This years BBC 'Children In Need ' charity single is an all star reworking of the Beach Boys classic 'God Only Knows' I heard it the other day and it reminded me of so many things......
For me the song 'god only knows' brings back all kinds of bitter sweet memories. The 19th century writer Marcel Proust wrote a much discussed novel ' A remembrance of things past' the gist of the story being he bit into a biscuit and it reminded him if lots if things.
My hearing the opening notes of the 'The beach boys classic rekindled a similar moment for me. I loved and hated this song in equal measures. Hated because it was drilled into my brain from its constant repetition at a supermarket I worked in. And loved because it was the soundtrack to so many happy memories of what the movies might call 'coming of age'
This song and the other tracks from the Beach Boys Greatest hits are woven into the fabric of my life, not by choice I might add. But As part of the soundtrack of my wonder years, and as a result, was unexpectedly the catalyst for my own musical awakening.
Age 14 I got my first 'Saturday' job. It was collecting the shopping trolleys from the multi story car parks for a large supermarket. This was the mid seventies before iPods MP3 players or even CD players. As a modern 'seventies' shopping hub as well as selling the traditional food and drink it had a large 'homeware' department offering clothes household goods and a selection of records. Unfortunately the majority of the music available were either never heard of country songs or the best of compilations.
The compilations however were of the tribute act variety the 'Top Of The Pops' of the day as performed by various random session singers. That was all except for one. The Beach Boys Greatest Hits had managed to sneak onto the shelf and it was by the original artist!
Such was the uniqueness, of this LP ( that's what they used to be called short for 'long player') the manager for a reason I will never know decided that he would dispense with the usual in store 'Musac' and replace it with California's finest. For any weekly shopper in the mid seventies the warming sounds of such classics as 'I get around' 'Sloop john B' and 'Good Vibrations' provided a cheery background to the supermarket drudge. An hour at most of the Beach Boys could be tolerable even to those with the most selective of musical tastes. However multiply that hour by eight sometimes ten. then by the number of days worked per week that summer five. You too may find that the songs become stamped in your memory.
This was the for runner to the ear worm. Those Brian Wilson falsetto riffs and close harmonies played on repeat. Was a torture worthy of a CIA black operation. If to much sugar can kill your taste buds. To much Beach Boys can have an equivalent effect on your own musical tastes.
' in the Summer 1976 when the Surf sound was at its zenith after a long long day of helping 'Rhonda' and her ' little Deuce Coup' a strange thing happened. I had what you might call a sort of musical revelation.
Switching on TV one night I witnessed a local News Reporter Tony Wilson introducing his new TV show 'So It Goes'
The groups and the noise they were making was like some bolt from the musical blue. These Boys where not from the beach, and they didn't have tans they were white pasty and English, in pinned mismatched clothes singing about 'dis- harmony'. I couldn't believe it. That sunny surf beach music that had been brainwashing me all summer was 'wiped-out' by a 'NewWave' of raw edgy music Jonny Rotten was the antithesis of Brian Wilson. Punk Rock was the evil opposite of the California sound. It was like a musical awakening. Let's be clear it wasn't good it wasn't sing along to stuff,but it was different you could never compare the two genres,
So in some 'proustian' fashion hearing the now classic Beach Boys song it reminded me of The Sex Pistols and the Dammed. I remember seeing Elvis Costello on the First Stiff Tour. On buying a cassette of the Jam called 'In the City' and playing it in the car with my mates and someone complaining ' what's this shit? Get it off'
So Thank you Brian Wilson for A remembrance of things past 'God only knows where I'd be without you....'
The BBC Children In Need charity record 'God only Knows' is available to download now
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