Sunday, 5 February 2012

Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder) – The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds 1966


Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder) – The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds 1966http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcFDaDZbc3Y

An unintentionally convenient segue from the last write-up to this one- The Drums, known for ‘Let’s Go Surfing’ to The Beach Boys who had several ‘surf’ based songs. In 1966 with the release of Pet Sounds Brian Wilson shunned the ‘fast cars, cute girls, and sunny beaches’ formula of previous albums that had bought The Beach Boys such success and instead presented a collection of slower-paced, introspective and thoughtful tracks. The Pet Sounds album was written as a response to The Beatles ‘Rubber Soul’- to me, one of The Beatles lesser albums but to Brian Wilson it was an inspiration;

“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”

I could devote a lot more time to the 13 tracks as a whole but for now at least I’m concerning myself with just one- track 4, ‘Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)’. As far removed from the ‘fun fun fun in the sun sun sun’ template as anyone could have thought possible, the lyrics paint a picture of utter contentment.

‘I can hear so much in your sighs,
And I can see so much in your eyes.
There are words we both could say,
But don't talk, put your head on my shoulder’.

This may well have been what Ronan was aiming for when he wrote the line ‘you say it best when you say nothing at all’, but Brian Wilson nailed it. Whats more, you believe every word he sings. There’s no grand gestures or gushing praise or compliments, his words capture the feeling of two people being so comfortable in eachothers company they don’t need to utter a sound to make it known, it can be read all over their faces.

’Being here with you feels so right,
We could live forever tonight,
Lets not think about tomorrow’.

The ‘lets not think about tomorrow’ line in the second verse indicates an imminent seperation, hence the desire to spend their last night as close, emotionally and physically, to one another as possible. This aspect adds a melancholy dread and explains the downbeat tone of the song- the strings, organs and drums almost faintly funereal. It is, in musical form, the perfect embodiment of a feeling many normal humans would find impossible to put in to a thousand words but Brian Wilson earns his status as a songwriting genius. In its two minutes, fifty four seconds ‘Don’t Talk…’ recalls to those lucky enough to have experienced such emotions their own memories of perfect moments shared. And to everyone else, so evocative and heartfelt is its portrayal of domestic bliss, by the end you’ll believe its swooning romanticism could be your own first-hand account.

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