Brian Wilson Records Pet Sounds in a Sandbox

The Beach Boys · 1966

“He had a sandbox installed in his living room. He wrote God Only Knows in it.”

1966, Brian Wilson stops touring, has a piano placed in a sandbox in his Bel Air home, and constructs Pet Sounds one obsessive part at a time. Theremin, bicycle bells, dog whistles, harpsichord. The album that made Paul McCartney quit and write Sgt. Pepper. Studio production as composition starts here.