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After listening to Wouldn't It Be Nice, I have concluded through scientific evaluation that the song is clearly about death; please allow me to evaluate the song line by line.

 'Wouldn't it be nice if we were older Then we wouldn't have to wait so long' This line is almost certainly about wanting to speed up life to a point where death is inevitable through old age and we can see a deep sense of resentment of life through the use of the words 'have to' stressing that life is forced upon us without a choice.

'And wouldn't it be nice to live together In the kind of world where we belong'  Anybody with sense can see that this is about longing for an afterlife free from the prejudices of the real world.

'You know its gonna make it that much better When we can say goodnight and stay together ' The 'Goodnight' is clearly a metaphor for suicide with the 'stay together' a reference to the aforementioned afterlife.

'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. Happy times together we've been spending, I wish that every kiss was never ending, wouldn't it be nice'  I have drawn 2 possible interpretations from this line (and would be interested to know which you agree with). One could see this line as a hope for love to be found in this world however this would be looking at it at face value. A deeper metaphorical meaning emerges when 'wake up' is interpreted as the day after death in which one spends eternity in the never-ending bliss of love.

'Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true, baby then there wouldn't be a single thing we couldn’t do'  This is referencing the want of a death which isn't just an end and instead a gateway to the previously impossible or maybe even just a want for death itself after becoming apathetic to the real world?

'You know it seems the more we talk about it, it only makes it worse to live without it' An ironic use of the word 'live' given that he is using it in reference to living without death, clearly used for a comedic effect.

I hope having read my completely scientific analysis that you to will agree with this darker, more realistic interpretation of 'Wouldn't It Be Nice'; I can see no error in my logic and therefore believe that my analysis must be correct.

First post hall of fame

Brian Wilson is more hardcore than Lou Reed or Alice Cooper. :afro

Love it. Have you tried applying your exhaustive scientific analysis to the Breakaway lyrics? I think you may be on to something ....

I was kinda hoping I'd click this and there would be John Cale covering it or something. Sob.

There IS a version of "God Only Knows" he did somewhere in the mid 70s. I'd love to hear that one day.

The problem I see with this theory is that the tone of the lyrics of BW songs usually matches the instrumentation.  I think that song is more about the pure joy of being young.  Just don't see this morbid interpretation.

I think Wouldn't It Be Nice is dark in the sense that it is longing for something that will likely not occur. You get into a heavy relationship as a teenager and you think and wish and hope and pray it will last forever but odds are it's doomed to end in failure.

My one problem with this song is that if Brian wanted death oh-so badly, he probably would have spread these hints throughout the album - it's not like when he's (or should I say Carl) saying 'God only knows what I'd be without you' he's contemplating killing his lover or anything...

Yeah, but GOK always struck me as a suicidal "threat." The emotions do seem a little darker than, say, In My Life or any other comparable love song. That's why I chose Forever to serve as my wedding march instead of GOK.

Interesting 2012  take the on WIBN.  When it was written, young people (men) could be drafted for war (Vietnam) and could not vote.  Most could not buy a beer.  Having privileges commensurate with responsibilities was a huge issue and a source of protest, particular the "18 by '72 (1972)" voter registration protests.  Young men drafted and dying in Nam without ever voting for the Commander in Chief.

The whole "waiting" thing seems to be endless.  I'm not sure that in the mid 1960's that this was in mind at all.  It may just be face value and a concept that was pretty universally understood. Boomers get that culture of "waiting and courtship."   ;)

This is actually a great concept, Pet Sounds does show a Brian having a dark undercurrent that he would act out in the following years.

This is true - it's almost as if in GOK it's a case of 'Leave me and I'll kill myself!', almost hinting that his lover does not really love him...

"God Only Knows" - A song about blowing your f***ing head off, man.

+!
There's a bit of sadness in Brian's early songs as far as they note that youth doesn't last forever. However this is the song that I feel marks Brian's acceptance of that, a new maturity though written from a younger perspective.

It's a longing, a longing for something that will never occur. Sometimes I cry when I listen to it.

Grand prize.

Isn't that what give Pet Sounds a lot of it's power? That Brian and Tony Asher wrote a bunch of inward looking songs at a time when the guy was on top of the world only to have his world fall apart throughout the subsequent years. It's revisionist I know, but to hear a 24 year old Brian sing of longing, uncertainly, not fitting in and bemoaning that things in life have to change sounds eerily prophetic.

That's Not Me is about gender reassignment surgery.

ye what kinda selfrespecting trans would stay in the country? they pack up and split for the city!

Don't Talk 9Put Your Head On My Shoulder) is about a man who decapitated his girl friend so she could no longer speak, then Stuck her head on his shoulder. Forever...

Or maybe not

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Let's Go Away For A While is about the time Brian and Carol Mountain drove their car to the sea in a passionate teen-romance suicide pact. Luckily the hot dogs and root beer they consumed just beforehand convinced them it was too dangerous to enter the water for at least 45 minutes afterward, and they forgot all about it.