The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson said he wanted to hear one song ‘over and over’

A song from a legendary musician was liked so much by The Beach Boys‘ Brian Wilson that he wanted to hear it “over and over”.

Pet Sounds mastermind Wilson created a list of his favourite songs, and amid the likes of Bob Dylan and Chuck Berry was a song he wished to hear on repeat. Where Wilson has credited Berry with sparking the formation of The Beach Boys and Dylan as one of the all-time greats, it was a classic twelve-bar blues track released in 1952 that caught his attention. Wilson’s obsession over the song was shared during an interview where the God Only Knows songwriter shared his love for the track. He said: “I remember the first time a friend of mine played this for me on the phone. I just wanted to hear it over and over.”

The song in question, Rock Around the Clock, was written by Max C. Freedman and James E. Myers. Rock Around the Clock was a favourite of Wilson’s, who featured it on his list alongside Mr. Tambourine Man and (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones.

Though not featured on his list, Wilson also had high praise for The Beatles and Paul McCartney. The pair enjoyed a friendly rivalry through the 1960s, as both the Fab Four and The Beach Boys found themselves trying to one-up the other with each album release.

McCartney shared: “The Beach Boys I think was a big influence on the harmony. There was a little intercontinental rivalry. Mainly Brian. His writing, I think he’d heard one of our albums and thought ‘I’ve got to do better’ and that was Pet Sounds which I loved.

“It’s still one of my big albums. It was so atmospheric and different and yet it was The Beach Boys still and we heard Pet Sounds and thought ‘right, we’ve got to do something better than that,’ so we did Sgt. Pepper’.“

In a recent Q&A session, McCartney confirmed Pet Sounds was still in his top three albums of all time. He said: “My favourite albums by other people tend to be: Music from Big Pink by The Band, Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys, and Harvest by Neil Young. 

“They are the three classics that I love to listen to, and they all remind me of certain times in my life. When I perform my own songs, the great thing is that they often bring back memories of recording them. That can often entail memories of John and George in the studio – sweet memories!”

The Wings frontman also had plenty of praise for Wilson as a musician. He shared in an interview with Ronnie Wood: “Wilson proved himself to be a really amazing composer and I was into chords and harmonies and stuff at that time and we ended up, it was kind of like a rivalry.

“We’d put a song out, Brian would hear it, and then he would do one, which is nice. It’s like me and John [Lennon]. You try and top each other all the time.”