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The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds (33 1/3)

Pet Sounds is, rightly, one of the most celebrated pop albums ever released. It has also been written about, pored over, and analyzed more than most other albums put together. In this disarming book, Jim Fusilli focuses primarily on the emotional core of the album, on Brian Wilson’s pitch-perfect cry of despair. In doing so, he brings to life the search for equilibrium and acceptance that still gives Pet Sounds its heart almost four decades after its release.


The following interview was conducted in late May 2005, not long after the publication of Pet Sounds, which is part of Continuum's 33 1/3 series. Included are questions provided by journalists with whom Jim shared the manuscript prior to publication.

Why a book about Pet Sounds and why now?
I had an opportunity to be part of Continuum's 33 1/3 series, which includes some of the best writing on rock, and I really wanted to do that. And Pet Sounds is really the album that changed my life. If that was going to be the measure for a 33 1/3 book, it had to be "Pet Sounds."

It's kind of an obvious choice for a baby boomer, isn't it?
In that it's an extraordinary album - to my mind, the best of the rock era - the answer would be yes. But I'm not sure that the album is really understood, even by people who love it. I think there are those who like it for "Wouldn't it be Nice," and "Sloop John B" and "God Only Know," and they think of it as another Beach Boys album with a bunch of fabulous hits on it. But it's much more than that. It's a profound statement on the loss of innocence and the price one pays for being different. Many people who love Pet Sounds know this, and they relate to the album because of it. The "one" in the case of Pet Sounds is Brian Wilson, and the statement is communicated not only by the lyrics he wrote with Tony Asher, but by the music and arrangements he created and the way he produced the album. It's really a heart-breaking and revealing work of art, and it's so assessable that it speaks for us as well as to us.

A work of art?
Absolutely. By any measurement. This album will outlast us all, believe me. It summarizes a time we all go through, so it has that sort of mass appeal on a sociological level; it's like Catcher in the Rye on vinyl. But the music itself is phenomenal: awkward yet fluid, illogical yet brilliant, straightforward yet complex. It's unlike anything else in pop history. But it's much more than pop. I mean, the instrumental arrangements are worthy of Harry Partch and Jack Nitzsche - at once. And the vocal arrangements… I'm sorry but nobody could arrange voices like Brian.

Did you meet Brian Wilson?
Yes, but it was incidental to the book, which is highly autobiographical and almost whimsical in tone. Sad and whimsical, if that makes sense. But, yeah, I met Brian. I liked him. I didn't have a chance to talk about much of substance, but it was pretty great. Usually, I get to spend a good chunk of time with musicians I'm writing about, but I didn't want to impose.

How about any of the other Beach Boys?
Well, Carl and Dennis are gone. I met Dennis a long time ago, but no, I haven't met the others. Al Jardine and I were at the L.A. Times Book Festival at the same time, but I couldn't think of a reason to say hello. I don't mean to diminish what the other members of the band contributed to Pet Sounds, especially Carl's vocal on "God Only Knows," but it was really Brian's project, so much so that he considered releasing it as a solo album.

What's the best thing you can say about Mike Love?
Boy, I have to tell you I was really surprised to find out how angry people who are fans of Brian are with Mike. Wow. And some people who are close to Brian too. I don't know what the real story is there, but people seem to believe Mike double-crossed Brian and didn't support Pet Sounds and Smile. I can understand why Mike wanted Brian to stick to the formula - the Beach Boys were incredibly successful. But that's not how an artist thinks, and Brian was aiming to create something extraordinary. And he did, in spite of a lack of support - which he addresses on Pet Sounds, by the way. You know, "Where can I turn when my fair weather friends cop out?" And "I keep trying hard to find the people I won't leave behind" - by which he meant outgrow, not abandon.

Will Brian ever make another great record?
I can't say. He could, sure. I sometimes think that if he had a vast theme he wanted to explore and had Van Dyke Parks and someone like Darian Sahanaja working with, he could do it. By vast theme, I don't necessary mean a kaleidoscopic look at America like Smile, which is like Picasso's "Guernica" in its magnitude and sense of disorientation. Pet Sounds addresses a vast theme by personalizing it, internalizing it. Maybe something like that.

But I don't know if it's fair to ask for more from him. There's Pet Sounds and so many other wonderful songs - wonderful and revealing, if you really pay attention - and the ambition of Smile… Unforgettable vocal arrangements too. But no one else has made a record as great as Pet Sounds. If that's the standard, well…

The book seems unlike what you've done before. Why did you write it that way?
You mean in terms of tone? I wanted to convey a sense of naïveté, of youthful wonder, that's in the lyrics of Pet Sounds. But also to reflect my state of mind when I first found Pet Sounds. There's a bit of chaos in the narrative too - it jumps from personal anecdotes to information on a Pet Sounds session to Brian's biography - but that's intentional too, in order to give a sense of what his life seemed like at the time. Maybe it's a bit too experimental for a music book or maybe not. But I wanted to bring some techniques of the novel into the project.

You know, a long time ago, I was talking to Van Morrison about a decidedly non-commercial album he made and I asked him who he thought it would appeal to. He said, earnestly, "I knew it would appeal to the people it appealed to." It's the same with the way I wrote this book. I figured some people might surrender to the flow and put themselves in my place. That's what the epilogue is all about. Nudge the author aside and take over the narrative.

Is it true that some people are using the book to get the chords to the songs?
Yeah. For all that so-called cleverness in the writing, some people are focusing on that, which is great in its own way. The music is what's most important. Let's face it. That's what matters. For most of the songs, I included chords - which I reduced to the basics; the stuff Brian had the musicians play is kind of impossible to play on guitar alone, at least for me - and some suggestions for bass. I kept it pretty simple. But I've been getting e-mails from people who are telling me how they used what I put in the book and adding colorings and phrasings to reproduce the harmonic structure of Brian's compositions.

You've actually performed some of the songs of Pet Sounds at your readings. Why?
My plan was to try to demonstrate some of those odd, interesting chords that Brian chose or walk the bass lines to show how they create interesting harmonies or to show how the anguish in the music is disguised by the brightness of the recordings and the voices. But I wound up just sitting there and playing a few songs, like a mini-mini-concert. I had a good time, and people seemed to enjoy it. We did a sing-along on "God Only Knows" that was fun. A lot of people showed up, and maybe I exceeded expectations because they were kind of low: You know, like, "Oh God, this rock critic is going sing off-key and go "chinga-chinga-chinga" with his crummy guitar. But I did OK. By the way, I've only done it once. I had some discussion with Continuum about doing more. We'll see.

Do you have any plans to do another music book?
No plans, but I'm sure I will. I resisted doing a book about popular music, or a biography of a musician, because I wanted to establish myself as a novelist, to have a separate identity as a novelist. That was sort of foolish because so many people read The Wall Street Journal and listen to NPR that it's unlikely I'll ever be known only as a novelist. But I probably will do something. One of my pet peeves is that baby boomers seem to think rock ended in, you know, 1975. Earlier, I mentioned the rock era. Well, it's still going on. I think rock today is great and I hear so much great music that people my age ought to know about so they can really enjoy it. Maybe I'll do something with that. (Laughs) Don't get me started on that subject.

Are you working on another Terry Orr novel?
I think it's premature for me to talk about what's next for me as a novelist. I can tell you that I appearing in seven or eight short story anthologies of crime fiction next year. Between writing those short stories and this book on Brian and Pet Sounds, I've really grown as a writer. I want my next major project to reflect that growth.

What's the saddest song Brian ever wrote?
Wow, that's a great question. I'd say "Til I Die," which is on "Surf's Up." It's about mental illness, and it's terribly poignant. "I'm a cork on the ocean floating over the raging sea." And "I'm a leaf on a windy day/Pretty soon I'll be blown away." It ends with "These things I'll be until I die." If you're talking about Pet Sounds, listen to the last verse of "Caroline No." Remarkable. If you think of Pet Sounds as a song cycle and you start with the chiming, optimistic guitars of "Wouldn't it be Nice" and you end up with Brian's cry just before the fade of "Caroline No," you'll understand what this album is about.

One more: You don't have Pet Sounds on your list of Desert Island Disks (click here). Why not?
It's too sad. I couldn't take it. And if you read the book you'll know why. That album, as beautiful as it is, is too painful for me to listen to. It forces me to confront the most difficult periods of my life, times when I felt as alienated as Brian's words, voice, music and arrangements tell me he was. No, I couldn't listen to it if I didn't have someone to turn to. Please.