Lindsey Buckingham names the perfect pop single: “Just masterful”
Any mainstream pop song isn’t meant to sound perfect. Artists can try their best to make sure the raw sonics of the record are in order or that nothing is clipping in the mix, but the minute that they try to get lightning in a bottle every single time, they are going to be chasing their own tail for the rest of their lives. Lindsey Buckingham knew the struggle of achieving perfection all too well when working on Fleetwood Mac’s greatest projects, but he also knew that everything that a perfect pop single should be can be found in The Beach Boys’ ‘I Get Around’ single.
When listening to Buckingham’s music, though, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he worshipped at the altar of Brian Wilson. The California rocker was an absolute genius when it came time to layer instruments or vocal harmonies on top of each other, and when Pet Sounds first came out, people got a taste of what rock and roll could be beyond just the standard love song chord progressions.
But Buckingham was there before Pet Sounds has graced everyone’s collective eardrums. He knew that things were kicking into high gear as far back as The Beach Boys Party with songs like ‘She Knows Me Too Well’, but ‘I Get Around’ was a bit of a different beast from the minute that it started playing.
There were still those traditional Beach Boys harmonies, but the key of the song was almost fluid based on every piece of the track. Wilson had already begun to stretch his craft a little bit, and when looking at how the key of the song changes on a dime without anyone really noticing, it is probably what inspired Paul McCartney to try out the exact same thing when working on the ballad ‘Here There and Everywhere’.
And even the B-side ‘Don’t Worry Baby’ showed Wilson getting more in tune with how he normally wrote love songs. On both sides of that one single, people not only got shades of what ‘Good Vibrations’ would sound like with its different musical movements but also a taste of the openhearted longing that would appear on the group’s magnum opus.
Even though Pet Sounds is the celebrated crown jewel of the group’s discography, Buckingham still figured that the single for ‘I Get Around’ stood head and shoulders above everything, telling Forbes, “As far as pop goes, probably at the top of my list for a great A and B side of a 45, is ‘I Get Around’, by the Beach Boys on the A side, and what’s on the B side? ‘Don’t Worry, Baby.’ Brian had already evolved from the first couple of albums and the structure, the construction of something like I Get Around,’ is just symphonic in a two-and-a-half minute format. Just masterful.”
More than anything, Buckingham learned the importance of attention to detail when listening to this kind of single. Looking through what he contributed to Rumours after the fact, the amount of meticulous woodshedding before coming up with the guitar part to ‘Go Your Own Way’ is still one of the most tuneful moments in the group’s entire career.
Some singles chart by accident, but they don’t stick around for decades by accident. The only way they stay where they are is through the craftsmanship, and Buckingham knew that every time he bought a new Beach Boys record, he was studying under some of the best.
