13. The Beach BoysPet Sounds
EC: No. I investigated it [laughs] a lot later. ‘Sloop John B’ is great. The Beach Boys weren’t talked about a lot.
GM: As far as being trendy was concerned, The Beach Boys had a huge, big, non-trendy slump.
EC: William, our son, came to see Brian Wilson with me.
GM: At the Royal Albert Hall, for the 50th anniversary tour [in 2012]. Do you remember it was his idea? William was working in the Marks and Spencer food hall in Kensington and had seen it advertised. He came home and said, ‘Dad, I want to see the Beach Boys’. And I thought, oh, a 50th anniversary. This could be an absolute…
EC: Disaster!
GM: It could be awful. But we went to the Albert Hall to see them and I’ll tell you what. it was fantastic.
EC: Bloody fantastic. Three hours! Nowadays he’s suffering from LSD.
GM: Suffering from LSD! [they both laugh] But the band could all still sing.
EC: You know the last song, ‘Caroline, No’? The slow song? And the train going over the last… ahhh!
GM: At the end?
EC: Yes. That was lovely.
GM: Everybody was on their feet and Brian didn’t want to come off the stage. He stood there waving everybody for ages. There was a massive re-evaluation that went on with the Beach Boys, wasn’t there, Edwyn?
EC: And Surf’s Up!
GM: You went through a real period of surf singles.
EC: I did! I love singles. I love songs.
GM: As you can probably tell!
Maybe we could do 45 of your favourite 45 singles next time, Edwyn.
EC: Oh yes!
