Sometimes lyrics distilled to their essence reveal truths that the songs/music themselves don't. That's one way of looking at the below word cloud, created with help of the totally awesome wordle website. As a way of getting to the heart of the matter and better understanding classic albums, we've decided to start examining classic Los Angeles works on a regular basis using the tool.

First up is, of course, the Beach Boys' classic Pet Sounds. Before doing so, however, a note on our methods. We've swiped the lyrics from an online lyrics site, and are going to use the repetitive nature of Wilson's songs to reveal said truths. Which is to say, “God only knows what I'd be without you” is repeated over and over and over in the song, and we're keeping such repetition when we make the word clouds.

*As a commenter astutely notes, Brian Wilson didn't write all the lyrics on Pet Sounds (see below).

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