“For the first time in my life, I did something that I wanted to do from my heart,” Brian Wilson told Beach Boys biographer David Leaf in 1996, reflecting on his work on Pet Sounds.
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Dissecting the meaning of “I Know There’s an Answer” is an interesting task. It started with an entirely different title, which was changed during the recording of the backing track and then, ultimately, again during the vocal tracking. A disagreement among band members led to an update of the lyrics. A song of introspection, and questioning your stability and self-awareness, Brian Wilson rolled with the flow as the song developed. Let’s go back to 1966 and dig deeper into the meaning of the song that divided The Beach Boys.
Songwriting
It was originally written by Brian Wilson and Terry Sachen, who was a Beach Boys road manager. Wilson and Sachen would hang out and experiment with different drugs together. Wilson had experimented with LSD and was exploring the territory of “ego death,” or the loss of subjective self-identity. The lyrics were introspective, yet there was an element of “street jargon” that tips off the song. The heads listening would be able to pick up on the terms like “trip,” “uptight,” and “ego.”
“People took [LSD] to get away from themselves, but that wasn’t the right way to take it. It was supposed to make you go deeper into yourself,” Wilson stated in his 2016 memoir, I Am Brian Wilson. “I wanted to remind people that they could survive everything best if they remembered who they were.”
Recording
On February 9, 1966, the musicians gathered at Western Recordings in Los Angeles to record the backing track for a song called “Let Go of Your Ego.” Just a year earlier, Beach Boys sessions were composed of the standard rock ‘n’ roll ingredients of guitar, bass, and drums. Now Wilson was pushing the boundaries of pop music. On this day, he would incorporate a bass harmonica, timpani, tambourines, woodwinds, and a 12-string electric mando-guitar.
As the song begins, the organ and tack piano combine to make a new sound of its own. One plus one equals… three. Brian Wilson was inspired by the “wall of sound” and had been heading in this direction on “California Girls” and “Good Vibrations.” On Pet Sounds, he was fully exploring the “studio as an instrument” approach. Bass harmonica and tambourine join in to set a whole different mood. Both upright and electric bass hold down the bottom end.
The second verse introduces the ethereal 12-string guitar and the 12-string mando-guitar with timpani. It’s a subtle shift from the organ/piano/tambourine mix, but it is effective. The song breaks down and takes an entirely unexpected turn. Bass, woodwinds, and banjo with the piano/organ/tambourine combo take the song out to the end. Tommy Morgan played the bass harmonica. It was the first solo on a pop record by that instrument.
Years later, Morgan weighed in that “Brian used instruments imaginatively. Not many people used bass harmonica at the time. Brian certainly used it before the Beatles.” Morgan improvised the solo, but followed Wilson’s direction for the main frame of the song.
After the backing track was finished, Wilson recorded a guide vocal, and the title was changed to “Hang on to Your Ego.” The final vocals would be recorded a week later. This was where the friction over the content reared its head.
Vocal Session
The Beach Boys came in to lay down the vocals. Mike Love and Al Jardine sang the verses, and Brian Wilson sang the choruses. Mike Love was not happy with the lyrical content. He didn’t like the connotation of drug culture and expressed his unhappiness. Wilson allowed Love to change some of the words, and the title was changed to “I Know There’s an Answer.”
Some of the other band members were not happy about the major shift in musical direction of the band. They had a successful formula singing about girls, cars, and the beach. These songs about spirituality, drugs, and self-awareness were, understandably, rocking the boat in a way they didn’t know how to deal with.
I know so many people who think they can do it alone
They isolate their heads and stay in their safety zones
Now, what can you tell them
And what can you say that won’t make them defensive?
I know there’s an answer
I know now but I have to find it by myself
They come on like they’re peaceful, but inside, they’re so uptight
They trip through their day and waste all their thoughts at night
Now how can I come on
And tell them the way that they live could be better
Lawsuit
When Pet Sounds was released in May 1966, the writing credit on “I Know There’s an Answer” was Brian Wilson/Terry Sachen. In 1993, Mike Love contested the writing credit of 79 Beach Boys songs. A lawsuit followed, and Love’s name was added to 35 titles as songwriter, including this one.
[RELATED: 5 Songs You Didn’t Know Mike Love Co-Wrote for The Beach Boys]
Cover Versions
“I Know There’s an Answer” has been covered often, including by artists as diverse as Sonic Youth in 1990 and The Vitamin String Quartet in 2005. In 1993, Frank Black of the Pixies reverted to the original lyrics and released “Hang on to Your Ego” on his debut self-titled solo album.
The 1996, the Pet Sounds box set included tracking session snippets and alternate versions of the song. It’s one of those pieces of music that stand up even without any lyrics. The heady content of the words, though, surely adds to the mystical vibe of the music. It’s a pop masterpiece created with instruments not always associated with pop music. By now we have the answer, don’t we? Crank up Pet Sounds and hang on to your ego.
Photo by Earl Leaf/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
