I made Brian Wilson sad once. I didn’t mean to. We were doing a radio interview, the first time I’d ever spoken to him, and I was so excited that I’d spent the entire morning organizing nearly every song he wrote, so I could play them instantly should he bring them up.
The interview began. It was going well. Then, trying to be original in my questioning, I asked him, as a man associated with so many happy Beach Boys songs like “California Girls,” “Fun, Fun, Fun” and “Surfin’ USA,” what was, in his mind, the saddest song he ever recorded?
He hesitated, then named the song “Cry,” from one of his solo albums, a song he wrote after seeing his wife upset. Bingo! I had it! I pushed the button and up it came:
“A silly quarrel That’s what we had Then I heard you cryin’ You broke my heart Broke it in two How could I have left you alone?”
It was, like so many Brian Wilson songs, a mixture of sweet harmonies and heartbreaking phrases, and I let it go on for a few seconds, so proud that I had it handy.
Until Wilson glumly said: “I wished you wouldn’t have played that.”
‘Greatest song ever written’
I remembered that incident last week, when I heard that Brian Wilson had died at age 82. He’d been failing for a while, reportedly suffering from dementia and grieving the death of his wife. His family released a brief statement on his passing without offering any details.
I always felt bad about that interview moment, not because Wilson even remembered it (we actually had a couple other interviews over the years which were fine) but because it seemed that this troubled genius who made so many people happy had far too much sadness in his life already.
And yes, I said “genius,” and no, I don’t use that phrase lightly. As a former musician and a lifelong observer of his music, I will say right here that what Brian Wilson did with harmonies, arranging, chord structure and instrumentation literally turned pop music on its ear.
Here was a young man who created 13 top 10 hits before his 25th birthday. Here was the first pop artist to write, sing, produce and arrange his own songs. Hits like “Surfer Girl” (which he wrote when he was 19) “California Girls,” “I Get Around” and “Wouldn’t it Be Nice” are staples of the American songbook. Others, like “Help Me, Rhonda” and “I Can Hear Music” are instant toe-tappers. Ballads like “Caroline, No” are, in a word, gorgeous.
But while Wilson’s compositions may sound simple, they can be deceptively complex, like the way Mozart created music. The song “God Only Knows” is considered a Wilson masterpiece, and no less than Paul McCartney has called it the “greatest song ever written.” It’s been used in movies and TV shows. You know it. You can sing it. It sounds totally accessible.
Yet musically, “God Only Knows” is a labyrinth of styles and chords, half pop, half baroque classical, and all Brian Wilson, which is to say moving, sweet, harmonic and unforgettable.
“I may not always love you
but long as there are stars above you
You never need to doubt it
I’ll make you so sure about
God only knows what I’d be without you…”
Brian Wilson never settled
Brian Wilson never learned how to surf. He told me that he tried once and “the board almost hit me in the head.” He never bothered again. He also told me all the hot beaches mentioned in “Surfin’ USA” he got off a list given to him “from my girlfriend’s brother.”
So from his youngest days, his private life and public persona were at odds. Wilson, born during World War II, was the oldest of three brothers, Dennis and Carl being the others, all of whom became founding members of the Beach Boys, along with their cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine. The Wilsons’ father, Murry, was a failed songwriter who reportedly drove his kids hard, and clashed with Brian often. When Brian wanted to move into more experimental sounds, Murry would argue the band needed to stick with the surf music that had made them famous.
Had they done that, the world might never have had “Good Vibrations” a song that to this day remains a classic mishmash of themes and instruments, ranging from a jaw harp to an Electro-Theremin (that warbling sound that sounds like an outer space alien trying to sing.)
We might never have had “In My Room,” which Wilson said he wrote after the death of JFK. Or “Love and Mercy.” Or “Don’t Worry Baby.” Or any of the other classics that Wilson created that didn’t have to do with surfboards or car engines.
But, man, there were plenty of those. “Surfin’.” “Little Deuce Coup.” “409.” Such songs became musical snapshots of the 1960s California lifestyle, sun, surf, sand, engines. No wonder Randy Newman, in “I Love LA” wrote that we should roll down the top and “crank up the Beach Boys, baby, don’t let the music stop.”
But it has. Stopped. Wilson endured tremendous hardships in his life, drug abuse, mental issues, a decade where he almost never left his house, lawsuits from other band members, a Svengali-like doctor who steered his life for years until he was removed by the courts. He often didn’t tour with the rest of the Beach Boys, preferring to hide in the studio.
It almost seemed as if he knew the world was an ill fit for him. In 1966, he wrote a song called “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times.”
He was 24.
God only knows
Yet periodically, over the decades, Brian Wilson would emerge to make some more music and do little interviews with choppy, simple, almost childlike conversation.
He was sweet. He was gentle. One time when I asked him whether it embarrassed him to be called a musical genius he replied: “No. Well. Yeah. A little bit.”
Wilson lived longer than his two brothers, which seemed a terrible burden to him. He leaves behind two daughters from his first marriage and five adopted children from his second. His death last week seemed to hit many harder than the news of someone in their 80s passing usually does.
Sting posted: “Today one of my heroes died.”
Elton John wrote: “He changed the goalposts when it came to writing songs.”
McCartney wrote: “How we will continue without Brian Wilson, ‘God Only Knows.’ ”
The Beach Boys’ first greatest hits album was called “Endless Summer.” And that may best describe the feeling the music Wilson and the Beach Boys created. As long as it played, the surf was always up and the sun was always warm on our skin.
And maybe that’s why his passing feels so depressing, as if a piece of us has faded, as if the warm weather is behind us, and clouds and cold lay ahead.
They say to know great love, you need to know great heartbreak. And perhaps to make people tap their feet so happily, you need to know the sadness that Wilson knew, battled, yet ultimately spun into beauty.
A few years ago, Wilson gave an interview in which he was asked about spirituality in his songs. And this is what he said:
“I believe that God is music. So when you make music, that’s God talking to you.”
They’re talking to each other now. Summer is not endless. But, thank the Lord, Brian Wilson’s music is.
Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom.
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