The Beach Boys hit Brian Wilson never connected with: “One of the mystery songs”
When describing any of The Beach Boys’ greatest hits, the first word that comes to mind is heart. No matter how many times Brian Wilson sat down to write a melody, there was doubt that whatever he was singing was coming straight from his soul every single time he played. There’s a difference between being heartfelt and just writing a good song, and compared to everything else on Pet Sounds, ‘Here Today’ was a tune that he never fully grasped.
It’s not like Wilson didn’t have time to work on making all of the tunes into classics, though. After having a nervous breakdown in the middle of a tour, The Beach Boys felt that it would probably be better for Wilson to stay in the studio making incredible music while the rest of them went on the road.
Now Wilson had a lot of time to think and a lot of time to listen, and he would spend the next few months playing session band The Wrecking Crew like his own personal instrument. Since he didn’t have to rely on a budget or anything, Pet Sounds came together because of the pure joy Wilson got out of interacting with every single player, from the massive drum hit on ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ to the counterpoint vocals of ‘God Only Knows’.
Even though Wilson didn’t write all of the lyrics, this was also a breakthrough moment for him to say what he wanted to say. Anyone could have spent the rest of their lives writing about cars and summertime and surfing all day long, but his delivery on a track like ‘I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times’ comes from someone who’s truly scared about their place in the world and wondering if they’ve been lost.
‘Here Today’ is a much different beast by comparison. Regardless of earnest love songs like ‘Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)’, this is about how love can run away from you in a single moment, which is one of the more juvenile topics on the entire album. Considering a lot of the tunes are about projecting into the future and seeing where Wilson will be with his lover years down the road, a song about what sounds like a high school crush that lasts the equivalent of 24 hours isn’t really that deep.
Maybe that’s why Wilson never understood what Mike Love meant by the lyrics, saying, “‘Here Today’ was probably one of the mystery songs on the album. I don’t really know what it’s about. I liked it, but yet I didn’t. I don’t really identify with that song like I do with ‘You Still Believe In Me’ or ‘Caroline, No.’ It was just one of those songs in there, one little song.”
While it’s the closest thing to a lull in the track listing of Pet Sounds, Wilson still worked his magic in the backing track. Hearing those different voices bouncing off each other in the chorus is a thing of beauty, and The Wrecking Crew behind them is still one of the most powerful forces in 1960s rock.
If Wilson had planned this as an answer to The Beatles’ album Rubber Soul when writing it, then this would have been the ‘Run For Your Life’ of Pet Sounds. It was far from a bad track sonically, but given where they were in their career, it could have been a slight lyrical step backward.
