Random Beach Boys Songs You Never Realized Are Super Dark And Depressing (14 items)

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  (#1) Never Learn Not to Love

  • The Beach Boys

  "Never Learn Not To Love" is a darker-than-usual Beach Boys song, not only because of its unhealthily obsessive lyrics, but due to its authorship. Charles Manson, the infamous murderer-slash-cult leader, first composed the song under the title "Cease To Exist." A frustrated musician, Manson was elated when Dennis Wilson asked to record it. However, there was one caveat: he was not to change Mason’s composition in any way.  

  But Wilson did. He changed the title, he punched up the lyrics, and he put his name on it. An enraged Manson showed up at Wilson's house and threatened to kill him, but didn't go through with the violent act; instead, Wilson supposedly beat Manson up. The humiliated Manson’s grudge against Wilson, music producer Terry Melcher, and the Hollywood elite overall eventually led to the Tate-LaBianca murders of August 1969.
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  (#4) I Just Wasn't Made for These Times

  • The Beach Boys

  If you’ve ever felt lonely and adrift in the world, Pet Sounds’ "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times” might be your jam. The introspective Brian Wilson/Tony Asher-penned lyrics take the point of view of an empathetic, yet alienated, protagonist who can’t find comfort in any crowd.

  In 2011, Wilson said, “Either I'm too far ahead of my time' or 'I'm not up to my time'... [Now] I do feel I was made for these times."
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  (#10) "In My Room" Foreshadowed Brian Wilson's Agoraphobia

  Brian Wilson wrote the 1963 song "In My Room" from the viewpoint of a teen who feels safest and most comfortable in his bedroom. It's easy to see the tune as a foreshadowing of his agoraphobia; less than a decade later, he wouldn’t leave his bedroom for almost three years. He said of the song:

  "When Dennis, Carl and I lived in Hawthorne as kids, we all slept in the same room. One night I sang the song 'Ivory Tower' to them, and they liked it. Then a couple of weeks later, I proceeded to teach them both how to sing the harmony parts to it. It took them a little while, but they finally learned it. We then sang this song night after night. It brought peace to us. When we recorded 'In My Room,' there was just Dennis, Carl and me on the first verse... and we sounded just like we did in our bedroom all those nights. This story has more meaning than ever since Dennis's death."
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  (#12) The Warmth of the Sun

  • The Beach Boys

  In late November 1963, cousins Mike Love and Brian Wilson wrote the "The Warmth Of The Sun" with lost love and regret in mind. Love explained the reasoning behind the lyrics:

  "Maybe it was your first love and she broke your heart. Maybe it was a deep love that faded before you were ready to let go. Maybe it was the love you never felt but always longed for. Regardless, it’s the kind of love that lingers... long after she’s gone."

  The song took on a different meaning just a few hours after it was composed, when an assassin's bullet killed President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. When the Beach Boys went into the recording studio a few months later, it was, as Love puts it, "charged with emotion. I’ll never be able to hear or perform that song without recalling the loss of President Kennedy... Every time we sing it, the memory of that day is present."
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  (#14) Don't Worry Baby

  • The Beach Boys, The Everly Brothers

  "Don’t Worry, Baby," from the Beach Boys' 1964 release Shut Down Volume 2, started its life as a "reaction" record to the Ronettes’ "Be My Baby." While Brian Wilson wrote the song about his relationship with his then fiancée, Marilyn, it's also about a drag race challenge that the singer regrets making because of the potential risks to his popularity, masculinity, and life. His one silver lining? That no matter what happens, his girlfriend will support him.
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  (#8) Caroline No

  • The Beach Boys

  As Brian Wilson explained, the Pet Sounds track "Caroline, No" was about "the loss of innocence" that comes with aging:

  "I'd reminisced to [producer] Tony Asher about my high school crush and sighed, 'If I saw her today, I'd probably think, God, she's lost something, because growing up does that to people.' But the song was most influenced by the changes [wife] Marilyn and I had gone through. We were young, Marilyn nearing 20 and me closing in on 24, yet I thought we'd lost the innocence of our youth in the heavy seriousness of our lives."

  Asher saw the song as, "Brian's wish that he could go back to simpler days... that the group could return to the days when the whole thing was a lot of fun and very little pressure."

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