Every song on ‘Pet Sounds’ ranked in order of greatness
On lists of the greatest albums ever made, The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds rightfully sits high every time. Their 1966 record is heralded as a work of absolute genius, regarded as the ultimate display of Brian Wilson’s incredible, era-defining talent as he wrote, composed and produced the record in the act of seemingly unlimited creativity.
It’s the album that inspired generations of albums as The Beach Boys levelled up from a kind of twee mainstream troupe into leaders of countercultural experimentation. The Beatles were deeply influenced by the release, spurring them to make Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Ever since the 1960s, it’s a record that’s been brought up time and time again by super producers who look to Wilson for inspiration or bands looking to make something adventurous yet polished.
It’s also a prime example of a perfect start-to-finish album. It’s the sort of record designed to hit play and let it run, with songs melding into one another or instrumental tracks adding to its thorough and immersive world. There’s no filler to be found, and no single moment involved wasn’t given the band’s total dedication and effort.
However, that isn’t to say that some songs aren’t built greater than others. Even on an album with consistent quality, there are winners and losers. In the world of Pet Sounds, it’s a tough call to make, but here are all 13 tracks, ranked in order of greatness from weakest to strongest.
Pet Sounds ranked from worst to best:
13. ‘Pet Sounds’
Originally titled ‘Run James Run’, Brian Wilson initially thought this instrumental could be used as a James Bond theme, giving it a nostalgic, theatrical feel. But in the end, the composition not only ended up on Pet Sounds but also gave the album its name.
Sonically, this piece captures the energy and adventurous spirit of the record. It’s utterly impossible to capture with any genre label or easy descriptor, as Wilson was clearly grabbing whatever he liked from any sounds that inspired him and merging them into something new and exciting. Obviously, it can’t live up to the album’s other lyrical efforts or hits, but as a piece of music, it’s one of the puzzle pieces that makes the record such a flawless start-to-finish listen.
12. ‘Sloop John B’
Despite regularly featuring on The Beach Boys’ best of compilation records, ‘Sloop John B’ doesn’t deserve a slot in the top ten. The band’s take on the Bahamian folk song, originally published as ‘The John B. Sails’, feels irritating and cringe in comparison to their own original compositions.
Its musical worth is undeniable, but it’s impossible to critique this when it comes to the band. Wilson commanded his troupe into a musically tight unit with perfect harmonies, faultlessly layered instrumentals and just enough orchestration to level this up into something unique and modern enough for the 1960s. But still, it can’t hold a candle to the rest of the album and certainly isn’t a ‘best of’ track.
11. ‘That’s Not Me’
Brian Wilson’s lyricism is an interesting beast. As points, his pen is nuanced and incredibly poetic, able to navigate huge emotional sentiments with a unique freshness and perspective. But on other tracks, it becomes a bit too on-the-nose or overly sincere. Unfortunately, ‘That’s Not Me’ falls into the latter category with the leading lyric, “I had to prove that I could make it alone / But that’s not me.”
The story in the song is nice enough, with Wilson speaking to an old love as he realises the worth of a simple, domestic life. But compared to the album’s other love songs, it’s shadowed and forgettable in their looming light.
10. ‘I Know There’s An Answer’
Originally titled ‘Hang On to Your Ego’, ‘I Know There’s An Answer’ is Wilson’s ode to LSD. During his first trip, the musician claimed he experienced a full-on ego-death, becoming utterly fascinated by the drug and its capabilities. He likened it to a “religious experience” but was less enamoured by hoards of “acid-heads” that were around in the 1960s.
“People took [acid] to get away from themselves, but that wasn’t the right way to take it. It was supposed to make you go deeper into yourself,” he said of the song, “I wanted to remind people that they could survive everything best if they remembered who they were.”
For a track about LSD, ‘I Know There’s An Answer’ is far less psychedelic than the subject matter calls for. It’s obviously still incredible, with the album’s cohesive maximalism that sees Wilson creating absolute magic in the studio. But it blurs in with the rest of the record, lost among stronger lyrical efforts or more attention-grabbing instrumentals.
9. ‘Let’s Go Away For A While’
Just before the record is flipped, ‘Let’s Go Away For A While’ is the album’s first instrumental. It has the slight energy of phone-holding music or the soundtrack of an elevator, but imagine if that kind of stock music was genuinely good or crafted by a genius.
Wilson originally planned to add lyrics to the track but decided once it was done that, it didn’t need them. He was right. The instrumental is emotive enough to still take listeners on a journey, confidently moving through several musical themes. It’s another piece that contributes to just how mind-blowing Pet Sounds is as a musical adventure.
8. ‘Here Today’
The instrumental for ‘Here Today’ is something really special, as is the whole album. From the opening words, the first verse builds and builds with the band’s signature harmonies floating in alongside big drums and horns. Then, when the chorus hits, it bursts into full technicolour.
The session musicians on the album, known as the ‘Wrecking Crew’, sound incredible here. Lyrically, this is a classic take on the fleeting nature of love, but it’s the song’s instrumental that levels this up into a dynamic and attention-grabbing track that repeatedly swells, climaxes, breaks apart, and starts building again. It feels like a whole trip or a full emotional journey in one, being a true triumph of Wilson’s composing power.
7. ‘I’m Waiting For The Day’
From the opening thumping drums to the very end, ‘I’m Waiting For The Day’ is just one of those songs that cheer you up. It’s like Wilson channelled pure serotonin into it, infusing each instrument and each field-recorded train sound with unabashed joy.
That’s all down to the song’s outright energy. It’s like you can feel that each and every element was played with real enthusiasm, as if the fun within the studio bursts out through your headphones. From a songwriting perspective, it’s not a major stand-out, but for vibes alone, this track has to rank highly as a major contributor to the album’s feel-good, sunny disposition.
6. ‘I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times’
“That song reflects my life. It’s about a guy who was crying because he thought he was too advanced and that he’d eventually have to leave people behind,” Wilson explained of the song. To him, it was a prophetic track, adding, “Yes, it did happen to me. I did Pet Sounds, and all my friends thought I was crazy to do it.”
In its lyricism and his sonics, ‘I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times’ seems to reflect or predict just how isolating Wilson’s genius would prove. While crooning a story of his anxieties, the instrumental that swells around the voices is so insanely complex and layered that it too seems to capture the musician’s neuroses and obsessive nature. There are blocks being hit in a certain way, horns and harpsichords, all six Beach Boys singing, and Wilson’s voice is layered repeatedly with overdubs to build a texture of worries. It’s an amazing effort.
5. ‘Caroline, No’
Pet Sounds closes with this wailing track, contemplating loss and heartache over a past relationship. It captures the painful distance that’s forever growing between two people who used to mean the world to each other. ‘Caroline, No’ views heartbreak from such specific vantage points that it seems to present the feeling as something totally new but also utterly timeless.
What makes it really special is Wilson’s long, drawn-out notes that sound more like upset cries. As his voice drags out and melds into an instrumental outro, it leaves the album in a state of emotional contemplation and brings it back to its standpoint, which exists somewhere between modern pop and classical, baroque elements.
4. ‘You Still Believe In Me’
From its introduction, ‘You Still Believe In Me’ establishes itself as something different. Then, as Wilson’s voice comes in, it settles into this unique mix of a hymn, a nursery rhyme, and a classic 1950s doo-wop pop track. It feels like the band is playing with the kind of sound and sentiment that used to colour mainstream music with its utterly innocent and devotional energy.
But as he wails, “I wanna cry,” with a long, extended note echoed by the rest of the band and elevated into a moment of full-band, tightly harmonised glory that just keeps on building, the track breaks open into something more experimental and interesting. It’s a short one, only two and a half minutes long, but it packs so much in.
3. ‘God Only Knows’
OK, hear me out. I know that ‘God Only Knows’ is regularly ranked as one of the greatest songs ever written. It is referenced over and over by musicians throughout history as an example of pure glory. It’s been covered to no end and still endures as one of the world’s most beloved love songs.
However, amidst the world of Pet Sounds, there are better or more interesting tracks. While the central lyric of “God only knows what I’d be without you” is absolutely perfectly put and is easily Wilson’s finest chorus that he’s ever written, the rest of the song feels somewhat emotionally jumbled.
“I may not always love you / But long as there are stars above you / You never need to doubt it,” it begins, already with a question mark. The rest of the piece is so incredibly devotional, but that odd opening line really throws it off, feeling too conditional in a song that feels so unconditionally loving. Musically too, ‘God Only Knows’ is big and epic as an obvious standout but isn’t as complex as some of the others.
2. ‘Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)’
Short, sharp and perfect, ‘Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)’ is an utterly faultless track. It’s the sort of piece that feels like it could have existed forever, sounding like the kind of love song that is truly timeless in its ability to articulate the sweetest of sentiments.
There is nothing trendy about it. Even while maintaining the adventurous spirit and experimentation of the whole album, with Wilson commanding his session musicians to a stunning sound, it feels classic in the best way, allowing it to endure as just a plain and simple beautiful piece.
Lyrically, too, ‘Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)’ doesn’t need any bells and whistles or big poetic sentiments to be one of the album’s most moving and special songs. There is merit in its plain-speaking adoration and tenderness, laying out an intimate piece of pure affection.
1. ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’
On an album full of talent, packed with incredible tracks and heavy with musical experimentation and amazement, it’s tough to pick a decided best song. But nothing is as defining of Pet Sounds as its perfected opening remarks, launching listeners deep into the record’s trippy world of nostalgia meeting counterculture meeting mainstream classic sounds all melded with a future thinking edge. From the second that instantly recognisable introduction ends with one heavy drum beat, the energy of the album has you surrounded, drawing you in and keeping you there without a second to spare.
It’s impossible to hate this piece. The Beach Boys have always had a way of capturing pure joy, which is exactly what made them so popular. But on Pet Sounds, and this song especially, they bottle serotonin in a way that avoids cliches and doesn’t feel annoying.
It always maintains an air of cool and a level of experimental freshness which makes them remarkable. ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ is a triumph of a pop song, standing as a perfect example of Wilson’s compositional genius, the whole band’s sonic strength and this album’s enduring magic.
