"Wouldn't It Be Nice" is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys and the opening track from their 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. With its juxtaposition of joyous-sounding music and melancholic lyrics, it is considered a formative work of power pop, and with respect to musical innovation, progressive pop.
The lyrics describe a young couple who feel empowered by their relationship and fantasize about the romantic freedom they would earn once married to each other. 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. The band struggled to sing the multiple vocal parts to Wilson's satisfaction, and the song ultimately took longer to record than any other track on the album.
"Wouldn't It Be Nice" was released as a single in July and peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100. It has occasionally appeared in the soundtracks of films such as the 1989 documentary Roger & Me, where it was used to underscore visuals of economic devastation.
Background
"Wouldn't It Be Nice" is one of the eight songs that Brian Wilson and Tony Asher wrote for the Pet Sounds album. Wilson's since-discredited 1991 memoir suggested that he was inspired to write the song after having sexual fantasies about the Honeys' singer Diane Rovell, his sister-in-law. While discussing the song, Asher supported that Wilson was "definitely infatuated by her" and "this innocent aura that she seemed to possess. Brian was really just so naive." Wilson repeatedly brought up the subject while they composed the songs on Pet Sounds, as Asher remembered, "He'd stop in the middle of writing a song or a conversation or whatever and start going on about Diane, about how innocent, sweet, and beautiful she was. I'd be thinking, 'Huh! Your wife's in the next room, and you're talking about her sister!'"
It was one of only two songs on Pet Sounds in which Asher wrote words to a melody that Wilson had already finalized, the other being "You Still Believe in Me". According to Asher, "Over a period of days, Brian kept saying that he was working on a melody, but he didn't want to play it for me until he had the structure finished. One day, he said, 'It's done.'" Wilson had decided on its subject matter: the "innocence of [...] being too young to get married", a topic that "seemed to be immensely appealing to him". Asher said that, after he had begun writing the lyrics, Wilson started "microanalyzing the individual words" to Asher's annoyance. Following Asher's complaints, Wilson agreed to let Asher take a tape of the song home and write the words alone. Asher then returned with a set of lyrics, which the pair refined. It was a less integrated and collaborative process than the one for the songs they wrote afterward.
Mike Love's co-writing credit was not officially recognized until 1994, when he successfully sued for writing credits on 35 Beach Boys songs, including "Wouldn't It Be Nice". During the proceedings, Love's attorney proposed that, since Love had not been physically present when Asher and Wilson were writing the song, it may have been possible that Wilson consulted Love by telephone during occasional bathroom breaks. Asher later said it was an "absurd" argument. Asked in a 1996 interview to enumerate Love's contributions, Asher responded, "None, whatsoever." However, under oath, he stated that it consisted of the line "good night my baby / sleep tight, my baby" and possible minor vocal arrangement.
Lyrics
The lyrics describe a young couple fantasizing about the romantic freedom they would earn once married, including the benefits of being able to "hold each other close the whole night through" and to "say goodnight and stay together". Asher explained, "It's a song that people who are young and in love can appreciate and respond to, because it revolves around the things they've always wanted to do: live together, sleep together, wake up together—do everything together."
In a 1976 radio interview, Wilson said his intention in writing the song was to express "the need to have the freedom to live with somebody [...] The idea is, the more we talk about it, the more we want it, but let's talk about it anyway. Let's talk it over, let's talk about what we might have if we really got down to it." In 1996, he reflected, "'Wouldn't It Be Nice' was not a real long song, but it's a very 'up' song. It expresses the frustrations of youth, what you can't have, what you really want and you have to wait for it."
Wilson had previously written a song with similar subject matter, "We'll Run Away", on All Summer Long (1964). He had also produced a rendition of the doo-wop standard "I'm So Young" for The Beach Boys Today! (1965). Journalist Nick Kent felt that, although Wilson had captured similar "teen angst dialogue" before: "This time [he] was out to eclipse these previous sonic soap operas, to transform the subject's sappy sentiments with a God-like grace so that the song would become a veritable pocket symphony." Musicologist Phillip Lambert called the themes "a significant twist" on the lyrics of Wilson's past songs, "which fantasized about material possessions [...] feats of physical skill [...] and one-night stands [...] Now the young lovers just want to be monogamous and draw strength and happiness from each other, 'in the kind of world where we belong.'"
According to AllMusic reviewer Jim Esch, "Wouldn't It Be Nice" inaugurates Pet Soundss pervasive theme of "fragile lovers" who struggle with "self-imposed romantic expectations and personal limitations, while simultaneously trying to maintain faith in one other". Comparing the group's past celebrations of adolescence and teenage romance, journalist Seth Rogovoy felt that Pet Sounds "upends and overturns every Beach Boys cliché, exposing the hollowness at their core". Rogovoy points to "Wouldn't It Be Nice", which "starts right out with a 180-degree turn – 'Wouldn't it be nice if we were older.'"
Composition "Wouldn't It Be Nice" begins with an eight-beat introduction in the key of A major. Following a single drum hit, the song shifts to the remote flat submediant key of F. Classical composer John Adams called this key change "nothing new in the classical or jazz world, but appearing here in the context of a standard rock-and-roll song, it felt novel and fresh. More than any other songwriter of that era, Brian Wilson understood the value of harmonic surprise."
The verse bass line was inspired by the Ronettes' "Be My Baby" (1963). Asked about the song's bass line, Wilson, explained, "It's just a feel you get. I sort of feel my way through the line. I can't explain how it's done, in terms of words. [The verses are] similar to the Phil Spector–type bass. It's a one-note walking bass that goes [singing with triplet feel:] 'Bom-buh-bum-bah, bom-buh-bum-bah...' It keeps going one scale tone up ['bah'], then down like a walking bass."
The next section modulates down a minor third, to D major, and contains the return of a melodic figure from the intro. After this section, the song repeats the end of the verse melody, but this time engages in a decrescendo and ritardando, a device that doesn't often appear in pop music, but does in classical music. At the end, the song returns to its original tempo and fades out. Asher commented, "I love the fact that the song has such a nice, bouncy feel to it. When we were writing, I was aware of the intricate rhythms that Brian had accomplished musically. There are changes in tempo and legato parts that make it very interesting."
Recording
Backing track Instrumental tracking for "Wouldn't It Be Nice" began at 7:00p.m. on January 22, 1966, at Gold Star Studios. Wilson produced the session with engineer Larry Levine. The calliope-like instrument heard in the opening bars is an electric 12-string guitar plugged directly into the recording console. Due to recording logistics, this created an unusual situation in which the player had to perform the instrument in the control room, away from the rest of the musicians, who could not hear his playing in the regular recording space. The exception was drummer Hal Blaine, who wore headphones and was tasked with signaling the other musicians to play on cue. All of the instruments were played live in a continuous take, with no overdubs.
Much of the track's rhythmic accompaniment was provided by two accordions playing a shuffle beat in a manner similar to the band's "California Girls" (1965). Wilson recalled, "I had two accordion players playing at once, both playing the same thing and it just rang through the room, in the booth, and everyone was saying, 'What is that sound?'" During the second bridge, the players performed a technique known as a "triple bellow shake" to make the accordions sound like a violin. On "Wouldn't It Be Nice", Wilson used one of his favorite recording techniques, applying reverb exclusively to a timpani. This same technique can be observed on "You Still Believe in Me" and "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)".
Some of the charts that Wilson handed to his musicians were written in different keys from each other. Session musician Lyle Ritz, who was playing in D, mistook the arrangement as an error, as he recalled: "[The] rest of the band was in another key. I knew that was wrong. So during a break, I looked at everybody else's music to see if it was a mistake. Because you can't do that. But he [Brian] pulled it off." After recording 21 takes of the instrumental track, the session concluded at11:30 p.m. with a lead vocal overdub by Wilson. Wilson did not use Gold Star for any other song on the album except "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times".
Vocals and mixdown
The vocal sessions for Pet Sounds were the most challenging of the group's career, and their performance on "Wouldn't It Be Nice" took longer to record than any other track on the album, as Wilson's bandmates struggled to sing the multiple vocal parts to his satisfaction. Al Jardine later said that the challenge of meeting Wilson's standards on the song "was painful beyond belief for all of us." Carl Wilson remembered, "We really tried to make a good album. We wanted to take another step. 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' was the track that really brought that hope to all of us. We did at least ten sessions on that one, and it still wasn't right. I still think we sang it a little rushed."
Mike Love, who affectionately nicknamed Brian "the Stalin of the studio" during these sessions, said, "We did one passage of 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' close to 30 times—and some of the tries were nearly perfect! But Brian was looking for something more than the actual notes or the blend: he was reaching for something mystical—out of the range of hearing." Bruce Johnston similarly likened Wilson to General Patton. In his recollection, "We re-recorded our vocals for 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' so many times that the rhythm was never right. We'd slave [...] singing this thing and then Brian would say, 'No it's not right! It's just not right!'" According to Johnston, Wilson had been dissatisfied with the Beach Boys' vocal performances on the prior hit "California Girls" and was aiming for a "perfect" vocal sound for "Wouldn't It Be Nice".