and Pet Sounds has been reissued, remastered, remixed and re-released a staggering amount of times. Personally, I own five CD copies myself — and all of them feature stereo and mono mixes. This probably ties it with Skylarking by XTC as my "most bought" album.

In 1996, engineer Mark Linnett went back to the original master tracks and presented a stereo mix of Pet Sounds for the first time in 1996, which was released on The Pet Sounds Sessions box set in 1997.

The track-list was:

1. Wouldn’t It Be Nice (Brian Wilson, Tony Asher, Mike Love)
2. You Still Believe In Me (Wilson, Asher)
3. That’s Not Me (Wilson, Asher)
4. Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder) (Wilson, Asher)
5. I’m Waiting for the Day (Wilson, Love)
6. Let’s Go Away for a While (Wilson)
7. Sloop John B. (Trad. Arr. Wilson)
8. God Only Knows ((Wilson, Asher)
9. I Know There’s an Answer (Wilson, Terry Sachsen, Love)
10. Here Today (Wilson, Asher)
11. I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times (Wilson, Asher)
12. Pet Sounds (Wilson)
13. Caroline, No (Wilson, Asher)

In addition to the above, I’m planning to hold up the following extra-album tracks for discussion:

• Hang On To Your Ego (Wilson-Sachsen) {outtake, released as a bonus track in 1990 on CD Pet Sounds reissue)
• Trombone Dixie (Wilson) {outtake, released as a bonus track in 1990 on CD Pet Sounds reissue)
• Good Good Good Vibrations (I.e., Good Vibrations demo or “Good Vibrations Version One, etc)) (Wilson, Asher, Love) {outtake, released as a bonus track in 1990 on Smiley Smile/Wild Honey twofer CD Pet Sounds)
• The Pet Sounds Sessions (1996); Pet Sounds 50th Anniversary release; Pet Sounds 40th Anniversary Release

I’ll include the last two entries on one day (though they have nothing to do with each other) and then I’m going to start holding up songs from The SMiLE Sessions on February 26th.

 

My brain had a malfunction: this is DICK REYNOLDS, who did the arrangements on the Christmas album.

 

As an American I've been spelling it the English way all my life. I was a big bookworm as a child and must have learned it while reading an English book.

 

"Things ARe Changing" -- lyrics may be well-meant but they don't work. The song is OK, but musically I think "Don't Hurt My Little Sister", is far, far better as an arrangement and I like Brian 'n' Mike's vocals better than this over-strident Blossoms singer.

Of these covers, The Supremes is probably the best one, thanks to the crystal clear, vocals of Diana Ross who makes great singing sound so much easier and effortless than it is for most human beings. Spoken word bits are cheesy, though.
2.8/5

"Three Blind Mice"-- an exercise that was never meant to be released, it nevertheless has a weird sort of hypnotic genius and if it had been recorded during Brian's modular phase, might have been attached to something. I think it's cool. 3.1/5

The Dick Reynolds cuts feature hilariously bad vocals -- but again, not intended for release (and indeed, they have never been released outside of bootlegs.) They are not for rating but I would rate them very low if they were, yet I do kind of like the backing tracks.

 

Things are Changing is pretty great: 4/5. It sounds like Darlene Love on lead vocals.

The arrangement of Three Blind Mice clearly points to future and is inessential but nice to hear: 3/5.

 

Things Are Changing ‚only rating Blossoms, others hold no interest for this listener—

• opening lyric seems out of place (or rather, forced to fit) with what follows, and what follows is like an ad about… how easy progress is if you just go for it? There are… no societal obstacles, hey, it's already 1965?

• backing has that cavernous headache Sp3c†0r could generate as if his reason to be.

• performance hardly matters with those obstacles.

There's a telltale Brian Wilson maneuver before the good jobs line.

2.18/5

 

three blind mice that ain't Three Blind Mice

a minute from a fraction of a minute's worth, but without quite attaining hypnotic grip some of his upcoming repetition achieves

3.08/5

 

Every time I hear the chorus begin with the word "Things" I keep expecting the next few words to be "Go better with Coca Cola." I can't imagine this being a hit single, but it's obviously a pretty decent public service announcement.

This sounds like it's from the same ball of wax as "Dixie Trombone." The only reason I can think of for calling it "Three Blind Mice" might be that it consists of the same three chords played over and over again (E♭m G♭ A♭).

 

Thanks Lance for the mammoth and excellent myth-busting introductory post about Pet Sounds.

I'm a little concerned I won't have anythign to say about all all the PS songs that have been eulogised and analysed so much over the years, especially as the Jacques Brel thread takes so much time to do. I'll see how it goes. Maybe reading some of the other posts will spark some observation from deep in my unconscious.

 

It's prejudiced against British English full stop. Sorry, period.

 

There was a time when the world was fickle
And it was hard to succeed
But times have changed now
And school and training is all you really need

It doesn't matter who you may be
Everyone's equal
with the same opportunities

Things are changing for the better
Things are changing for the better

Hmm - I think our politicians will use this one in the coming UK election. Not a great song, though. 2/5 for all versions.

Three Blind Mice. Odd but prescient and indeed ominous. Ironic that it was on the Smile box when the Child is Father 3 minute track wasn't. 3/5

 

Changing - 2
Mice - 3

 

Things Are Changing
I enjoy even a lesser example of that great Spector sound, and traces of the original melody still shine through. The artless lyric does its best to kill the track but it survives.
3/5

Three Blind Mice
No wonder this was included with the Smile sessions, it sounds so much like one of those little inserts that Brian recorded without telling anyone what it was for. In itself, not worth rating.

 

Things Are Changing The Blossoms
Spector's WoS gets too muddy on this performance. It is a typically angst-ridden song that we associate with PS despite it having been written by Brian Wilson. I hadn't heard of The Blossoms prior to listening this, I don't think I'm likely to hear of them again, 2.5/5

Things Are Changing The Supremes
The reverb is really piled on with this version much to the detriment of the song. Diana Ross's vocal is much more upfront than in The Blossoms version but this is not the Motown sound I was expecting, 2/5

Things Are Changing Jay And The Americans
No, I didn't like this one despite the singer having a fairly decent voice. The pseudo WoS doesn't work here, the producer should have dialled back the reverb somewhat and given the instruments more breathing space. A nice try, 2/5

Three Blind Mice
This doesn't go anywhere and is, thankfully, only 56s in length, 1/5

Three Blind Mice Officially Released Version
I have the Smile 2-CD box, and this tune doesn't appear on it. Given that the tune breaks down so many times following Brian's interjections from the control booth it's of marginal interest, completists only need apply, 1/5

How Deep Is The Ocean
Clearly not deep enough. This is close, too close to being dreadful. Thank goodness we don't have to rate it, I'd want my money back for sure!

Stella By Starlight
See above...

 

To be clear, the "breaking down" is actually just multiple takes edited together as Brian developed the song during the session.

One of my main frustrations with The SMiLE Sessions is that, unlike The Pet Sounds Sessions, they didn't separate the 'session highlights extracts' (which I think are interesting but not for multiple listens) from the final/completed take.

So in all the tracks, you have this kind of thing, of stopping and starting and screwing up and elements being added and reworked, and finally the pay off at the end.

Some of those SMiLE fragments are less than ten seconds long so its very frustrating to go through session highlights for a minute and a half for a ten second clip of perfection.

I wish some enterprising fan would just edit the session highlights out of the set (interesting though they actually can be) and present just the finished/completed fragments. I've been planning to do that myself for about the last seven or eight years, but....haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

I thought it was the tape rolling continuously and the start/stop/interjection was being recorded as the session progressed. I didn't know it was multiple takes being edited together. I will bow to your superior knowledge in this respect.

 

Oh, yes, there was a lot more work that went into it than is on that video. They are all available on bootleg, (and probably are on YouTube) on one 12 minute plus track...and I think even that is edited. A bit tedious though.

 

There was talk above about what if GV had been on Pet Sounds. When was single released compared to PS release?

 

Pet Sounds was released in late May.

"Good Vibrations" was finished (I think) in September and released in October.

There was an early, unfinished, version of "Good Vibrations" that was recorded during the Pet Sounds sessions, but there were no backing vocals and the lyric was not finalized.

As for the backing track -- only the backing track of the verse from the Pet Sounds version made the final version, which was edited togther from five or so completely different versions recorded in spring/summer 1966, all of which differed, arrangements-wise.

I'm going to hold that first version up as its own thing after we talk about the album.

So this hypothetical is in fact, impossible unless one pretends that "Good Vibrations" didn't take three months to complete, which it did.