The “hold me/ love me” bridge is irresistible, and Lennon’s one sudden, needy “woah-oh!” ad-lib adds the crucial note of hormonal desperation. However, its place here is earned by its melody and sound – a giddy rush of pure pleasure that echoes everyone’s experience of their first love.
LBīased on a chance remark by a chauffeur overheard by Paul McCartney, this US No 1 is not one of Lennon and McCartney’s greatest lyrics. The pure, bubblegum-layered harmonies perfectly capture the innocence of young lovers dreaming of a future together when “we could be married/ And then we’d be happy”.If only love was as pure and simple. The third single from Pet Sounds, Wouldn’t It Be Nice was backed with God Only Knows, which is pretty much as close to pop perfection as you can get on two sides of a seven-inch. And you can hum every hook-drenched second of it. Forty years on, Pet Sounds wears better than Pepper, and this dazzling, complex, ethereal song seems a pinnacle of pop’s ambition. At the time, Sgt Pepper seemed the peak, and a drained and damaged Wilson withdrew, his creativity spent.
Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson have both acknowledged the musical arms race that their bands were in from 1965-67, vying to stretch the boundaries of pop. It avoids mawkishness by opening with a deliberately contrary lyric (“I may not always love you”) before Carl Wilson’s angelic lead vocal tells us that only the prospect of stars falling from the sky could bring an end to their love. It is simultaneously a remarkably baroque pop song and a simple affirmation of love. The centrepiece of Pet Sounds, God Only Knows was apparently composed in 15 minutes by Brian Wilson and Tony Asher. On the opener, a cello and French horn give way to Gough’s acoustic guitar as he recalls meeting his girlfriend for the first time: “Remembering when I saw your face/ Shining my way, pure timing”. RVĭamon Gough’s early lo-fi EPs on the Twisted Nerve label he launched with Andy Votel had already made him a cult figure, but it was his debut album The Hour of the Bewilderbeast that really signalled Badly’s arrival. Sweeping strings, slap bass, a sax that felt like the height of sophistication in 1982 and even a talking bit it’s all archly staged in a song that seems to be as much about the idea of love – “the look” – than it is about an actual relationship. Like an opera condensed into three-and-a-half minutes of high drama, Martin Fry’s hit is perfectly constructed pop.
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