![]() ![]() San Diego Zoo public relations representative Christine Simmons provided the answer in a brief note: “Thank you for your inquiry. I regret that the goats in the photo have all passed away, and, as this is not a breeding group, they did not produce offspring.“Pet Sounds blew me out of the water. Which brings us back to the fate of the goats. “Can’t explain the mood, we were all just young kids feeding goats apples, ya know?" “The cover was beautiful, it was beautiful,” Wilson says. Brian Wilson pets the goat that tormented Al Jardine, pictured far right. And though over the years the quality of the Pet Sounds cover has been questioned against the transcendent music inside, the composer has no such issue. I said to myself, I'm going to mow the lawn twice with this album.” He said, 'When you mow the lawn, mow it twice!' So that stuck in my mind when I did Pet Sounds. My dad taught me how to be a perfectionist. “Really?!” asks Wilson when confronted with this news. ![]() The goat is one of the 12 zodiac animals, and it represents introversion, creativity, shyness and being a perfectionist. The core of that focus was songwriter Brian, who said at the time he wanted to create “the greatest rock album ever made.” By many accounts he did, thanks perhaps to a somewhat cosmic connection. “I don't think we were as fixated or focused on the covers as we could have been. “McCartney literally said, 'Mike, I think you really ought to take more care with your album covers,' because what was Pet Sounds? It was a big white goat’s butt on it taken at the San Diego Petting Zoo,” offers Love. That was Mike's way of saying, ‘I don't understand it, but the dogs do.’ ” The Beach Boys' Bruce Johnston, Brian Wilson, Al Jardine and Dennis Wilson (left to right) recording Pet Sounds. “ ‘Brian, you're making music that only dogs can hear,’ which at the time was meant to be funny because of the amazing harmonies and ideas Brian was coming up with. “And a few minutes later, Mike goes, 'Why don't we call this album Pet Sounds?' you know, because of the dogs." “We put my dogs Banana and Louie - my beagle and my Weimaraner - we put them barking right at the end,” confirms Wilson. The sounds of the pets close the final cut on the album, “Caroline No,” serenading the roar of a passing train. But I guess they may not have heard the material to realize we were really referring to Brian's two dogs, Louie and Banana.” And of course when they heard the title Pet Sounds they thought we had to go to a zoo and take a picture with a bunch of animals. At that time, we were just young and naive, and if that's what they want us to do, we'll do it. “And they took us all the way to the San Diego Zoo, not the L.A. “I hated that sucker, it kept getting in my face,” he says. Specifically of a large white goat that Jardine will be forever feeding on the album’s cover. “Driving down Highway 1, 'cause you take the coast route if you know what you’re doing, you don't go down the 5, you take the beach route, right? So we cruised by Trestle's and Swami's and all the good places and went to the zoo.”īut for guitarist and singer Al Jardine, that day in the petting zoo still holds dark memories. “I remember I drove my new yellow XKE convertible down to the shoot,” front man Mike Love recalls. But before we get there, let’s stay with that Thursday in 1966. ![]() The record celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. But what happened to those goats? The cover of The Beach Boys' 'Pet Sounds'. In February 1966, they were still young and happy and smilin' and great. ![]()
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