Brian Wilson

Image from Rolling Stone

“I may not always love you. But long as there are stars above you, you never need to doubt it.”

The truth is, I don’t really know a lot about the personal life of Brian Wilson, the man most famously known as the singer, songwriter, founder, heart, and soul of The Beach Boys. Obviously, like any American, his music scored parts of my life I didn’t even recognize — especially when growing up. However, I didn’t even know his name until I came of age as a lover of all things culture. (I was more familiar with the bearded San Francisco Giants reliever, Brian Wilson, once upon a time.) I’ve seen the 2014 Brian Wilson biopic, Love & Mercy, and the tepid, broad documentary Ron Howard made last year. I love his music and have always made time for it in my life. He was even the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at my own Grammys back in 2022 — after his final albums were released in 2021 (a collection of piano covers of his most popular songs), At My Piano and Long Promised Road.

However, I don’t know the lore of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys in the ubiquitous way that so many of us know that Yoko Ono broke up The Beatles but not really, and they ended things at the Polynesian Resort in Orlando, Florida. I haven’t read literature about The Beach Boys or dove into podcast oral histories about them (though, I should). It’s not as if they aren’t in the pantheon of music history (they’re right there with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones when it comes to defining the 1960s), even if some consider them to be the poor man’s Beatles and the rich man’s Monkees. In actuality, they’ve always been their own thing (before they just started touring with John Stamos and bowing down to Mike Love). A great thing. An indefatigable thing in the annals of American culture, yes. But if I really examine the truth about my relationship with The Beach Boys, then it’s the admission that I know Brian Wilson’s story is a wrenching one, so I have always kind of deflected from it. This will be remedied in time, even if not in time for when Wilson was alive.

However, I do want to caution about making this tribute piece to Brian Wilson too much about how I understand him. It doesn’t matter how I understood him! No one was less important in Brian Wilson’s life than me. But because of all that he gave to the world, I’m compelled to pay tribute to him all the same. I will learn about him, yes, but plenty has also been journaled about Brian Wilson’s life and hardships already. So, instead, let’s just celebrate the music — the artistry. (And let’s try to move away from first-person pronouns from here on out.)

[embed]

In the oeuvre of Brian Wilson, his songbook is initiated by beloved bangers that could be initially dismissed as frivolous. Songs like “Fun, Fun, Fun,” “Help Me, Rhonda,” “Rock and Roll Music,” and “Good Vibrations” are undeniable staples in the eternal catalog of the “beach pop” genre. They are songs that are purely evocative of running down with your friends to the beach while holding either a surfboard or an ice cream cone. They are rooted in a characterization of a collective (albeit class-comfortable) American youth that feels as befitting of the 2020s as it is the 1960s — and even the 1920s. They match the tone of Goofy diving into the ocean just as much as they match the ever-growing proclivity for tourists to bring speakers with them on their towels and folding chairs.

However, even though these songs were more evocative of “fun in the sun” (specifically in regard to the west coast and California but also more globe-trotting, as in songs like “Hawaii” and “Kokomo”), they have always been moving. To create songs that are both instantly iconic and instantly nostalgic is no easy feat, and Wilson was able to attain that status by reflecting on the most joyous parts of life with melancholy — just as much as he did with a carefree mindset. These songs are always deep, introspective, and reflective of a creative boon period in popular music that has still maybe never been replicated since.

[embed]

As such, Wilson’s eventual graduation into more nakedly profound music tracked thoughtfully and properly for his career. Following the demarcation point of “Don’t Worry Baby” — a song that, when its vocals are isolated, makes a case for itself as the epitome of harmony — Wilson pushed his creative endeavors further with the seminal work he put in on Pet Sounds, a first ballot Hall of Famer when it comes to classic albums. The spurned lovers of “Caroline, No,” the deceptive draftiness of “In My Room,” the repurposed and modernized shanty of “Sloop John B.” All of these characters could’ve existed just as easily in the world of Surfin’ Safari as they did in the world of Pet Sounds.

Naturally, as I’m sure most people would agree, “God Only Knows” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” are the transcendent Pet Sounds entries that have become so indelible that there will never be a list of the greatest songs ever made that will feel complete without them. The melodies are intricate, but the storytelling is simple. What would I be without you? And wouldn’t it be nice if we could spend even more time together? But either way, no time with the people we love will ever feel like enough. Such is the melancholy that has always permeated Wilson’s finest work. The carefree love of the early days of The Beach Boys is still evident in music like this, but it comes with the mature perspective of a man who can see how transient it all is and is so desperate to find any way to bottle it — even if for a moment.

[embed]

The musical tragedy, of course, is that he was never able to. Eventually, Wilson would step away from The Beach Boys, and they would reroute themselves to a more “palatable” version of the band for maximizing commercial prospects, as a result. (How much of Wilson is in “Sail On, Sailor,” versus how much of Wilson is in The Beach Boys’ output afterwards?) But The Beach Boys, as an institution, are only what they are because of what they were when they were an energy and a force that was transient and that was Brian Wilson.

Ultimately, Wilson and his music teach us about the fact that life’s beautiful brilliance exists in all moments. It is inherently a component of the carefree summers of our youths, as well as the most painstaking, emotionally wrought experiences we can ever imagine enduring — not instead of. The Beach Boys were as much the Everly Brothers, The Chords, and The Four Aces as they are Jimmy Buffett, The Ramones, and The Byrds. With Brian Wilson at the creative helm of this musical touchstone that exists in a specific corridor of our universe, it will always be summer. Somewhere. Forever.

[embed]