The Smiley Smile Message Board

At the end of Pet Sounds/Caroline No.

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Are you asking what WE think it meant to Brian, & why he included it?  Or are you asking what it means to us, subjectively?

Trains are inherently musical to the ear, because of the rhythm.  (There's a long history with trains in art...  & I'm reminded of a Kronos Quartet/Terry Riley album in the late-80s called DIFFERENT TRAINS, I think.)  The sound it provocative in other ways too — hearing a train from a distance creates a mood...  or maybe many.  Traveling...  to where?  From where?  etc.  And of course trains at one time represented progress, human invention, & specifically the expansion west in the US, for example.

Dogs barking is in one way very different because the barks seem random, not rhythmic like the train.  The iron horse keeps the beat, while the dogs improvise the melody.  On the other hand, dogs barking in the distance can set a similar mood as the train...  (What are they barking at, etc.?)

Anyway, dogs are important to humans, & important in Rock N Roll history, & in BBoys history, in particular.  Would we have "Good Vibrations" without Audree's dog story?  And Banana & Louis did a great job on PET SOUNDS — they were definitely barking from their hearts.

i think he used trains + barking dogs cause it sounded cool at the time..Remember Bw works on feel.

Of course, but why did he think it sounded cool?  Why did it 'feel' right?

lets ask brian.

I just texted him.  His reply:

Cuz wife n manager said it wud b good idea.  ttyl

When I was 4 years old and had my first shot of acid, Satan appeared to me and said that the train was Brian leaving his old life behind. The dogs were the teeny bopper fans upset that he is leaving.

U Be Trippin.?

I just think it's one of these totally arbritary things that people put onto albums before everyone started doing too much acid and everything had to mean something.

Think how utterly arbritary the samurai stuff on the back is!

I think is symbolizes the passing of a certain period in the narrarator's life (BW) The period in which the songs describe. Or just the passing of youth into uncertain adulthood.

To me, Pet Sounds is THE best break-up album ever! It starts out with the youthful optimism of a new relationship and then goes through all the usual ups and downs and then a break-up and then the guy sees the girl later and her hair is short and she's now hard and mean and bitter and not the same person he fell in love with.

Remeber Bruce's liner note thingy for the Pet Sounds box set? Remember he said that Pet Sounds represented, or was the place where that "special little window" that had opened for Brian was closing?..... Well, the train and the dogs make me think of that each time.

I still think Trombone Dixie should have closed it. Would have made the album be much more come full circle. Just my POV though.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Brian had once said something about "the train carrying away his innocence".

As the train brings the passenger from one place to another, the album has brought the listener through a voyage into Brian's feelings.  Innocence to experience.  And the train is travelling to another destination - in this case, Brian's next album (Smile) and his attempts through humor (and channeling childhood and the American native spirit) to recapture innocence, or rather create a new kind of innocence.

The dogs are the domestic dependent creatures calling on Brian to halt his journey and not travel too far, to play it safe and stay home, to stop expanding his consciousness through drugs.

Like a lot of "Brian theories", it's fun to look for deep meanings; makes for interesting thought and conversation. Especially with this topic, and where the snippet was placed on the album, there can be numerous theories. I think it was simply Brian wanting to hear/record a train (w/whistle) and hear/record his beloved dogs. THEN maybe came up with the thought of combining them. No deep meaning here. You know what Brian would say if you asked him? "I just wanted to hear what it would be like to record a train and my dogs". :)

he didn't record no train, sheriff

Not to forget that the pet dogs tie in with the title of the album of course

I always sorta thought it had to do with growing up/leaving home.

No. It was the Doppler effect that carried him away.

As a listener, I experience the train moving past me while I am stationary, my pet dogs at my feet in a rural America setting (precursor to SMiLE?). The sound of a train in the distance always evokes anticipation; the sound of the train moving past and away, a sadness that something good has quickly gone by. To me, it is a bittersweet ending to the greatest pop album of all time. I stand in stunned silence as to the amazing sounds that have come and gone; my pets' sounds become accolades to the great Pet Sounds.

i think its mean a love that its gone, according to the history songs of course

It's a little known fact that the train and dogs were actually written by VDP and translated into Locomotive and Canine for the performance. The reason, of course, is that Mike Love wouldn't sing them in English. These same lines were later tried again during the Smile sessions, when Mr. Love did indeed sing them--but not without confronting Van Dyke. "Over and over the crow cries uncover the cornfield? What does it mean?"

(The train sings "over and over." The dogs sing "the crow cries...cornfield." FYI.)

Did you know that dogs began to bark only when man domesticated them, in order to emulate their sounds? And that herrings communicate by farting? (True, dat).
I suspect that Louie and Banana sing 'Strangers In The Night', on Pet Sounds, although it might also be 'Mystery Train'. Science is looking into it.

Your pulling my leg with the farting..!!

Actually, I looked that one up; and no, he wasn't joking!! :3d

I think the loud sound of the whistles with the rythmic sound is a train passing by. And the barking is the sound of dogs.  ::)

I agree. To me the whole album is about girl problems, and at the end of it - well, life goes on. There's a train outside, barrelling through.

What's next? Pet Sounds: The Movie? We can make it like Twilight, only a little more grounded in reality. The teens will go crazy over it. And the poor sod actress who gets the "girl" part will be the most hated woman in film by all teenage girls.

The dogs were picking up on the vibrations in the air.

Actually, he's pulling your finger...and Brian was onto this thing about herrings & tried to communicate it with the "farting" synth sounds on "Love You."  ;D

I imagine it is night........maybe around 11:00 P.M.     All has been said.....the writer  is alone, outside in the darkness...melancholly.........feeling the sounds, looking at the moon through a misty fog....the feel and  smell of the night air.......

a train goes by in the distance....and somewhere in the distance a dog barks......

the writer SMiLEs


these are favorite sounds...."pet" sounds.....

Sounds like an Edward Hopper painting...

Now that you mention it.  That is the picture that comes to mind when I hear that train and dog.

Haha, Hey Arnold.

That'll work!