'It's too difficult': Belinda Carlisle on why she didn't cover a Beach Boys track on Once Upon A Time in California
Belinda Carlisle felt it was "too difficult" for her to cover a Beach Boys song on her latest album Once Upon A Time In California.
Belinda Carlisle felt it was "impossible" to cover a Beach Boys track on her new album Once Upon A Time In California.
The Heaven Is a Place on Earth singer worked closely with the late Beach Boys star Brian Wilson on some of his solo albums but didn't feel she could replicate his "chord progressions" on the covers record, which features her version of tracks by artists such as The Carpenters and Harry Nilsson.
Belinda told Variety: "I think it's too difficult. In my experience, covering different artists, like with the Bee Gees, for instance – and Crowded House is another one – their chord progressions are so strange, and it's a certain sound that it's really hard to replicate it.
"So, for me, I think I got my nod to the Beach Boys in during Never My Love (a cover of the song by The Association), when I got to go crazy building the vocal arrangement."
The 67-year-old singer continued: "I worked with Brian Wilson on a couple of his albums; I sang backups and got to watch him work, and then he did the same thing for me, singing backgrounds on a song called California that I did on my album, but it would be impossible for me to cover a Beach Boys song. Impossible. I wouldn't touch it."
Belinda started working on the album back in 2017 and recalled how she had to whittle down a shortlist of 80 songs by eliminating those that were not appropriate for her voice.
The Circle in the Sand hitmaker told Classic Pop magazine: "It wasn't just as simple as saying, 'Oh, I'll sing that. I'll sing that.'
"I mean, because there's a lot of songs on the list that I love, but it just didn't suit my voice. And I wasn't going to try to fit my vocal into a song that didn't work for me."
The Go-Go's singer described Once Upon A Time In California as a "full-circle moment" in her career as it gave her the chance to cover songs that mean a lot to her.
She said: "It is a totally full-circle moment.
"Just to look out and to know that a lot of the songs that I've done in my career, Go-Go's and solo, have had that same effect the music I listened to every single day had on me... And I know that feeling. It's a magical feeling."
