‘Sometimes I feel very sad’

A special shout out to Clive for setting this week’s prompt for Song Lyric Sunday: something from an album you’ve never listened to before.

This is a great challenge, but also one I found difficult. To all intents and purposes, any music released in the twenty-first century I won’t have listened to and have no particular desire to. It’s not that I have a (completely) closed mind about this, it’s just that at this stage my tastes are well established and haven’t really been catered for since the 1980s – or maybe even earlier.

But inspiration struck earlier this week. With the TV schedules now chock-a-block with ‘Christmas Specials’ of programmes that are awful even in the ordinary course of business, I resorted to my saved recordings.

Bingo! You may recall that the legendary Brian Wilson died about six months ago, and as a tribute the BBC rebroadcast his performance at Glastonbury in 2005. I hadn’t watched it at the time, so settled down to take a look. What a joy it was: 75 minutes of pure and instantly recognisable nostalgia.

And then it struck me: I had never, ever, listened to the Beach Boys’ seminal 1966 album ‘Pet Sounds’ in its entirety. Of course I was very familiar with the singles taken from it: ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’, ‘Sloop John B’ and ‘God Only Knows’, all of which featured in his Glastonbury set. But this didn’t – and I can’t understand how I’ve missed it for the past going on sixty years.

And given my earlier views on more modern music, the title seems especially appropriate:

I keep looking for a place to fit in
Where I can speak my mind
And I’ve been trying hard to find the people
That I won’t leave behind
They say I got brains but they ain’t doing me no good
I wish they could

Each time things start to happen again
I think I got something good goin’ for myself
But what goes wrong

Sometimes I feel very sad (¿Cuándo seré?)
Sometimes I feel very sad (Un día seré. Ain’t found the right thing I can put my heart and soul into)
Sometimes I feel very sad (Oh, ¿Cuando seré? Ain’t found the right thing I can put my heart and soul into)
I guess I just wasn’t made for these times

Every time I get the inspiration
To go change things around
No one wants to help me look for places
Where new things might be found
Where can I turn when my fair weather friends cop out?
What’s it all about?

Each time things start to happen again
I think I got something good goin’ for myself
But what goes wrong

Sometimes I feel very sad (¿Cuándo seré?)
Sometimes I feel very sad (Un día seré. Ain’t found the right thing I can put my heart and soul into)
Sometimes I feel very sad (Oh, ¿Cuándo seré? Ain’t found the right thing I can put my heart and soul into)
I guess I just wasn’t made for these times

Written by Brian Wilson and Tony Asher

The video is from a show in 2002. The backing group’s personnel was essentially unchanged in 2005, although Brian was notably more hirsute than three years later at Glastonbury.

Song Lyric Sunday 21 December 2025