Pet Sounds, Part III - Page 2


© Robert Whillans
Page 2

The song then jumps into a simple combination or piano, triangle and vocals that builds in complexity, adding new instruments (drums, timpani) and backing vocals. The chord progressions go up continuously and don't come down, suggesting, as an interviewee in the CD sleeve remarked "as perpetual movement upwards, towards God." Whether or not the intention of the song is a divine one, it adds to the dreamy quality of the song and makes it seem as if the song has been pulled straight out of Brian's musings about love and life in his head. This is another example of using different instruments and techniques to represent feelings in a song. As the song continues, Brian adds a bicycle bell that can be heard before the bridge. This was originally the backing track for an earlier song he had written, "My Childhood". Occasionally, tracks that were discarded for earlier experiments were place into new compositions, again because of the lack of open spaces for recording. The bridge if very brief, composed of Brian singing "I want to cry..." and then Al Jardine repeating that tune as the instruments die away. The end of the song repeats the main tune of the bridge with all the instruments used throughout the song accompanying, dying away to a single clarinet, then coming back together again. Another instrument used on the backing for the end is a bicycle horn that mirrors the beat used by the bell earlier, and suggesting a sort of nostalgic theme about the song that is, yet again, another demonstration of instruments provoking feelings.

The entire song is wrapped up beautifully by the semi-orchestra and backing vocals that support Brian's lead vocal that seems lost in reverie throughout the song. One of the best things about the Pet Sounds songs is the way they end; many songs of that era didn't know how to end properly, either simply stopping or repeating the same part over and over again. Brian brings the whole song together at the end, and doesn't leave you wanting more or wishing it would just end, but rather with the impression that the song has faded away, into the next song and the rest of the album. These endings bind the album together, which is important because it would be easy for all the different concepts and thoughts that make up the different songs to seem individual and isolated, but instead they are together, just as the thoughts in Brian's head were.

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Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: View all related messages

1.   Oct 15, 1999 9:10 PM
Yeah wutever,
the beach boys? Omigod man, this is the gayest **** i've ever read. But u got some pretty good writing techniques. But apply to some other greater ideas. Contemporize man, forget the pa ...

-- posted by chineseguy





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