Background
The track "Sloop John B" predated the recording of the rest of the LP by some months, but it proved to be a pivotal point in the album's development. It was a traditional Caribbean folk song that had been suggested to Wilson by group member Al Jardine. Wilson recorded a backing track on July 12, 1965, but after laying down a rough lead vocal, he set the song aside for some time, concentrating on the recording of what became their next LP, the "live in the studio' album" Beach Boys' Party!, which was provided in response to their record company so the Beach Boys could have a new album ready for the Christmas 1965 market. What would become the Pet Sounds record could not be finished in time for Christmas 1965.
The real catalyst for Pet Sounds was the U.S. version of The Beatles' album Rubber Soul, which was released that December in time for the Christmas market. (The British version of Rubber Soul was edited prior to its release in the U.S.A. to emphasise its folk rock feel that critics attributed to Bob Dylan and The Byrds.)
Wilson later recalled his first impressions of the groundbreaking album:
| “ | I really wasn't quite ready for the unity. It felt like it all belonged together. Rubber Soul was a collection of songs ... that somehow went together like no album ever made before, and I was very impressed. I said, "That's it. I really am challenged to do a great album." | ” |
Wilson found Rubber Soul was filled with all-original songs. Inspired, he rushed to his wife and proclaimed, "Marilyn, I'm gonna make the greatest album! The greatest rock album ever made!". In early January 1966 Wilson contacted Tony Asher, a young lyricist and copywriter who had been working on advertising jingles, and whom Wilson had met in a Hollywood recording studio months earlier. Within ten days they were writing together. Wilson played him some of the music he had been recording, and gave him a cassette of the finished backing track for a piece with the working title "In My Childhood"; it had lyrics, but Wilson refused to show them to Asher, who took the music away and wrote new lyrics. The result was eventually retitled "You Still Believe in Me" and the success of the piece convinced Wilson that Tony Asher was the collaborator he was looking for.
"The general tenor of the lyrics was always his," Asher later recalled, "and the actual choice of words was usually mine. I was really just his interpreter."
Read more about this topic: Pet Sounds
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