Thank You, Brian Wilson

We weren’t a big record-buying family, but somehow we owned the Beach Boys’ 1974 double-album compilation Endless Summer. And by the bicentennial summer and carrying into my 2nd-grade fall, I was in love with those Boys from Hawthorne and all those wonderful songs. (The Beatles’ red and blue compilations had come out in 1973, but it was several years before we picked those up. Maybe the Brothers Wilson took precedence because we lived in California?)

By the time we moved back east and I entered middle and high school, the sheen on the Beach Boys had faded somewhat. There was publicity when Secretary of the Interior James Watt banned them from playing a 4th of July concert on the National Mall (because they attracted “the wrong element”) and there was a minor radio and MTV hit, “Getcha Back.” Oh, and then a No. 12 pairing with the Fat Boys on “Wipe Out.” Not exactly their salad days. And anyway, I was getting much more interested in “alternative” music: R.E.M., the Replacements, the Pogues, etc. etc.

But crucially while in high school, I began to learn about the genius of Brian Wilson. Likely inspired by articles and best-album rankings in Rolling Stone magazine, I picked up a copy of his masterwork Pet Sounds at a Tower Records in Manhattan. It was… different. More musical, more nuanced, but still had those harmonies and hit songs. I could handle it. Plus I felt a certain cachet just by owning it.

While in college, my appreciation grew. First there was Brian’s heralded solo debut, though with a shadow cast over it by SoCal Svengali Dr. Eugene Landy who seemed to be taking advantage of our boy Brian. And then in the new bin at WRCT, my college radio station, there landed what was still a new concept, a “tribute album” to Brian entitled Smiles, Vibes & Harmony. The alternative acts included (with several musicians who would become my friends in later decades, such as Salt in Wound reader Clarke in New Orleans!) made Wilson seem that much cooler.

My deep dive into Wilson’s oeuvre really began with the purchase of the 1993 five-disc box set Good Vibrations. In 1995 there was a documentary I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times which shed more light on Wilson and his remarkable talent. Perhaps roughest to hear but still beautiful was the 1976 home demo of “Still I Dream of It” included on the doc’s soundtrack album. Wilson’s voice is in tatters but the magic was still there.

In 1998 I bought my first issue of MOJO magazine, because two heroes were on the cover: R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and Wilson. (Within, Peter interviewed Brian.) Two years later these influences crossed paths again: I bought the new two-albums-on-one-CD release of the Beach Boys’ 15 Big Ones and Love You (albums I remember from supermarket bargain racks in my early childhood) specifically because Peter Buck had written the liner notes. Even Brian’s “lesser” works were being reevaluated.

I am very thankful that I got to see Brian on-stage three times: once performing Pet Sounds with a large band including members of The Wondermints, who I loved; once performing the legendary lost-and-then-pieced together Smile album with a similar group of musicians; and finally reunited with the Beach Boys during their 50th anniversary tour in 2012.

There was charm and sadness to the new-millennium Brian. It was easy to be amused by his childlike responses to interview questions. Watching him live, I wondered if his keyboard was plugged in or if it was simply served as “security blanket.” And still I held out hope that, with the right collaborators (Rick Rubin? Andy Paley?), he’d put together one last great album of new material. But it wasn’t to be, and even as a fan who bought every new release, I finally drew the line at Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin and In the Key of Disney and the brutally-named No Pier Pressure.

Yes, it seemed like he loved to perform, but was it fair for his “organization” to keep pushing him out on these long tours, as his health continued to decline?

In the last couple of weeks, I wondered if something was up, as daughter Carnie Wilson began making sweet, nostalgic posts on social media. Still, when the news hit on Wednesday, it was shock. Hearing those early Beach Boys songs on the car radio (the best way to experience those songs), I was struck by the fact that this music that had provided me with complete joy for my entire life was now making me weep.

Back in 1990, Capitol Records had released the initial wave of two-fer CDs, and for reasons now forgotten, I picked up Today!/Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!). A song that really grabbed me was called “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man).” The Brian Wilson/Mike Love co-write was catchy, sure, but there such a wistful quality too, these young men capturing the idea that youth slips away before we know it. The background vocals list increasing ages (“14! 15! Won’t last forever…”) throughout the song’s 2 minutes, 4 seconds. I started a tradition of listening to the track every year on my birthday; it was fun when my new age was shouted out. But of course my age got later and later in the song, till you could just barely hear it in the fadeout: “32! 33!” And then that was it, 33 the last clearly heard age.

So that was a drag. I’d grown up to be a man. And as we get older still, and lose friends, family, favorite public figures, and start slowly breaking down ourselves, it hits home even more: Won’t last forever.

Brian Wilson is gone. It’s quite rare to have a beloved artist that lasts you from childhood through adulthood. But Brian went so far beyond that, giving us easy-to-swallow fun fun fun when we’re little and then, only when we are ready, he let us wonder. His own well-documented issues prevented him from giving us a blueprint for growing old, but that would’ve been too much to ask for anyway. Brian Wilson leaves us the most beautiful music ever created, and I will be forever grateful for that gift which allows us to return to youth again and again.