Liberal Arts Blog — Brian Wilson (1942–2025) and The Beach Boys: “God Only Knows,” (1966), “Good Vibrations,” (1966), “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” (1966)
Liberal Arts Blog — Thursday is the Joy of Music Day
Today’s Topic: Brian Wilson (1942–2025) and The Beach Boys: “God Only Knows,” (1966), “Good Vibrations,” (1966), “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” (1966)
In the mid-1960s, The Beach Boys were the American answer to The Beatles. Brian Wilson and his gang had 13 songs on Billboard’s top ten between 1962 and 1966.
Bob Dylan was among those who praised the artistry of Brian Wilson: “That ear, I mean, Jesus, he’s got to will that to the Smithsonian.”
Paul McCartney has called “God Only Knows” (1966) the “greatest song ever written.”
According to the legendary Beatles’ producer, George Martin, the album “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” (sometimes rated the greatest rock album of all time) would never have happened without Brian Wilson’s “Pet Sounds.”
Are you a Brian Wilson fan? If so, what is your favorite song of his? Why? If not, why not? Is “Pet Sounds” as significant as some say it is? Why exactly?
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
“GOD ONLY KNOWS” (1966) — “the greatest song ever written” (Paul McCartney), “Fact and proof of angels” (Bono)
1. “I may not always love you, But as long as there are stars above you, you never need to doubt it, I’ll make you sure about it.”
2. “God only knows what I’d be without you, If you should ever leave me, though life would still go on believe me, the world could show nothing to me, so what good would living do me.”
3. “God only know what I’d be without you, God only knows what I’d be without you, If you should ever leave me, Well life would still go on believe me, The world could show nothing to me, So what would living do me.”
NB: “God only knows what I’d be without you….”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NADx3-qRxek
“GOOD VIBRATIONS” (1966) “One of the most influential pop recordings in history, “Good Vibrations” advanced the role of the studio as an instrument and effectively launched the progressive pop genre, heralding a wave of pop experimentation and the onset of psychedelic and progressive rock.”
1. “I love the colorful clothes she wears and the way the sunlight plays upon her hair, I hear the sound of a gengle word on the wind that lifts her perfume through the air.
2. “I’m picking up good vibrations, she’s giving me excitations (Oom-bop-bop) I’m pickin’ up good vibrations (good vibrations, bop-bop, she’s giving me excitations (Excitations, bop-bop)….
3. “Close my eyes. she’s somehow closer now, softly smile, I know she must be kind when I look. in her eyes she goes with me to a blossom world”
NB: “I’m picking up good vibrations, she’s giving me excitations (Oom-bop-bop) I’m picking up good vibrations (Good vibrations, bop-bop) She’s giving me excitations (Excitations, bop-bop)……
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eab_beh07HU
“WOULDN’T IT BE NICE” (1966) — the band’s most streamed song on Spotify
1. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older? Then we wouldn’t have to wait so long and wouldn’t it be nice to live together in the kind of world where we belong?”
2. “You know it’s gonna make it that much better, when we say goodnight and stay together, wouldn’t it be nice if we could wake up in the morning when the day is new and after having spent the day together, hold each other close the whole night through?”
3. “Happy times together we’ve been spending I wish that every kiss was never ending. Wouldn’t it be nice?”
NB: “Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray, it might come true (run, run with you) Baby, then wouldn’t be a single thing we couldn’t do we could be married (we could be married) And then we’d be happy (and then we’d be happy), Oh, wouldn’t it be nice?”
“You know it seems that more we talk about it, it only makes it worse to live without it, But let’s talk about it, Wouldn’t it be nice?
“Good night my baby, sleep tight, my baby, good night, my baby, sleep tight, my baby.”
FOOTNOTES — The Beach Boys (1961 — ) and Brian Wilson (1942–2025)
1. Original members: three brothers (Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson), “their cousin Mike Love and their friend Al Jardine.”
2. Founded in 1961 in Hawthorne, California, “a garage band centered on Brian’s songwriting and managed by the Wilson’s father, Murry.”
3. “Between the 1960s and 2020s, the group had 37 songs reach the U.S. Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 (the most by an American band), with four topping the chart.”
NB: On Brian Wilson: “ His best-known work is distinguished for its high production values, complex harmonies and orchestrations, vocal layering, and introspective or ingenuous themes.
Wilson was also known for his versatile vocal range. He faced lifelong struggles with mental illness.
Wilson’s formative influences included George Gershwin, the Four Freshmen, Phil Spector, and Burt Bacharach.”
Some of biggest hits: “Surf City” (1963), “In My Room” (1963), “I Get Around” (1964), “Help me Rhonda” (1965), “California Girls” (1965), “Sloop John B” (1966).
The Beach Boys — Wouldn’t It Be Nice
Brian Wilson, Songwriter and Leader of the Beach Boys, Dies at 82
Readers’ Poll: The Best Beach Boys Songs Ever
Paul McCartney Considers “God Only Knows” to Be “The Greatest Song of Ever Written”
Wouldn’t It Be Nice — Wikipedia
Beach Boy Brian Wilson’s 12 Essential Songs
Love & Mercy (film) — Wikipedia
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
A LINK TO THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED BY THEME:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENT BELOW -
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Time to share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to music.
Or the coolest thing you learned in your life related to music. Say your favorite song or songs. Or your favorite tips for breathing, posture, or relaxation. Or some insight into the history of music….Or just something random about music… like a joke about drummers. jazz, rock….or share an episode or chapter in your musical autobiography.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. And perhaps to cement in your memory something important you would otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than you otherwise would about something that matters to you.
