thoughts/musing on Pet Sounds

[dwtherealbb]

The gist of this may have already been said before, but does anyone agree with me that the album is sort of like an intermission of the 60s. Even though it came out when the decade was 60% done, it seems like if one was to watch a documentary on the 60s, then the time the album came out (end of 65 beginning of 66) would have been sort of a halfway point where people could go get refreshments and the likes. I could sort of picture the song "Let's Go Away for Awhile" to be that particular intermission song. To me, in addition to being appropriately named for an intermission song, it sort of encapsulates the time around 1966 and sounds like background music on the Andy Williams Show.

But also, it would be appropriate since it would mark the intermission of the 60s itself. I kind of see it as the sort of turning point between the drag racing, fun 'n' sun, and general American Graffitti atmosphere beforehand and the remaining years of the decade with antiwar protests, race riots and the emergence of the counterculture and more liberal attitudes toward sex and drug use. Now if one is a hardcore Zephead or Black Sabbath fan, then you're probably wondering how it got #2 on the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list. But if one approaches the album as a sort of deep and emotionally raw album, then it makes a lot more sense. And the album is also sort of a soundtrack to America of 1966, because the words in the song are what plenty of other people were probably thinking (albeit in a different context). Just like Great Society America had a vision of a limitless America, so too was there beginning to be a culture of skepticism accompanied with the rise of societal ills. Even though the song is about a relationship between two young people, "Wouldn't It Be Nice", with a few lyrics changed, could just as easily be about what some people thought about America at the time.

Lastly, I see the album in some regards as a precursor or even a prequel to the Dark Side of the Moon. Although Dark Side has a lot more guitar usage, they both seem to be about the general mood of a person and the thought of growing up (you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today). The only difference was that Dark Side was released when the tumult and counterculture of the late 60s/early 70s was dying down and was sort of a reflection on the years in between. Alright I'm sort of sounding like a stoner, but does anyone sort of agree with me, at least in theory?

[guitarfool2002]

I like this train of thought. While I disagree with the reference to the "Great Society", I think the album captures a moment in time where the surroundings and the people Brian was experiencing in 1966 may have been "on to something", so to speak, and the possibilities to use their creativity and boundless thinking and plans for doing something better than what had come just before were within reach.

I do feel the album could have totally *nailed* that concept had "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" been the closing track. The fact that the narrator of that song is all but conceding the point that he is on a certain trip but can't find others who can relate and share those platitudes of possibility is a crushing blow in a way, after we've gone through track after track of the narrators growing and maturing and moving forward, albeit in the context of a man growing up and leaving things behind. Again, had that song closed the album it would have been with three dots rather than a period, and that may have been too crushing and therefore overshadow the album itself.

What I'm going to suggest may be controversial to some, but was it sheer coincidence that LSD was made illegal in October 1966? Specifically in Los Angeles? Nearly every account and every memory I've read from various artists and musicians who were in that scene in LA touch on the feeling of endless possibility that was in the air. And the feeling was "we could do better", brought forth from a feeling of despair and cynicism created by the world around them. Remember the atomic scare? Not much hope there from the authority figures if there was the threat of impending nuclear war hanging above everyone's heads. I just read a Pete Townshend quote where he touched on that very same point from his perspective in England, where some people around him had taken the attitude "why bother if it's all coming to an end?"

Then you have all these kids around LA creating incredible music and art, convinced that they could do more and go further than any government or societal establishment or program could take them, fueled no doubt by elements of the drug culture...the official PTB gets wind of it and...BAM...the hallucinogen of choice is officially made illegal. Why at that moment, and who decided something had to change specifically in Fall of 1966?

Again, I'm not condoning it or making statements either pro or con, but it does not seem to be a coincidence that October 1966 happened as it did. And agree with it or not, the type of environment which spawned an album like Pet Sounds was hardly different than those various substances which were around various other creative and artistic "scenes" generations earlier that changed art, literature, and music.

If anything, the artistic environment which existed as Pet Sounds was created was a self-contained entity which could operate independent of any programs or far-reaching plans like the Great Society, and if anything it shunned being given any direction from a governing body because the optimism in the air was coming from their own ideas of endless possibilities and of going one better than the previous effort, not someone else's plan or directive.

1965 and 1966 were crucial to the overall history and sociology of the 60's in general, because in some ways the very circles Brian for one was traveling with were the ones in the eye of the storm, unlike the mass media and future historians who don't quite catch up until 1967 and the "Summer Of Love" nonsense.

The Pet Sounds era could be an intermission, sure, but it just as easily could be the very eye of the hurricane raging before the outlying areas felt the effects.

[halblaineisgood]

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[leggo of my ego]

Naw. I dont see any correlation between Pink Floyd / DSOTM and Pet Sounds.

Totally different vibe, PF was still entertaining an unsettling fixation on ex-leader Syd Barrett and
that crazy-gone-mental thematic approach (did they ever get over that?)

vs. Brian trying to be Syd Barrett.

See it is different. 

[Jeff]

This is definitely not a stoner topic.  The 60s COULD be a legitimate theater production.  So much to tell, and such rapid change on so many levels.

I think of intermission as being summer 1965.  That in many ways was the fulcrum between the idealistic, peaceful changes of the first part of the decade, and the chaotic times of the second part.  On June 6, Satisfaction is released and goes to No. 1 the next month.  In July, Johnson begins the vast escalation of U.S. troops in Vietnam, which effectively was the point of no return.  On July 25, Dylan is booed offstage at Newport for abandoning acoustic folk for electric folk rock.  And in mid-August, the Watts riots take place.

For the Beach Boys, July 22, 1965 stands out as the ultimate turning point.  That was the date of release of California Girls, the culmination of all of the surf and summer tunes that came before.  It was also the first date of recording on Sloop John B—the first of the Pet Sounds tracks.

[dwtherealbb]

another question I have is does anyone think that had Brian came up with it in 66, that "Until I Die" would have been a great ending song to Pet Sounds, especially the extended version?