Music Minute: The Beach Boys “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times” (1966)

“Yeah. I had taken a few drugs, and I had gotten into that kind of thing. I guess it just came up naturally”

-Brian Wilson

Here’s a fantastic Music Minute for all you fellows and friends out there yearning for that something out there. Some people might recognize it from “Far Away Places”, featured on AMC’s “Mad Men”. The song is the perfect song for all days. Especially, if like us, you are constantly finding an aversion to most of the world.

Now heralded as one of the Best Albums of All Time (#2 by The Rolling Stones OUT OF 500!!!), and one of the single most influential albums of the 60s, “Pet Sounds” still resonates today with a harmony of feelings on longing, love, lust, and loss.

Sadly, on reception the album was not as heralded as it is now being today. The album would reach #10 on the Billboard 100 in the States to the band’s dismay. However, the album would be a huge success in the UK reaching #2 on the LP Charts. The Brits always seem to have such great taste and foresight!

Many music scholars and aficionados have accredited Wilson and the album for the beginnings of psychedelic rock. Author of “Turn on Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock” J. DeRogatis writes:

Along with Revolver and The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators, Pet Sounds is one of the first psychedelic rock masterpieces with its artful experiments, psychedelic lyrics, and new sounds on guitars, organs, pianos and other instruments. Pet Sounds created worlds that only existed on tape and which couldn’t necessarily be duplicated on stage, even with the help of an orchestra. The resulting album is a touching plea for love and understanding. While psychedelic drugs inspired the Beatles to look at the problems in the world around them, they made Brian Wilson turn his attention inward and probe his emotional longings and his deep-seated self-doubts

So whether you are a prep, beat, punk, prankster, or just plain cool – look inside yourself a little, and try to understand that blasted beating of your heart.

Don’t have a long day. Pass away with this.