The Beach Boys frontman has died at the age of 82.
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Who knows what really happened to Brian Wilson? As modern audiences began to discover and appreciate his work, something was deeply and tangibly wrong in the California-born musician’s body and soul. Some blame his overbearing father. Others simply chalk it up to everyday life. Psychosis, heartbreak, dementia, and so on. Most say it was drugs. Maybe that’s true. In this life, some suffer, some don’t, but eventually everyone goes away. On Wednesday, Wilson went away, and we all lost America’s Mozart.
So I spent Wednesday listening to Pet Sounds. Then Surf's Up. Then Loves You. And finally, as the day drew to a close, I put on the Smile Sessions. What a career he's created. Thank you, Dennis, Carl, Mike, Bruce, and Al. But especially thank you, Brian. What art. What magnificent, uniquely American art. Sun-drenched and timeless. Just like the California coastline he and his bandmates called home.
The Beatles reigned supreme in the house where I grew up. Then came the Stones. After the Brits, Gram Parsons, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Jeff Walker and Merle Haggard were the standards blasting from the Technics turntable in our dining room. Beyond the pop staples of the late ’60s, my father was a true fan of the great Western songwriters from the prairie republic that stretched from Texas to California. The one thing we rarely listened to was the Beach Boys, so in my early years, all I knew about them was surfboards and Mike Love.
I think this is what most Americans know about the Beach Boys. Not “Pet Sounds,” but “Surfin’ USA.” The eternal summer songs. And that’s just great. Listening to their catalog this week, I couldn’t help but return to the early hits. As with the Beatles, it’s easy to focus on the later work that defines the myth. But the early songs are great, too. “Surfing Safari,” “California Girls,” “I Get Around,” and “Fun, Fun, Fun.” These tunes didn’t become popular by accident. They rock. They vividly illustrate a vision of a pure America where the days are joyful and the girls are beautiful and the harmonies echo forever in the airwaves. The sound is so pure, so inviting, so hypnotic, it invites each listener to grab their own surfboard and dive into the waves of their own mind.
For me, it wasn’t until my late 20s that I truly understood the appeal of the Boys, and especially their leader Brian. I was in my Paul McCartney phase at the time, and learned that McCartney considered Wilson’s “God Only Knows” the greatest song in pop history. “It’s one of the few songs that makes me cry every time I hear it,” McCartney told BBC Radio 1 in 2007. “It’s really just a love song, but it’s brilliantly executed. It shows the genius of Brian.”
The track McCartney called the greatest of all time is one of 13 on Pet Sounds, released in 1966. The groundbreaking album has become mythologized among rock fans and critics alike. It was a critical success but a commercial failure. While making it, Wilson was battling personal demons both in and out of the studio. He worked, as he often did, in an obsessive, idiosyncratic manner, isolating those closest to him in his quest for greatness. The result: twisted woks
Sourse: theamericanconservative.com
