Friday Evening Prayer Meeting

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Here's a Beach Boys production by the pensive and melancholy Brian Wilson at the height of his creative powers in 1966, as he was beginning to unravel:



Current references to Brian Wilson liken him to someone's crazy uncle, and I've read quotes attributed to him that seem to verify that. But in 1966, well established as the creative leader of THE pop group that defined, exemplified, and sanctified American youth hedonism for a short time before hippiedom emerged, Wilson was a highly sensitive and troubled soul. There are many accounts of the "battle of the bands" Wilson had with the Beatles across the sea at mid-decade --- not a hostile one --- with each group upping the ante of experimentation in response to a release by the other. This began with Brian's reaction to Rubber Soul, after a period of his own studio and lyrical experimentation. He both complimented the Beatles and tried to even top them in the studio with orchestrations, electronics, and even oddball instrumental voicings such as a boogie-inflected solo the lowest register of an accordion in I Know There's An Answer.

When listening to Pet Sounds as an adult I've always felt there was much more to Wilson's brooding instrumentations and lyrics than merely "youthful angst," as Wikipedia glibly calls it. He was not only haunted by the fleeting nature of love, which songs like Caroline, No deal with directly, but his use of psychedelic drugs seems to have helped to intensify his sense of alienation from much of humanity, including womankind and his bandmates. They lyrics of this song depict a very fragile, if self-centered, young man. The honesty and vulnerability of the lyric and performance, to my ears, raise it far above the maudlin result that this sort of creative outcrying often produces.

But listen to the music. Chances are you've never heard this song before because it never charted and you probably didn't own the album. The Beach Boys had become very uncool in a heartbeat by the end of 1967, being eclipsed by "heavy" acts like Hendrix and the Doors... and of course, The Beatles. By that point Wilson had lost creative and operational control of the group, and in my opinion almost all of the band's good work was now behind it.

If you hear some of the "genetic material" from Good Vibrations floating around in the gorgeous backgrounds of this number, it's because Brian was assembling this album concurrently with the orchestral and studio experiments that finally evolved into his signature trippy surfer "pocket symphony." (I believe that Wikipedia is incorrect, at least partially, about the sequence of Pet Sounds and Good Vibrations because there are dated rehearsal recordings that contradict that.)

Anyway, listen to the jangly rhythm sounds near the beginning of the cut; what instruments is he mixing down to get that effect, and how? Wilson was a master of audio synthesis, carefully blending and balancing unusual instrumental combinations on tape. Pianos, guitars, Farfisa organ, mallet percussion like the celeste, unified into a sound from which it is difficult to extract the individual components. Also, in this clip, don't miss the Theremin solo on the outchorus --- a poignant little line and, in my opinion, a much more memorable use of the instrument than on Good Vibrations. (Actually, I just read that it was an Electro-Theremin, inspired by the Theremin but different in terms of electronics and controls.)

You can read about Pet Sounds, Good Vibrations, and Wilson's ill-fated Smile album on Wikipedia, album jackets, and elsewhere, as well as their relation to Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band. Wilson got to feeling as if he were in a doomed race to the next big thing with the Beatles, in the process becoming frenetic, obsessive, frustrated, difficult, and withdrawn while producing tracks for the "failure" of an album that produced Heroes and Villains, Wild Honey, and Darlin'.

I intend to post more Beach Boys, particularly Brian Wilson, in the future. This is a band that is very easy for both self-conscious hipsters and discerning listeners to dismiss as simple, dated, and irrelevant. I disagree. I'm an admirer, and I have conjectured that had Wilson kept a level head on his shoulders and tamped down creative conflicts with other band members, the Beach Boys might have evolved into something very much along the lines of Pink Floyd. I hope to have several surprises in the foreseeable future.

Editor's note: due to the time stamp, this post qualifies for the category of Fifty50 After Hours, yet another copyrighted feature of this blog.

I Just Wasn't Made For These Times, Beach Boys (1966, from "Pet Sounds," Capitol Records), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.