Musicians You Should Know: Dennis Wilson

This might end up being a bit of a rant. So be it, and hang on to your seats. (Don't worry - not politics or economics for once.)

I was just taking a break from working on the novel I'm writing (and the writing of which is why I haven't been on here much lately). I'm over 300 pages in and getting close to the end of the first draft. That's a lot of hard work. Anyway - I digress. Taking a break, I was over on YouTube listening to a little music, and I decided to check out a cover of a song I like a lot. It's a Beach Boys song that never got onto any of their albums, but is floating around as an unreleased demo. It's called "Carry Me Home", and it was written by Dennis Wilson and Gregg Jakobson. Really good song, but definitely not your average Beach Boys material. The cover was by Primal Scream (which I'd never heard of until I was tracking down some information on this song a few weeks ago).

At any rate, one of the comments on the YouTube page with the Primal Scream cover asked the question: who ever thought that the drummer of the Beach Boys could come up with a song like this. Words to that effect.

I was tempted to leave a comment saying, "Who would have thought? Anybody who's ever heard any of his other work, with or without the band, that's who. Idiot."

And that's the thing. Not that many people know Dennis Wilson's work - the songs he wrote and co-wrote, and the songs by others that he sang with the Beach Boys. I know I didn't, until about a month ago. And it's a damn shame most people don't, because as far as I'm concerned, he was as much of a genius as his brother Brian.

No, really.

It also happens that I'm reading a book right now, Dumb Angel: The Life and Music of Dennis Wilson, and a lot of my contention is supported by what I'm reading, and by some other articles I've come across recently online. The title of the book comes, apparently, from a nickname that Brian Wilson had for Dennis. It was also the working title for the album "Smile", work on which and it's rejection by much of the band (except, apparently, for Dennis) and the record company, was the final straw that broke Brian's mind. Yeah, there were drugs involved, too, but it was the late 60s, when everybody was doing that.

At any rate, I'm digressing again. Where was I. Oh, yeah.

Dennis Wilson was a genius.

Maybe not a genius in the same way as Brian. No, definitely not in the same way as Brian, because they saw the world in different ways, judging from their music.

Except that nobody in music, and certainly not in the band, paid any attention to Dennis when he was alive, except to point out his shortcomings. He'd always been the bad boy of the three Wilson brothers - there was Brian, the Genius; Carl, the Boy with the Voice of an Angel; and Dennis, the Menace of the neighborhood from the time he was just a little kid.

And, well, once the Beach Boys started recording, Dennis was also The Cute One, who grew up to be The Hot One, and who pretty much knew it. That meant that nobody really ever took him seriously. He was The Sexy, Dumb One. Except not so dumb, it turns out. But he wasn't even much of a drummer, they said,. Which wasn't altogether true, either, when it comes down to it. But that's another post for another time.

Oh, yeah. There were the other things, too. Dennis was The One Who Hung Out With Charlie Manson - which was true as far as it went, except it didn't go as far as most people think and Dennis dropped Charlie and his Family after a few months of them sponging off of him (and occasionally threatening him or his adopted kid) when Dennis was all of 24 years old and probably not a little naïve in some ways. And there was Dennis the Fuck-Up: the alcoholic, the addict. And, yeah, he did fall down that rabbit hole and die a drowning victim at age 39 after a day of drinking and diving, but I suspect (not having been there, but having read and heard the testimony) his substance issues ended up being more a matter of self-medication that got out of hand than any evil intent. Because there was also the fact that by all accounts, Dennis was also The Generous One, The One With the Big Heart. The one who would give anybody anything, and pretty much did.

But I'm here to talk about the music. The man wrote, or co-wrote, some of the most beautiful, romantic, touching, haunting songs I've ever heard. He was also the first Beach Boy to release a solo album, "Pacific Ocean Blue", in 1977, which didn't sell huge amounts of copies, but sold more than any of the Beach Boy albums from the same era. It also got huge critical acclaim. It isn't "Pet Sounds", but only because it's different from Brian's masterpiece. Because by then, Dennis wasn't naïve any more - he'd had his heart broken by then, I think, just as much as he had broken hearts along the way - although still the melancholy romantic at heart. In contrast, what comes out on "Pet Sounds" is a sweet, naïve romanticism that marks all the best of Brian Wilson's work.

Some examples of Dennis Wilson's work.

For my money, Dennis Wilson wrote the most perfect love song ever written, "Forever", with Gregg Jakobson, who co-wrote many of his songs. Even Brian Wilson has reportedly called this song "the most harmonically beautiful" thing he's ever heard. With Dennis singing lead, this song appeared on The Beach Boys 1970 album "Sunflower" and on the B-side of their single "Cool, Cool Water", as well as on a Beach Boys anthology album "Hawthorne, CA", in an a capella version.



This song, "Cuddle Up", written by Wilson and Daryl Dragon, appears on the 1972 album "Carl and the Passions - 'So Tough'" (Carl and the Passions is a band name used by the Beach Boys for a short time before they became The Beach Boys - and it really isn't a bad name for a band). In a review at allmusic.com, Matthew Greenwald calls "Cuddle Up" an "emotional masterpiece", attributing that to the lyrics and to Wilson's vocals on the track. And, yeah, the first time I heard this song I had to go back and listen to it a couple of more times just because it was so beautiful, which is attributable to the vulnerability and fragility in Wilson's delivery of the song. Given his reputation, which has often been characterized in the media as "macho", this song is a revelation.



"Wouldn't It Be Nice To Live Again" was recorded in 1971 but didn't turn up on record until 2013, when The Beach Boys released the 6-disc box set "Made in California" in 2013. Another beautiful, emotional song, it includes the lyrics "Who ever said a man can't cry/I know I can cry", and is another vocal performance from Wilson that is shot through with vulnerability. A man who is macho to the core (and I've known more than a few men like this) would not sing that lyric. So, while he might have engaged in macho behavior, that clearly didn't define him.



Another song that didn't turn up on record until "Made in California" was released, although it was recorded in 1974, is "My Love Lives On". Wilson co-wrote this one with Stephen Kalinich. It takes on an added poignancy considering Dennis Wilson's early, tragic death, but even absent that, this is a simple but powerful song about the potential of love to endure. This is another song that I had to listen to several times through when I first discovered it because I couldn't not listen to it again. It is, simply, a gorgeous song.



All of this is not to say that Dennis Wilson did not write songs about sex, because he most certainly did, and in a much more straightforward manner than was true of most rock of the time. He and Mike Love (and there's an unexpected writing partnership, considering that theirs was a difficult relationship, according to most sources) wrote "All I Want To Do," which appeared on 1969's "20/20" with Love singing lead. "All I Want To Do" sounds remarkably punk for the time and even more so for a Beach Boys tune. Among its lyrics are the lines, "Come on baby/I just wanna make it with you". And those noises you hear at the end of the track, if you listen really closely, with the volume up loud? Rumor has it that those noises are Dennis Wilson "making it", so to speak, with an "unidentified woman" in the studio. Rumor further has it that the girl was either a hooker that he went out and coaxed into the studio, or perhaps one of Charlie Manson's girls (although that seems unlikely considering the 1969 recording date). So, yeah, Dennis Wilson was no angel. On the other hand, this song is also living proof that Wilson was a versatile writer who could work in more than one style.



There's also "Got to Know the Woman", from 1970's "Sunflower, which is also blatantly and explicitly sexual, especially for the time and for a Beach Boy's record, written and performed by Wilson, in which he tells the story of meeting a woman who he just has to "get to know". It's more than clear from the lyrics that he means that in the Biblical sense. The thing is, this isn't just a song about sex; it's a funny song about sex. How many of those do you know?



So, how do you reconcile the two impulses here, the Romantic and the Dirty Young Man? I don't think you have to. I think you just have to recognize that at the age Dennis Wilson was at the point when he was writing these songs, he was at an age (middle twenties) when most young men are capable of both impulses; he was just more adept than most in expressing these feelings, and he had a bigger platform from which to express them. You also have to remember that when these songs were written, HIV and AIDS had not yet appeared. These songs might not be politically correct here, now, in the 21st century. But, damn, they're good songs.

Anyway, if you want to try to reconcile the romantic and the frankly sexual impulses that appear in Dennis Wilson's songs, you need to also reconcile that the same man who co-wrote "All I Want To Do" also wrote the gorgeous Christmas song, "Morning Christmas" (1977). This isn't just a Christmas song, it's a reverent Christmas song.



So, yeah, if you want to do that sort of reconciliation, go ahead. For me, it's enough to enjoy the diverse work of this talented man.

One of the things that seems to always be brought up when discussing Dennis Wilson's career is the way in which his addictions robbed him of his looks and his voice. And, God knows they did that. And yes, he was a good-looking man. Make that an extremely good-looking man

Or, if you prefer less facial hair:

But, you know, that's beside the point. The man died at least partially due to his excesses. In that context, the loss of his looks really doesn't matter. It was what was inside that was the important thing. And while some of his ex-wives have been quoted as saying he was "empty" inside (and they would know better than I), the feeling I get from the songs he wrote, the way he sang them, and some of the clips of interviews with him that I've seen and heard, I have a suspicion that the opposite was true - he had too much in him in a culture that is often empty. But, like I said, I wasn't there. That's just my impression, and I might have the slightest tendency to romanticize the tragic. But there it is, and I think there is evidence that there was, a lot of substance to Dennis Wilson and his work.

The issue of the loss of his voice is more important to the point I'm trying to make here. And he did lose his voice, the range of notes he could hit when he sang, to a significant degree. This is illustrated by two clips of him performing the same song live, four years apart, in 1976 and in 1980. The song is "You Are So Beautiful" - a song credited to Billy Preston and someone called Bruce Fisher. However, the story is told that it was actually written by Preston and Dennis Wilson at a party one night with Wilson, who was notorious for his generosity, as I mentioned earlier, and then he gave the song to Preston. There is, as I understand it, no way to document this, since both Wilson and Preston are dead now, but part of the story is that virtually everyone who knew Wilson swears that it sounds like something he would write. considering his body of work, it does sound like it.

Whatever the case, for years Wilson sang the song live as an encore at Beach Boys concerts, and he certainly sang it as if he owned it. Some of those performances were captured on videotape. They are a graphic way of illustrating the effect of his excesses on his voice.

Here is a live performance of "You Are So Beautiful" from 1976:



And here is a live performance of the same song from 1980:



The thing is, as much as he struggled with the song by 1980, as much as his voice was gone by then, his voice was still amazingly expressive, and I have to confess that the 1980 performance is actually my favorite because to me, this is a haunting, heartbreaking, heartfelt performance.

But, back to my original point, way back there when I started writing this. If the person who had written that comment about the Primal Scream cover of "Carry Me Home" was actually familiar with Dennis Wilson's music, he would not have been surprised at all at the cover, or at the stark beauty of the demo of this song that was never released on a Beach Boys' album (it should have been on 1973's "Holland") because it was, in Wilson's own words "too negative" for the band's image and style. The song tells the story of a soldier, injured in war, lying near death in a ditch, as he realizes he "won't grow old" and begs God to spare his life. Wilson voices the words of the soldier as he shares vocals with Blondie Chaplin. The fear and tears in Wilson's voice are palpable. This is quite easily the most moving performance of a song I have ever heard.



In truth, it is understandable that The Beach Boys have never released "Carry Me Home", even on the far-ranging compilation "Made in California". Considering how Dennis Wilson's life ended, it's hard to hear him on the song, singing about being afraid to die. It would be harder for those who knew him, worked with him, and loved him - and there is evidence that they loved him even if they didn't take him seriously when he was alive - to listen to it. On the other hand, it is an amazing song, and needs to be heard.

And here we are, at the end of a very long post, and i haven't even gotten to Dennis Wilson's solo work yet. Not that there is a lot of it that has gotten out into the world. But what there is, is an indication that he had a whole lot more to do, and it's a damn shame that he didn't live to do it.

This California Girl is Going (back) to California

Well, it turns out that after all this time and expense and effort, I'll be on my way back to California soon.



I ran the numbers this morning after a few days of indecision, and I just can't afford to stay here on the East Coast looking for work. So, I'll go back home and try again there. I know I hit my head against that particular brick wall for far too long, and it isn't going to be easy to find anything there now, either. But I will at least be on familiar territory.

See, that's the thing. I've been having trouble navigating here. I don't know which way is up - well, which way is North and so forth, and I just don't feel comfortable when I don't know which direction is which. I also often can't get where I want to go because I don't know the area and don't know which buses go where and when.

That aspect of it wasn't too much of a problem in DC itself, actually, but I've been out here in Maryland, about halfway between DC and Baltimore for nearly a week now, and it's just hard to get around. I ran around in circles for about three hours this afternoon trying to figure out how to pay for my train ticket back to California once I made the reservation on the phone. There is no Amtrak station with a ticket agent in the town I'm in right now (Laurel, Maryland). The nearest one is about 10 miles away. I couldn't figure out how to get there on the bus, and it was going to take about two hours each way, anyway, and I really wasn't up for that. And I didn't have a credit or debit card to pay over the phone - if I'd had that, I could have just made the reservation and paid online. That would have been much easier than talking to a computer to make the reservation. And I certainly wasn't going to pay for a taxi to take me those 10 miles and back. I wouldn't have, even if I could have afforded it, which I can't.

Jeez - either someone is sawing something next door, or they're having sex on a bed with a very squeaky mattress. It's only 7:12 p.m. - it's too late for sawing and a little too early to be having that loud of sex.

Sorry or that interruption. To get back to the story - I finally decided that I needed to get a pre-paid debit card so that I could pay for the reservation. See, they would only hold it until tomorrow, but I don't check out of the motel I'm staying at to go back to DC until Friday morning. That was not going to work. One of the motel employees told me where she thought I could buy a pre-paid card within walking distance. I walked down there. No joy. So, walking back up toward the motel, I stopped at a convenience store to ask if they knew where I could get one. And the clerk did know. He told me that they sold them at Family Dollar, and then he said, "and they sell them at 7-11, too. There was another man in there, clearly someone the clerk knew, and he said, "What are you sending her clear up to 7-11 for. That's too far." (It really wasn't too far, but it was farther than Family Dollar, and uphill.) It was kind of cute, and they were very helpful.

This is one of the things I've learned while I've been out here, by the way; most people are more than happy to be helpful if they can be.

So, I walked to Family Dollar, bought the card, came back to the motel and activated it, then called and paid for the train ticket. So, the trip back to California is a done deal, and I'm glad of that. The odd thing is that I haven't been aware of being homesick since I've been here, but now that the decision is made and the ticket is bought, I'm very glad to be going home. Even though there is actually no home to go to out there. It's still home.

But, that whole process took about three hours, from making the reservation to getting the ticket paid for, most of it out in a warm-to-hot sunny day. I've got a lot more stamina than I did when I arrived here, nearly a month ago, but I was tired and hot by the time I got to the motel. Not least, I realized at nearly five p.m., because I hadn't eaten anything all day. This is a problem when I have a problem to solve or a task to accomplish. I start concentrating on that and I completely forget to eat.

So, I had to go out again, walk back over to the Subway sandwich shop, and get dinner. I could have had a peanut butter sandwich, but I decided that just wasn't going to cut it. I've grown fond of that Subway shop since I've been here, although I haven't eaten there every night. They make good sandwiches and the people who work there are friendly. At any rate, now I'm fed, and not so anxious, and have the rest of the evening to relax.

There's be pre-travel things to do tomorrow - primarily doing up the dirty laundry I've accumulated since I've been here and packing to leave the motel on Friday morning, but also trying to figure out if there's anything I can leave behind so that my luggage won't be quite so heavy. I doubt there will be, but I'll unpack everything and repack, and in the process I might find something that isn't essential. That would be a helpful thing, since I've got to drag all that stuff back to DC and onto the train. Thank goodness for checked baggage. However, since I'll be in the train station Friday night, I will have to lug everything around with me all day Friday and part of the day Saturday, until time to actually check the bags.

I'm really not looking forward to the night in the station - another one. It isn't a pleasant place to begin with, and it's positively dismal at night. At least I should have my ticket in hand, so I shouldn't have to try t find places to be all night and can grab a chair in the ticketed passengers section and get a little sleep. The train, though, doesn't leave DC until just past 4 p.m. on Saturday, so that's going to be a long time in the station. If there were a place I could park my bags, I could go sightseeing Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, but that costs too much to even think about. But, I've got knitting, and I can spend some time in McDonald's using the Wi-Fi - I'm going to be in withdrawal across the country, on a train with no Wi-Fi access. Still, I can listen t music and watch DVDs and write - they do have electrical outlets at each seat.

I'm trying not to worry about what happens when I get back to L.A. just yet. There isn't anything I can do about it now. I've already been looking at job listings out there, and trying to see what the possibilities are for a safe place to sleep when I first arrive. But tonight? I think tonight I'm going to take advantage of the motel Wi-Fi, listen to some music, maybe do some writing, and just think that by this time next week I'll be back on the Left Coast...which is the right coast or me.

I just hope it doesn't welcome me home with an earthquake, like it did when I arrived there in March.

Quakes or not, though, I'm a California Girl, through and through.

1964 - Britain Invades the US Music Charts

The British Invasion - That time in 1964, when the US began to be flooded with acts from the UK, acts that didn't just come over, test the water, and then retreat to their little island off of continental Europe, but who came, saw, and conquered the hearts and minds of the American listening public. Who brought with them music that started appearing on the charts, even reaching the coveted number one spot on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 Singles chart. Who changed the face of popular music forever.

Nine singles by British acts hit number one during the first year of the British Invasion, out of 23 songs that reached the top of the chart in 1964 (if I counted correctly). Among those 23 chart-toppers were a variety of musical styles by a variety of artists. Dean Martin had a number one that year with "Everybody Loves Somebody", on the week of August 15. So did Louis Armstrong and the All Stars, when "Hello, Dolly!" reached to top spot during the week of May 9. "Chapel of Love", by the Dixie Cups, spent three weeks at number one in June. The Shangri-Las' "Leader of the Pack" was the number one song in the US during the week of November 28. A mostly spoken-word single by actor Lorne Greene, something called "Ringo" but having nothing to do with The Beatles' drummer, spent a week at number one at the beginning of December. The Supremes got to number one twice during the year, with "Baby Love", which spent the last week of October and the first three weeks of November at number one, and with "Come See About Me", which was the number one song in the US for the week of December 19. Bobby Vinton charted twice in 1964, at the beginning of the year, when "There! I've Said It Again" spent all of January at number one, and again near the end of the year, when "Mr. Lonely" hit number one during the week of December 12. The Beach Boys spent the first to weeks of July at number one with "I Get Around". You can look here for the full list of number one singles from 1964.

Here is just a sampling of the US-based artists who managed to get a song to number one in 1964:

This is Dean Martin and "Everybody Loves Somebody". This is a real indication, compared to some of the other music released in 1964, of how music was changing at the time:



Here is "Leader of the Pack", by The Shangri-Las:



And, The Beach Boys, in a live performance of "I Get Around":



Of the nine singles by British artists that rose to the top of the charts in the US in 1964, six of them were by The Beatles. It's difficult not to add "of course" to that statement. It was the Fab Four, after all, who led the invasion of UK acts into the United States and around the world. The songs the Beatles took all the way to number one were "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "She Loves You", "Can't Buy Me Love", "Love Me Do", "A Hard Day's Night", and "I Feel Fine". It was the beginning of a track record that saw 20 singles by the band hitting number one in their career, the most of any artist in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" stayed at the top the longest of any of The Beatles' 1964 number ones, topped only by "Hey, Jude", with a 9-week run at number one in 1968. In order, "She Loves You" was at number one for two weeks, while "Can't Buy Me Love" was number one for five weeks, "Love Me Do" for one week, "A Hard Day's Night" for two weeks, and "I Feel Fine" for three weeks".

This live performance of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" comes along with some British humor at the end:



And this is one of my favorite Beatles' songs:



Of the three other singles by British artists that hit number one in 1964, "A World Without Love", by Peter and Gordon, spent a week at number one in June, The Animals' "House of the Rising Sun" spent three weeks at number one in September, and "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", by Manfred Mann, spent two weeks at the top of the chart in October.

Peter and Gordon's "A World Without Love" was billed as a Lennon/McCartney composition, but it was McCartney's song:



As a bit of trivia, "A World Without Love" was one of only two Lennon/McCartney compositions taken to number one by other artists on the US charts. The other was Elton John's cover of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds", in 1974.

"House of the Rising Sun" is a traditional folk song that had been recorded as early as 1934, but The Animals' version was the most successful of many covers and went to number one not only in the UK and the US, but also in Canada, Sweden, and Finland:



The version of "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy" by Manfred Mann that went to the top of the charts in the US and in the UK is a cover of a song first recorded in 1963 by The Exciters, an American band:



It is interesting, I think that, while non-UK artists' singles spent much more time that did British Invasion artists at the top of the US charts in 1964, four of the five top-charting singles of the year, the songs that reached the highest point on charts worldwide, were from British Invasion artists. The only artist and song in that top five was Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman", at number two. The Beatles held the number one spot with "I Want to Hold Your Hand", the number four spot with "A Hard Day's Night", and the number five spot with "I Feel Fine". The Animals had the third-highest charting single worldwide in 1964 with "The House of the Rising Sun".

By 1968, British influence at the top of the US singles charts had fallen back to pre-Invasion levels, with The Beatles' "Hey, Jude" being the only single by a British act to reach number one, although it did manage to stay at number one from the week of September 28 through the week of November 23, the longest run at the top for any of The Beatles' singles. British influence on the US singles charts had peaked in 1965 with twelve number ones from British artists, four of them by The Beatles and two each from The Rolling Stones and Herman's Hermits. The only other act that hit number one in both 1964 and 1968, as a side note, was The Supremes, by then billed as Diana Ross & The Supremes, an indication of how much turnover there had been in popular musical acts, no matter where they were from, between 1964 and 1968. Further indication of the changes that had come about in such a short time is that in 1964, The Beatles had been singing about holding hands, while The Supremes' song that hit number one in 1968 was "Love Child".

A few thoughts on The Beach Boys and their music...

Anyone who has been following my Facebook feed recently will have noticed that I've been posting a lot of Beach Boys music.

I've been a fan of the band's music, well, forever, it seems like, but I've only really known the hits until very recently. I'm not quite sure why I started looking for songs by the band that aren't as well known. It probably has something to do with the wide availability of their work on YouTube and having the time to go through and look at - and listen to - more than just the usual chart-toppers. There are also a number of band-related documentaries and interviews and the like available, and those have been very interesting to watch and pointed me in the direction of the band's more obscure work.

A turning point was discovering "God Only Knows", which had somehow escaped my notice. Oh, I'd probably heard it, but it didn't do well on the charts when it came out in 1966 (it was on the album "Pet Sounds", which did well critically but not commercially when it was released). The single only reached number 39 when it was released. Not sure how that happened - it is one of the most exquisite songs I've ever heard. Carl Wilson, the youngest of the three Wilson brothers, who sang lead on the song, had perhaps the purest voice I've ever heard in rock or pop music.



Another turning point was my viewing of the documentary "Dennis Wilson: The Real Beach Boy", from 2008. Pretty much all I had known about the middle Wilson brother before seeing this documentary was that he was a drummer, had figured somewhere in the whole Charles Manson story but managed to escape Charlie's wrath at him for supposedly stealing a song from Charlie only to drown at the exceedingly young age of 39. The impression left by what I knew, or thought I knew, was that Dennis was the fuck-up of the Wilson family. Somewhat more kindly, he has been referred to as the "overlooked" member of his talented family . It turns out to be not exactly true that Dennis was the screw-up of the family - yes, he had addiction problems that were different in kind but not in scope from those of his brothers, but he was a talented songwriter and singer in his own right. The solo album that he released in 1977, "Pacific Ocean Blue", was the first by a member of the Beach Boys and was a hit with the critics; it has been called a "lost classic". I sought out the songs on that album after seeing the documentary and found that they are amazing songs. Dennis Wilson's excesses had changed his singing voice, but not in a completely bad way - it had become rough and raspy, but that only seemed to add soul and melancholy to it.



Dennis Wilson's singing voice had never been exactly like his brothers' voices, anyway - not pure like Carl's voice and not sweet and earnest like Brian's voice. But it was a moving voice nonetheless:







Brian Wilson, of course, has always been known as the genius of the brothers. He was the one who was responsible for "Pet Sounds" (1966), which was named the second best album ever made in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and was, according to Paul McCartney, the main reason why The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was made and why that album was as experimental as it was. (Incidentally, McCartney has also repeatedly said that "God Only Knows" is his favorite song of all time). "Pet Sounds" was Brian's vision and Brian's creation, and it was a revelation at the time, with the sort of experimentation that hadn't ever been seen before in pop music. But, by the time "Pet Sounds" was released, Brian had already shown signs of the mental health issues (apparently before he began the drug use that has often been blamed for those issues) that were to plague him for years and he had already stopped performing live with the rest of the band.

"Pet Sounds" was a gamble for Brian Wilson on many levels. The biggest gamble was that the lyrics he had written exposed his soul to the world. These were very personal statements about the state of his emotional life.





An insight into how Brian Wilson worked in the recording studio to create his music can be gained from this rehearsal footage from sessions for "Good Vibrations", which was recorded around the same time he was working on "Pet Sounds":



The songs on "Pet Sounds" were a departure from everything that was expected of pop music at the time, and a definite departure from the music the Beach Boys had been making since they first charted with "Surfin" in 1961. This was largely Brian's album and sources differ on just how much participation there was by the other members of the band, aside from singing background vocals and harmony. In information on Wikipedia regarding the personnel who worked on the album, the only band members credited with any instrumental participation besides Brian were his brothers Carl and Dennis. Because there has been so much mythology built up around both "Pet Sounds" and the Beach Boys, it is difficult to figure out exactly where the truth lies on the issue of band participation on the album. The documentary, "Pet Sounds - Art That Should The World", addresses many of these issues in greater depth than I can within the scope of this post.



The bottom line here is that I love this music, more than I ever realized that I do, which is why I'm sharing it with you here.

Music Sunday: The "My How Things Have Changed" Edition

I've been doing some research into popular music recently in connection with the book I'm writing about the Baby Boom generation, and I'm finding it interesting to watch how music changed from the beginning of the Boom in 1946 through the 1950s and 1960s and then on. It is especially interesting to look at the biggest hit singles from each year, not only to see what those songs were but how widely music was distributed. For example, in 1946, the first year of the Boom, popular music in the United States more or less stayed in the United States. By 1956, the reach of US popular music had extended to Europe, by the evidence of the charts that are reported. By 1966, not only had American pop extended its reach, the British Invasion had made more overseas groups popular in the United States.

Basically, the list of top five biggest hit singles in 1946 doesn't look anything like the list in 1956, which doesn't look anything like the list in 1966. Well, with one exception: in 1946, Frank Sinatra had the second biggest hit of the year with something called "Five Minutes More". Fast forward to 1966, when Sinatra had the biggest hit of the year with "Strangers in the Night".

I can't recall ever hearing "Five Minutes More", and on the chance that you haven't heard it either, here it is. It isn't a bad song at all:



And, because "Strangers in the Night" is a classic:



The lists of top singles for 1956 and 1966 have one thing in common - dominance by one artist or group. In 1956 this artist was Elvis Presley, who had three of the top five hits of the year, Besides those three songs - "Hound Dog" in third place, "Heartbreak Hotel" in fourth place, and "Don't Be Cruel" in fifth place - Elvis had two other songs go to number one in '56: "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You" and "Love Me Tender". In 1966 the dominant group was, of course, The Beatles, also with three of the top five singles '66. Only they topped Elvis in one way, having all three places taken with singles that were two-sided hits. The took second place with "We Can Work It Out" and "Day Tripper", third place with "Yellow Submarine" and "Eleanor Rigby" and fifth place with "Paperback Writer" and "Rain".

I've already revealed what the biggest hit was in 1966, but what was the top hit single of the year in 1956, even more popular than Elvis's songs? Well, that spot was taken by Doris Day, with "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)" from, of all places, the Alfred Hitchcock film "The Man Who Knew Too Much", which starred Day and James Stewart. Written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, the song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song that year, so it isn't surprising that it became very popular. Here is how it appears in the film:



Now, that's how you integrate a song into a non-musical movie.

The thing that's interesting to me about the comparison of the top hits in 1946, 1956, and 1966 is that in 1946 there is little sign of the rock and roll revolution yet to come. Besides Sinatra, the artists producing the biggest hits of the year were Perry Como, Vaughn Monroe, Nat King Cole, and The Ink Spots. The only glimmer of what is to come, musically speaking, is the presence of The Ink Spots, a vocal group that is considered to be a precursor of rhythm and blues and rock and roll. The Ink Spots were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999. Still, their song "To Each His Own", which was the fifth biggest single in 1946, is still very much in the mainstream of traditional popular music:



By 1956, though, rock and roll (or at least rockabilly, depending on who is classifying Presley's music) had arrived. My favorite of the three Presley songs among the top five hits of the year is "Heartbreak Hotel", which not only made number one on the pop chart but also scored on the R&B and country-western charts. This performance is from the Milton Berle television show on April 3, 1956, and is the TV performance that got him in trouble (not the Ed Sullivan appearance that has gone down in legend as the one that was so disturbing to some viewers):



Besides the Sinatra song and the three Presley songs among the top five hits of 1956, Fats Domino's version of "Blueberry Hill" was ranked the second most popular song of that year:



In 1966, besides Sinatra and The Beatles, The Beach Boys also ranked one of their songs, "Good Vibrations" among the top five hits of '66, which was the fourth biggest single of the year. This video includes not only the song itself, but footage of the band in the studio recording the song:



But, The Beatles did dominate the top hits in 1966, I've always been fond of "Paperback Writer", which was the fifth biggest single that year:



"Eleanor Rigby" was, along with "Yellow Submarine", the third biggest single of 1966. "Eleanor Rigby is, simply, a lovely song:



I'd like to share all the songs that I've written about in this post, but this has already gotten awfully long and we've covered an awful lot of territory, and so I'll leave it at this for this week, although I was very tempted to get into the changes between 1966 and 1976, when popular music had gone through yet another revolution. Maybe another time.

Music Sunday: The 1964 Edition

1964 was an important year for me, musically speaking.

It was the year I became aware of rock and roll, at the tender age of seven. I think I've probably written about that here before, about how I watched The Beatles the first time they were on The Ed Sullivan Show, peeking from around the piano because I was supposed to be in bed. It was a school day the next day, after all. It was quite an awakening for me, and after that, when my friends from second grade were running home after school to watch cartoons, I was running home to watch the local music/dance shows, mostly in the same tradition as American Bandstand.

I was a sickeningly precocious child, I suppose. But it was good music.

The Beatles, of course, hit the charts with several records that year. There was "She Loves You" and "I Want To Hold Your Hand", of course, as well as "Can't Buy Me Love", "I Feel Fine", and "Twist and Shout". My favorite from that year, though, was "A Hard Day's Night", from their first film:



The Animals released "House of the Rising Sun" in 1964. Here they perform the song for a television show in the UK in July of '64:



Meanwhile, on the US side of the Atlantic, The Beach Boys released "I Get Around". In this clip, from November 6,1964, the band performs both "I Get Around" and "When I Grow Up", on Ready Steady Go. It was their first television appearance in the UK:



It wasn't just the men who were making the charts in 1964. Here is Mary Wells, singing "My Guy", in a promotional clip from that year:



Also released in 1964 was "Dancing in the Street", co-written by Marvin Gaye and performed by Martha and the Vandellas, here in a performance on Ready Steady Go:



Rock and roll wasn't the only music that was popular in 1964, though. For example, Shirley Bassey had a big hit with the title song from the James Bond film "Goldfinger". Here is how it appears over the opening credits in the film:



1964 was a good year for music, and there are a lot more songs I would have liked to share, but I think these are enough for now. Enjoy.

Music Sunday: The Everybody's Got An Opinion Edition

Last week, I shared a few of my own favorite songs. It wasn't a "favorites" list, exactly, because I didn't rank the songs in any order and because there are songs that I like at least as much as some of those I shared that I didn't include. It also wasn't a "best" list, because I don't really believe there is any objective way of deciding what is the "best" in art of any kind.

It seems, however, that everyone has an opinion on what the "best songs" are. Of course, Rolling Stone Magazine has it's "500 Best Songs of All Time" list. And I happened on another "best" list, this time the "100 Greatest Songs Ever" list from a blog called Consequences of Sound, which made its list on the occasion of the 5-year anniversary of its existence. Reviewing the two lists, I found some interesting comparisons among the top ten songs from each list.

There are just two songs that made the top 10 on both lists.

Rolling Stone chose Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" as the greatest song of all time, while Consequences of Sound put Dylan's song in the third slot on its list. This live performance was at Newport:



The other song that made both top 10 lists is Aretha Franklin's "Respect". Rolling Stone puts it at number five, while Consequences of Sound rates it at number eight.



Three other artists made both top ten lists, but with different songs. Consequences of Sound rated the Beach Boys at number one, with "God Only Knows", from their classic album "Pet Sounds", while Rolling Stone placed their "Good Vibrations" at number six.





The Beatles' "A Day in the Life" comes in at number five on the Consequences of Sound list, while The Beatles don't show up until number eight on the Rolling Stone list, with "Hey Jude". You'll want to watch the video for "A Day in the Life" closely for some interesting, and perhaps unexpected, guest appearances.





Rolling Stone Magazine rates "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", by the Rolling Stones, as the number two song of all time in it's greatest list, while the Stones don't show up until number seven on the Consequences of Sound list, with "Sympathy for the Devil".





Otherwise, the two lists have some very different choices. For purposes of comparison, the Rolling Stone Magazine top ten reads, in full:

1. Bob Dylan, "Like A Rolling Stone"
2. The Rolling Stones, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"
3. John Lennon, "Imagine"
4. Marvin Gaye, "What's Going On"
5. Aretha Franklin, "Respect"
6. The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations"
7. Chuck Berry, "Johnny B. Goode"
8. The Beatles, "Hey Jude"
9. Nirvana, "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
10.Ray Charles, "What'd I Say"

The Consequences of Sound top ten list reads, in full:

1. The Beach Boys, "God Only Knows"
2. Talking Heads, "Once in a Lifetime"
3. Bob Dylan, "Like A Rolling Stone"
4. Michael Jackson, "Man in the Mirror"
5. The Beatles, "A Day in the Life"
6. The Velvet Underground, "Sister Ray"
7. The Rolling Stones, "Sympathy for the Devil"
8. Aretha Franklin, "Respect"
9. The Notorious B.I.G., "Juicy"
10.Radiohead, "Idioteque"

The biggest different between the two lists, from my point of view, is that I know, well, all the songs on the Rolling Stone list, while there are three songs on the Consequences of Sound list that, to be honest, I had never even heard of before I read that list (those would be "Sister Ray", "Juicy", and "Idioteque"). I should probably go investigate those, to see what I might be missing.

What the two lists point out is that, everybody has an opinion regarding music. No two people have exactly the same taste in music, and that is to the good, I think. What I am wondering is, what is your top ten list of "best" or "favorite" songs? Drop me a comment and let me know. Did any of your favorites make either of these lists? What do you think of these lists? In relation to your favorites, do they match at all, or do these published lists miss the point entirely in comparison to the music you like?

Music Sunday...

Occasionally, I will tell people that the closest thing I've ever had to a spiritual experience is the night in February, 1964, when I saw the Beatles for the first time, the first time they were on The Ed Sullivan Show.

The thing they sometimes don't really get is that I'm only half joking when I say that. It really was a major turning point in my life. At seven years old, hiding behind the piano to watch because I was supposed to be in bed asleep, I got turned on to music. I had been in bed, but I heard that wonderful noise coming from the TV and I had to get up and see what it was. Forget the fact that the next morning was a school day, and I had to be up early. I just had a sense that this was something important, something I had to get in on.

And, really, it was. Not just the fact that the Beatles changed the world. Well, yeah, they had help, but they're the ones who really started the change in what music meant to the world and could accomplish in it. But also the fact that they...their music...changed my life that night. From then on, really from nearly the next day, while my second grade friends were running home after school to watch cartoons, I was running home to watch the local afternoon music shows, L.A.' weekday-afternoon clones of American Bandstand. I'd say it took me less than a week to discover them after that Sunday night.

Some people don't believe me when I tell this story. I was just a little kid, they say, and young kids that little don't get music in the same way that older kids and adults do. But, I was a precocious kid in other ways, too. By that time, I was reading books out of the adult section of the library, and not only reading them but understanding them. So, I don't really think it was unusual that I responded to the Beatles and their music the way I did, when I did.

What brings all this up is that I stumbled onto Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" yesterday, while I was looking for something else on the Internet. That's one of the things I love about the Internet. You go looking for one thing and, completely serendipitously, come across something you didn't know you were looking for. Something wonderful. I only got through reading the first 50 titles on the list before I had to go off and do other things, but even that first fifty brought back memories, including,, at number sixteen on Rolling Stone's list, "I Want to Hold Your Hand", which The Beatles played that night in 1964.



Several of my all-time personal favorite songs are also in the top 50 of Rolling Stone's list. At number 21 is Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run", from 1975. Number 26 is "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay", by Otis Redding, which is from 1968 and didn't come out until after Redding was killed in a plane crash. At number 29 is another Beatles song, "Help", from 1965 and was the title song for their second film. U2's beautiful "One", which came out in 1991, is at number 36. And "Hotel California," by the Eagles, from 1976, is the 49th song on the Rolling Stone list.

There are seven Beatles' songs in those first 50 plus, at number 3, "Imagine", by John Lennon, from 1974. Those seven include, along with "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "Help", which I've already mentioned, "Hey Jude" (at number 8), "Yesterday" (at number 13), "Let It Be" (at number 20), "In My Life" (at number 23), and "A Day in the Life" (at number 28).

The Beatles aren't the only act to have more than one song in the top 50. The Rolling Stones placed three songs there, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", (at number 2), "Sympathy for the Devil" (at number 32), and "Gimme Shelter" (at number 38). And there are two songs each from Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, the Beach Boys, and Elvis Presley. Actually, Dylan has three if you include, at number 47, The Jimi Hendrix Experience's version of "All Along the Watchtower", which Dylan wrote.

There is just one song in that first 50 that I don't know at all, The Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset", which is at number 42 and came out in 1968. I'll be checking that one out. I'm not sure how I missed it. I was in seventh grade in 1968 and listened to the radio constantly.

I'll also be going back to the list, to see what the other 450 songs included are, and to see what other memories those titles bring back. It's a neat list. Almost like a time machine.

Or like a service in the First Church of Musical Greatness.