♫ Wouldn’t It Be Nice ♫

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, music, music history

A few nights ago in a comment, Roger mentioned this Beach Boys song … one that I hadn’t heard or thought of in ages!  Naturally, it stuck in my head, even though I could only remember four words (the title words) from the whole song!  But then, lyrics have never been my strong suit, being mostly unable to hear.

This song is the opening track from the Beach Boys’ 1966 album Pet Sounds. Written by Brian Wilson, Tony Asher, and Mike Love, it is distinguished for its sophisticated Wall of Sound-style arrangement and refined vocal performances, and is regarded among the band’s finest songs.

According to Wikipedia, this song features some unique instruments …

Wilson produced the record between January and April 1966 with his band and 16 studio musicians who variously played drums, timpani, glockenspiel, trumpet, saxophones, accordions, guitars, pianos, and upright bass. The harp-like instrument heard in the introduction is a 12-string mando-guitar plugged directly into the recording console. One section of the song engages in a ritardando, a device that is rarely used in pop music.

I get the sense from what I read in both SongFacts and Wikipedia that Brian Wilson wasn’t the easiest person to work with.  According to SongFacts, lyricist Tony Asher once said about Wilson …

“It was a great joy making music with him but that any other relationship with Brian was a great chore. I found Brian’s lifestyle so damn repugnant. I mean, for say, every four hours we’d spend writing songs, there’d be about 48 hours of these dopey conversations about some dumb book he’d just read. Or else he’d just go on and on about girls… his feelings about this girl or that girl… it was just embarrassing.”

I find it interesting that while this song charted at #2 in Australia, #4 in Canada, and #8 in the U.S., it only reached #58 in the UK … BUT the single sold some 400,000 copies in the UK and the album, Pet Sounds, charted at #2 in the UK, far better than in the U.S. where it only reached #10.

Wouldn’t It Be Nice

The Beach Boys

Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older?
Then we wouldn’t have to wait so long
And wouldn’t it be nice to live together
In the kind of world where we belong?

You know it’s gonna make it that much better
When we can say goodnight and stay together

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could wake up
In the morning when the day is new?
And after having spent the day together
Hold each other close the whole night through

Happy times together we’ve been spending
I wish that every kiss was never ending
Oh, wouldn’t it be nice?

Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray
It might come true
Baby, then there wouldn’t be a single thing we couldn’t do
Oh, we could be married (oh, we could be married)
And then we’d be happy (and then we’d be happy)
Oh, wouldn’t it be nice?

You know it seems the more we talk about it
It only makes it worse to live without it
But let’s talk about it
Oh, wouldn’t it be nice?

Goodnight, my baby
Sleep tight, my baby
Goodnight, my baby
Sleep tight, my baby

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Brian Douglas Wilson / Michael E. Love / Tony Asher

Wouldn’t It Be Nice (Stereo / Remastered 2012) lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

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24 thoughts on “♫ Wouldn’t It Be Nice ♫”

  5. Love this one, and always have. It’s getting a lot of airplay here at present, as the backing music for a Sky Mobile advert featuring the gorgeous Lily James (Downton Abbey, amongst other things). I don’t know where you got that UK chart placing from but it seems odd. It was a B-side here and our charts didn’t rank them back then. The A-side, God Only Knows, got to #2, and that is probably what got those 400k sales.

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  7. Jill, great song of many. From what I gather, his mental illness and relationship with his father got in the way of constructive relationships. It also made him susceptible to con men like the psychiatrist that got him to sign power of attorney to him and ruled Brian’s life until his second wife and surviving brother Carl helped wrest this control and give it back to Brian. Keith

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  8. A dying band trying to revive themselves from the grave of the British Invasion. This song is yet another morass of fantasy on the part of a male vocalist lusting after the girl of his dreams. I prefer the Turtle’s Happy Together as the epitome of this dub-genre.

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