Musical Genius Tells the Story of an All Time Masterpiece | Professor of Rock

up next my holy grail interview the interview of all interviews uh one of the last musical geniuses left on this planet tells us the story behind one of the greatest songs in the history of all of music since the beginning of time along with the co-writer of what many consider the greatest album of all time truly a camp miss on professor of rock hey music junkies professor of rock always here to celebrate the greatest artists and the greatest songs of all time you know if you were raised on radio uh this journey wants to name one of their albums you're simply gonna love this channel subscribe below to get the story straight from the artists we also have a patreon so take a look at that link below where we have other content and you can also help our mission at curating music history if you choose to do so now as i began to do interviews with you know legendary artists and songwriters and producers i made a list of the 15 artists that i had to get before i left this earth it was kind of like fab 15 if you will artists that truly touched my life and created the meaningful soundtrack of my very existence i've been really fortunate to interview quite a few from that list so i'm still remain uh the near 600 interviews i've done so far and from that list of my 15 there is one that is my holy grail interview an artist who has shaped not only my life and so many countless others who legends look to a legends legend if you will he created a body of work that in my opinion has never been equal he's quite simply one of the last musical geniuses left on this earth when i say musical genius i'd say of the many hundreds of legendary artists that were in the rock era i think you can count them on your two hands really we've just lost a few of them over the years prince and eddie van halen in my estimation there are just a few left stevie wonder joni mitchell paul mccartney and brian wilson having already composed numerous masterpieces within the pop music canon in late 1965 brian wilson remarked to his then wife that he would venture to create the greatest album ever made brian and her be my baby by the ronnettes [Applause] phil spector's wall of sound production was just mind-blowing to him and then he went on to write the beach boys heavenly classic don't worry baby just an incredible song [Music] similar to that experience he heard the beatles rubber soul and he was just knocked out by it there's an album uh in his words with no filler [Music] this was the motivation to tell his then wife that he would create the greatest album ever and the result was of course pet sounds uh it's in a three-way tie for my favorite album of all time what about you tell us in the comments but uh how does one even try to define pet sounds it's similar to you know the plot of it's a wonderful life where we would ask what would life be like without george bailey you've been given a great gift george a chance to see what the world would be like without you but instead here we might ask you what would the world be like without pet sounds without its healing exuberance it's just a question that i can't even begin to answer because for me it would be like imagining a world without oxygen i know so that sounds like hyperbole but its emotional impact cannot be overstated for me it's 35 minutes and 57 seconds of absolute sonic perfection i mean it's the personification of a million heavenly angels singing in unison that power and put it lightly if you've never listened to pet sounds all the way through at least a couple of times you haven't truly experienced the full power of music [Music] it's simply the highest spiritual vibration that the human ear can even receive it's like scores of other humans on this planet it's my go-to album whenever i feel love joy peace sadness confusion melancholy hell it's my go-to album when i want to feel period it contains an innocence that can't be penetrated or defiled [Music] it was frederick nietzsche who said famously without music life would be a mistake i'm pretty sure that he was talking about pet sounds no doubt about it let's be clear it's not just pet sounds it's the man who invented pet sounds brian wilson he's always created music that flawlessly taps into genuine human emotion as much as any composer or artist in the history of this planet he writes music that literally saves your life i'll do one better than calling him a legends legend he's the kind of soul that geniuses call a genius i mean fellow musical genius paul mccartney has said that god only knows from pet sounds is his favorite song of all time [Music] i even remember him saying that he's given all of his kids a copy of pet sounds as their their growing up experience almost like a rite of passage i followed this same example of my kids because everybody really should hear this record my theory is that when god set out to create the perfect singing voice brian was the mold i mean when you hear those deeply effectual harmonies he always constructed just pierces the innermost region of our sacred souls and it brings humility and a peace to our hearts the historians all talk about the british invasion when the brits invaded the american airwaves with beatlemania in 64 both pet sounds that included god only knows and the single uh released after that album good [Music] vibrations brian wilson he was like the the george washington of rock and roll winning the modern revolutionary rock and roll war by taking music to a level that even the greatest minds could never dream of everybody talks about it i argue all the time with people about this of course the beatles and george martin were incomparable in many ways but the beatles had remember three legendary singer-songwriters you know john lennon paul mccartney and george harrison along with arguably the the greatest producer ever in george martin but on the other side of the pond brian wilson was doing all of this essentially by himself i mean he had the wrecking crew but brian was on a whole other level after pet sounds hit and the beatles had revolver the two groups were in this friendly and uh and competitive race to take music experimentation to the next level uh the beatles were crafting sergeant pepper's lonely hearts club band and brian wilson was working with the beach boys on his teenage symphony to god called smile uh it's actually one of the most compelling stories in the annals of popular music i've studied it for years it's a story actually that i've been collecting interviews and a lot of stories about and we will definitely be releasing something like that soon but our precursor to that i want to share the story behind the songs from pet sounds which i had the distinct honor to talk with brian wilson about it was a pinch me moment for sure we're going to start with god only knows right now one of the most shocking things about the masterpiece god only knows is that didn't even make the top 20 charts even though it was one of the most celebrated songs of all time since then arguably the jewel and the crown of pet sounds of course i love caroline no as well and [Music] i mean i love them all but godly knows by the beach boys was the b side of the number eight hit wouldn't it be nice [Music] i assume most of you watching know about the a side and b-side psychology of the 50s and 60s but i guess for those who don't know the a-side would normally be the song that the record company wanted radio stations to play and sometimes both would be played and and both became hits hence the the term double-sided hits or double a sides we've talked about it before beatles achieved this a lot of times as and we've talked about that a lot uh with penny lane on the a side as an example and strawberry feels forever on the b side penny lane hit number one and strawberry fields went to number eight [Applause] [Music] in the beach boys case the a side wouldn't it be nice was pushed as the hit and god only knows was the b-side in the uk it was just the opposite actually god only knows was the a side hit went to number two again denied the number one spot and america godly knows uh i did get airplay and actually did end up charting on the hot 100 it went to number 39 barely scratching the top 40. it's a travesty of epic proportions it's one of america's greatest pop standards like i said so great in fact that although brian wilson has told many that he was influenced by the great george gershwin standard rhapsody in blue it was a big influence on him and brian created god only knows i think like george gershwin had met his equal god only knows what i'd be without you thought about it a lot god only knows might be brian wilson's masterpiece it's tough to say for sure i mean you have good vibrations [Music] california girls [Music] don't worry baby and i could keep going and going [Music] i think you get the point how many artists outside of the beatles have that many perfect songs flawless songs the vocal arrangement alone is just otherworldly now there are many out takes a godly nose some of which feature brian singing lead but in the end brian gave his baby brother carl the lead vocal but in this upcoming story behind the song you're going to get the real story it's pretty interesting god only knows continues to just mesmerize our culture it's used in film and tv all the time and there's toy story 4. love actually boogie nights big love the leftovers the wonder years i love how they used it there grace and frankie and of course so many more and it'll continue to get used of course it's also been covered by scores of different artists i mean there's neil diamond olivia newton john elvis costello michael buble david bowie avenged sevenfold are you kidding me [Music] like i said though it's sir paul mccartney's favorite song ever now what follows is the story of god only knows from his creators brian wilson and his co-writer tony asher advertising exec from back in the day uh and a few other interviews as we go into this interview i want to thank our sponsor zenny eyewear the instrument that i choose to see the world through if you will at zany.com you can actually customize your eyewear with a prescription lens or a non-prescription lens if you just want to you know a great look or a certain color or a particular style of lens check it out today zenny.com here's the story robert's soul came out i've got a copy of right here whoever seoul came out and you heard that blew your mind and you wanted to write an album all great material yeah i went to the piano after i heard rubber stole and i started writing golly nose did you consciously uh plan a concept album or did you write songs no we didn't plan uh we just wanted to do an album that had balance and rockers and you know and rock ballads and stuff like that you know a real heart and soul album right it is a heart show up yeah yeah this is an album that whenever i've gone through anything from happiness to sadness right this is the album one of my favorite albums of all time thank you very much and many peoples but very nice of you let me ask you about um why tony asher because he was in advertising why did you choose him to write that way we met because i went to a recording session for some jingles that i had to oh okay and i somehow came upon brian at you know like the water cooler or the coffee machine or something and i i was in the hallways and there was brian wilson and i thought oh my gosh that's brian wilson so i said to him uh something really original like you're brian wilson i i talked with him and he said hey come here and listen to something now that's the kind of thing brian does and i said you have a very very good gift of gab you know if we were in the studio today and he was working on something and we just appeared in the hallway he would say hey you guys want to listen to something i mean he did it with the fedex guy who would come to the door and he'd be mixing something or whatever and then he'd take the thing on each side he'd say oh wait wait come back tell me what you think of this and at first you would say brian the guy's a fedex man i mean what are you doing you know he doesn't really know anything about me but then you stop and you say wait a second that's his audience his audience is everybody right it's every man so why shouldn't he ask the fedex guy you know he feels like an ordinary guy you know which is one of the reasons that so much of his music appeals towards you guys you know i said would you like to write a song with me and he said yeah so he came over to my house and we wrote godly note he wrote the lyrics and i wrote the music we did it in 45 minutes it's just it came faster than any other song i ever wrote i remember it was pretty quick wow if bach were to write a pop song you know then he would write it down you know most spiritual song ever written i agree i have to agree with you on that spirituality has played such a huge part in your music right tell me about that spirituality well i believe that god is music you know so when you make music that's god talking to you we spent some time talking about the word god you know and can you write a song about and as i think back i think well of course what was the discussion about but then i realized actually if you go back to songs of that period and listen to what was going on it wasn't uh god was never mentioned i mean unless there's god bless america everybody talks about god bless america you know so that was the only you know place where somebody was used to yeah and then we talked about i mean we had some laughs because i said i said do you want to call it gosh only knows i mean i don't think we could do that you know and then we said so what could we do if if we absolutely had to we were serious about thinking that the label might say hey guys we can't put it i can't put that out there so what would we do and so we said well because we really liked the song you know and we would talk about it you know that you know and i said well i don't know i guess we could rewrite it but um i don't know that there's a substitute for those words i mean there really isn't so um and then at some point we started started to get kind of slightly defiant about it you know screw them you know if they don't like it this is it this is the way it's gonna be i just came in to hear him track something and he finished at about two and a half hours and i just thought this is one of the best instrumentals i've ever heard in my life and they went okay take a rest comes back and then says okay let's we'll put on french horns a french horn player and then at the end of the record uh i'm thinking two four da da da and also at the end of the record it's done i'm going what the hell is he doing he's this is not flowers i didn't know they had god only know all these voices wrapped around it i didn't even know the melody was there or anything the pinnacle of carl seeing why did you choose carl instead of your own voice do you remember ungodly noise because i wanted him to have a chance to see i liked his voice and i i i he had an attorney i gave him his big turn you know for saying yeah and he's saying that beautifully carl is wonderful sweetheart he had a great pure sound up top too but he basically did brian he covered brian [Music] brian wilson is truly the master of the pocket symphony i mean he's the bach of rock the king of california and the father of america's greatest band arguably first god only knows what we would be without him leave us a comment about this musical geniuses music and a song god only knows what are your memories what is your take on the the beatles versus the beach boys that that friendly competition is going on let us know in the comments if you dig our content our videos uh make sure to subscribe below so that you never miss out on our content and make sure to look us up on patreon for even more content and lastly make sure to pick up your own copy of the heavenly pet sounds uh below we have a link to the pet sounds 50th anniversary box set came out a couple of years ago it includes the vocals only tracks they talked about in it i've also included a link to the 180 gram heavyweight black vinyl lp reissue of pet sounds remastered and there's the box set below if you want your life changed for the better keep the music alive my friends until next time three chords and the truth talk to you [Music] soon you

Channel: Professor of Rock

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Keywords: classic rock, professor of rock, rock community, rock and roll, soft rock, beach boys, god only knows, beach boys interview, music history, video essay, music junkies, vinyl junkies, rick beato, rock and roll true stories, professor beach boys, professor, beach boys story, god only knows story, lyrics meaning, lyrics explained, music professor, rock, album, song, vinyl, music

Id: gV62RewgCWM

Length: 19min 27sec (1167 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 24 2021