(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still / Apple Corps)
Sun 1 March 2026 18:00, UK
The relationship between The Beatles and The Beach Boys could have been a bad one.
It would have been so totally understandable if the two bands had descended into a rivalry, given how often they were compared and how much one always seemed to be inspired by the other at any given moment.
It would have also been easy for Brian Wilson to see how much Pet Sounds inspired John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s next moves and get mad, throw out some bitter comments or just write the group off as copycats, and then the same could have been done in return as when it comes to who influenced who first, it truly is the ultimate chicken-or-egg question of the 1960s.
But instead, what appeared was one of music’s most respectful relationships of deep mutual admiration, where Wilson loved The Beatles, and they loved him back, both having nothing but bright, glowing praise to share about the other.
Paul McCartney once straight-up said that ‘God Only Knows’ is the “greatest song ever written”, claiming that for anyone with any interest in music, Wilson is an essential teacher, saying, “I figure no one is educated musically ’til they’ve heard Pet Sounds”, and Lennon agreed, something one infamous story of Lennon and Wilson meeting during The Beach Boys leader’s worst period of mental health backs up.
After being introduced, as if for the first time, Lennon took the chance to tell him, “I’ve always admired your work, and Paul and I considered Pet Sounds one of the best albums ever made”, but really, the pair had met many times before, yet he never missed a chance to share his admiration.
The feelings were completely mutual as Wilson never made any secret of his love for the Fab Four, declaring, “Rubber Soul blew my mind”, denoting it a key album that deeply inspired him and pushed him to be better and make more experimental works.
However, his all-time favourite Beatles song came much later, and came specifically from John Lennon, telling Uncut, “My favourite Lennon song is ‘Across The Universe’”. There’s just something about the build of the song that always blew him away, as he explained, “It had a great guitar sound. It flipped me out when I first heard it. And I thought his voice was especially good”.
It felt too good to be true to him, leaving him to think that surely some kind of helping hand was involved, claiming, “He must have either taken some drugs or really concentrated hard because he got a very special vocal sound on that one”.
But that’s what he always loved about The Beatles, that even before any heavier drugs were involved, the first record from the band he truly loved came right when they were getting into weed, with Rubber Soul representing the start of their illicit experiments with both drugs and music. On Pet Sounds, Wilson pushed that further as the entire record sounds like a trippy explosion of colours, which propelled The Beatles to go even further, and it went on like that, with one encouraging the other, creating a special, interchangeable relationship where the muse and the master kept on switching.
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