Brian Wilson: A Love Letter in 16 Songs

Charles on a few favorites from an artist we love

Brian Wilson died last week at the age of 82. The outpouring of tributes and appreciations - many of which we collected here - bespeaks his influence and significance on pop music from the 1960s forward. His role as the musical and spiritual center of the Beach Boys perhaps gets overstated, especially in light of the key contributions of the other members, but there is no doubt that his singing, playing, production, arrangements, songwriting (usually with collaborators), and creative ideas fueled the group as they became such important hitmakers and album artists. His influence continues to spread across the musical landscape like the rising or setting sun that he made a central image and metaphor. To lose him, especially in the same week as Sly Stone, is to take stock not only of a storied career but also of an era and its aftermath. I love Brian Wilson and I love the Beach Boys. So, just as I did with Sly earlier this year, I’m foolishly attempting to capture the breadth of his and their work in just a few gems from this ocean-deep catalog.

Here are 16 songs I love by Brian Wilson as both a Beach Boy and a solo artist. (Why 16? Why not?) As always, there are a few big caveats. First, this is certainly not intended as a comprehensive overview of his career - for that, I’d recommend the articles linked above as well as Tom Smucker’s great book on the Beach Boys, for a start. Many of the most famous and celebrated songs aren’t here: like this one, or this one, or this one, or this one, or for the love of God even this one. Second, the space limitations and my desire to acknowledge all phases of his career means that a whole bunch of songs that I cherish aren’t here either. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this is a love letter to Brian Wilson, not to the Beach Boys.. If I was doing the latter, which maybe I will at some point, there’d be more focus on Carl (my favorite Beach Boy) and Dennis Wilson, particularly, as well as on Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston, Mike Love (yes, even him), and the brief, glorious early-70s membership of Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar. (See #7 for more on that.)

I hope you’ll take this in the spirit it’s intended, and that you’ll shout out any of your missing favorites in the comments. I probably love them too. For now, let me count some of the ways…

1. “In My Room” (from Surfer Girl, 1963)

“In My Room” builds an interior world that Brian Wilson would explore for the rest of his career. Juxtaposing these inside-voice meditations against what Ann Powers calls the “sunset smear” fantasias of a mythical California became perhaps the central Beach Boys mode, and “In My Room” is a perfect inauguration. Tender, simple, deceptively expansive, its rise-and-fall draws every secret from its 6/8 doo-wop balladry, with Wilson and company foregrounding the enigmas that were always waiting on the smoky street corners of “In the Still of the Night,” “I Only Have Eyes for You,” and all those classics. The close comforts of the harmonies on the final verse – when they in one voice reassure us and each other that “I won’t be afraid” in a “Stand by Me”-recalling promise – are one of the loveliest manifestations of the group’s musical family circle. Brian Wilson knew the key truth early: Pop music blurs or destroys the line between “myself” and “ourselves.” Even when you’re all by yourself, with only the whole world on your radio.

2. “Barbara Ann” (from Beach Boys’ Party!, 1965)

In a story filled with ironies both wonderful and tragic, the fact that the Beach Boys – whose sound was nurtured in the careful crafting of the recording studio – made one of their best ‘60s albums from a tossed-off acoustic set of other people’s songs is one of the most delicious. Party! earns its exclamation point, with the band (playing largely without L.A. session experts for the only time in this period) romping through songs by the Beatles, Crystals, and others in the early-‘60s mix. The best cut, and the big hit, is their take on the Regents’ “Barbara Ann.” Pal Dean Torrence (then surfing the chart waves with partner Jan Berry) sings the lead, and Brian Wilson – in his most acrobatic falsetto – soars above him in a plaintive wail somewhere between Frankie Valli and Bill Monroe. The Beach Boys stomp along beside him, muffing the lyrics, giggling and stomping, and basking in the sheer joy of the song, the session, and each other. Let’s party. Or, excuse me…let’s party!

3. “Sloop John B.” (from Pet Sounds, 1966)

Pet Sounds is defined mostly by the aforementioned inside-voice meditations, where Wilson, the other Beach Boys, and their crack team of musicians all work at full force on one of the era’s greatest pop albums. Even now, and even after all the contemporaneous and subsequent praise, Pet Sounds is striking as both a continuation and a levelling up. And, from hits like “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” to “God Only Knows” down through deeper cuts like “That’s Not Me” or “I Know There’s An Answer,” it really is as good as advertised. But, as much as I love its ruminations on uncertainty and yearning, I’m most drawn to the adaptation of a Bahamian folk song, filtered through the Kingston Trio, that Al Jardine brought to Brian Wilson and became the first song recorded for the album. It’s an astonishing folk-rock moment, where this sailor’s lament is remade as a “Wall of Sound” symphony. It’s one of Brian’s best vocals, standing on the stormy seas of chiming guitars and booming drums and soaring atop the group’s harmonies on the chorus. And, even as it calls back to the group’s catch-a-wave roots, it also signals the dark times and bad vibes to come with its aching desire to get back home and Mike Love’s closing punctuation that the disastrous voyage is “the worst trip I’ve ever been on.” High tides and bad tidings – sing along, you know the words.

4. “Good Vibrations” (single, 1966)

“Genius” talk is often frustrating and even counterproductive. It removes appreciation for work or collaboration, excuses shortcomings and ignores complexities, is often connected to romanticization of illness or trauma, gets applied inconsistently, is specifically and disproportionately applied to white men, and ultimately doesn’t explain very much about the people it claims to define. So, as much as I’m prone to gushing about Brian Wilson, I resist the urge to position his gifts or his work within that fraught category. “Good Vibrations” is an oft-mentioned centerpiece of such arguments. It was designed that way: Publicist Derek Taylor launched a campaign that heralded Wilson’s genius as both promotion for the single and a way to validate the Beach Boys within a changing pop-music market. Wilson resisted it, the other Beach Boys resented it, and the whole thing seems to have exacerbated his personal issues and relationship to the band. All that being said – and all that being meant – it's not hard to hear why “Good Vibrations” provoked such descriptors. It’s an intoxicating mix of fragmented sections that together form a tapestry of mid-‘60s pop-rock that ranges from the flowery whoosh of psychedelia to the groovy garage stomp of Mike Love’s horndog chorus. Part chorale, part campfire singalong, “Good Vibrations” feels like the rush of love and lust mixed with the eight-miles-high explorations of a pop world literally and figuratively high on its own supply. The band, coming into their own as studio players, sounds great. Wilson sounds great, both as singer and producer. And “Good Vibrations” somehow transcends all the discourse to remain a remarkable, fascinating gem.

5. “Time to Get Alone” (from 20/20, 1969)

The collapse of Smile is many people’s departure point for the Beach Boys – I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with folks who only returned (willingly or not) with “Kokomo.” But the decade of albums that followed those tumultuous sessions are all worth hearing and often delightful, with the other Beach Boys becoming more prominent as instrumentalists, songwriters, and even producers. “Time to Get Alone,” written by Brian and produced by Carl, reflects those new collaborations. The waltzing invitation is somewhere between a come-on, a meditative practice, and an introvert’s retreat. Of course, it’s ostensibly a love song, and Carl sings the melody with appropriate giggling excitement at the prospect of closing the doors, dimming the lights, and turning “my room” into “our room” for a little while. Like much of the music from 20/20 (or its predecessor Friends), the string-assisted “Time to Get Alone” embraces the small pleasures, wafting around the speakers like the scent of incense or a meal being prepared.

6. “‘Til I Die” (from Surf’s Up, 1971)

The moody Surf’s Up is one of the best albums the Beach Boys ever made, particularly powerful as a complement to the previous year’s vibrant Sunflower. After great contributions from Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston, and particularly Carl Wilson (whose “Long Promised Road” and “Feel Flows” are on my Beach Boys shortlist), Brian Wilson steps back to the center for a two-song knockout punch at the album’s close. The title song, a brittle and gorgeous re-working of a Smile-era highlight, is an epic denouement. But the song that precedes it, the moaning “Til I Die,” is the album’s climax. Over a listing-ship arrangement, Wilson delivers three near-haikus that document a moment of depression and existential uncertainty. Wilson often engaged with feelings of wonder: Sometimes they were glorious, and sometimes – like here – they positioned his songs as a thousand-yard stare that made those big waves and distant horizons a poignant metaphor for internal turmoil. A “rock on the ocean,” Wilson emerges from the siren-song wash of harmonies into a tender, tiny revelation that “I lost my way” and, even worse, “it kills my soul.” It’s terribly sad and terribly beautiful. Be careful: You just might drown in the circling voices that close the song. Surf’s up.

7. “Sail On, Sailor” (from Holland, 1973)

Here’s an irony: My favorite Beach Boys albums are two of the least Brian-centered. For 1972’s Carl and the Passions: So Tough and 1973’s Holland, the band brought in Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar from South African band The Flames and became a great soul-rock band. Brian’s contributions to the two albums are sparse, but his co-written compositions start each with a gospel-drenched testimony: Passions’ “You Need a Mess of Help to Stand Alone,” and this stunning opener to Holland. “Sail On, Sailor” is almost the inverse, or perhaps next chapter, of “Til I Die” or even “Sloop John B.” Chaplin’s narrator recounts the travails of an “unsettled ocean” and “deep commotion” that left him both “frightened” and yet “persevering.” The band – composed only of Chaplin, Fataar, Carl Wilson, and Mike Love – is straight-up rocking, riding a deep groove powered by Fataar’s drums. In the late 2010s, when Blondie Chaplin joined Wilson’s touring band, “Sail On Sailor” became a propulsive highlight of their shows. (I know – I was there.) An exceptional moment, in many ways.

8. “Back Home” (from 15 Big Ones, 1976)

The bicentennial’s 15 Big Ones finds the Beach Boys settling into their “America’s Band” era, where they built on their reputation for great live shows and capitalized on the success of greatest-hits compilation Endless Summer. This is most obvious through the inclusion of several golden oldie covers, from their clunky hit version of Chuck Berry’s “Rock and Roll Music” to a suitably whizbang run through “Palisades Park.” 15 Big Ones also saw the return of Brian Wilson as sole producer and seemingly full contributor. There was another somewhat regrettable promotional campaign – this time, the “Brian’s Back” celebrations – and several vocal and writing features for the returning brother. The knowing goof “That Same Song” is fun, but the highlight – and perhaps the only time when the album fully embodies its spirit of joyous reclamation – is “Back Home.” The group had been kicking the song around since 1963, with a “Da Doo Ron Ron”-recalling take, and had twice tried a funkier Jardine-sung version with different lyrics. But it finally makes the cut here, with its original countryfied lyrics and a Brian lead that finds his voice rasped by cigarettes and lack of care but also exuberant and playful. The chorus emphasizes the throwback with the stacked harmonies that were by then a Beach Boys trademark. (Currently registered to Mike Love with all rights reserved, thank you very much.) It’s odd that this retro revival would put the Boys back home in Ohio rather than California, but none of that matters when the beat kicks in, and – for a couple minutes – the group’s earlier promise to “Do It Again” becomes reality once more.

9. “Let It Shine” (from Brian Wilson, 1988)

Brian Wilson’s 1988 album – his first as a solo artist – was both a rebirth and a rebrand, announcing his latest return just as his band topped the charts with “Kokomo” and arguing for his relevance within the high gloss of the late ‘80s. Brian Wilson features a slew of collaborators, most crucially producers Andy Paley (who also co-wrote several songs) and Russ Titleman, and most infamously Eugene Landy, Wilson’s notorious and abusive psychotherapist. With all this context, it’s a small miracle that Brian Wilson is also just a very good pop-rock record. Written with Jeff Lynne (then just cresting on his ’80s success as a producer), “Let It Shine” is a sunburst that builds from a gospel chorus into the kind of swooning mid-tempo love song that Wilson had made a specialty since 1964’s “Don’t Worry Baby.” The icy synth percussion, a trademark of both the era and Lynne’s productions, is perhaps a bit jarring, but Wilson (then near the end of a long and unhappy era) sounds like he’s awakening before our ears.

10. “Country Feelin’s” (from For Our Children, 1991)

1991’s For Our Children seems lost to time. A benefit for the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, the delightful and long out-of-print compilation features children’s songs both old and new by a lineup ranging from Bob Dylan to Paula Abdul to Little Richard. As an emergent music nerd on the upper end of the age range for its target audience, I devoured it back then and I still enjoy returning to it now. Brian Wilson’s “Country Feelin’s,” recorded for the abandoned follow-up to his solo debut, is a hooting and hollering pastiche in the mode of “Back Home” but more fun by half. The cluttered production serves the song’s restlessness, and Wilson sounds like he’s enjoying himself almost as much as his listeners, especially on the wordless, goose-call refrain. I was well aware of the Beach Boys by then, but “Country Feelin’s” was my first real sense of Brian Wilson as a single (and singular) artist. In all its goofy joy, it’s not a bad way to start.

11. “Love and Mercy” (from I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times, 1995)

The most powerful parts of the very good 1995 documentary I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times are the scenes of Wilson and a small group of musicians doing new versions of some of his songs, the rare remakes that reveal new dimensions to both the material and its creator. Most powerful, as documented on the acclaimed soundtrack, is what Wilson, the musicians, and producer Don Was do with “Love and Mercy.” The song is one of Wilson’s loveliest (and that’s a crowded field), a prayer for peace that bridges the small details of “In My Room” or “Time to Get Alone” with the dreamy spiritualism of “Our Prayer” and, in its way, “Til I Die.” On the version from 1988’s Brian Wilson, Wilson surrounds himself by a “Wall of Sound” fortress. But here the sparer, quieter surroundings give “Love and Mercy” a reflective whisper that makes it a kind of evensong. In a world of compounding catastrophes, the simple blessing of “Love and Mercy” has been one of the songs I have thought about most often.

12. “Still I Dream of It” (from I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times, 1995)

As good as it all is, the best moment on I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times comes from a 1976 archival recording. Wilson’s rough solo-piano demo of “Still I Dream of It” is almost overwhelming in its yearning and ache. Like so many of Wilson’s best songs, it’s set on the inside, both emotional and physical, and it sets his loneliness against the details of a domestic life that’s comfortable but solitary. Wilson supposedly intended it for Frank Sinatra, who would have nailed it but who could never have nailed it in the same way. Twilight time at its most broken and beautiful.

13. “Lay Down Burden” (from Imagination, 1998)

Wilson’s 1998 album Imagination marked his first collection of new songs since his escape from the control of Eugene Landy. It sounds like a renewal, sparkling and shining with rich productions and songs that – even at their silliest – exude the sweet warmth of the sun and avoid relying on easy nostalgia. But the past stays present here, and no moment on the album is more lovely than “Lay Down Burden,” which Brian dedicated to brother Carl after he died from cancer earlier that year. On paper, it’s a relatively standard lament for times gone by and the loss of a future with a loved one. (And there’s nothing at all wrong with that.) But the delicate melody and Wilson’s tentative vocal make “Lay Down Burden” a most affecting goodbye from the last surviving Wilson brother, now without the siblings who made such beautiful music with him (and without him) and whose memories will always stay present in the mix.

14. “Be My Baby” (live) (Live at the Roxy Theatre, 2000)

The effect of “Be My Baby” on Brian Wilson is the stuff of legend. He often told the story about how hearing the bright, booming Ronettes single on his car stereo made him pull over in sublime excitement; the effect of the Spectorian “Wall of Sound” on Beach Boys recordings can be heard far beyond even the obvious homage “Don’t Worry, Baby.” It’s thus both a lovely callback and an unexpected delight to hear Wilson perform the source material with the astonishing band assembled by Darian Sahanaja. Wilson sings like the fan of Ronnie Spector he’d been for decades by this point, loving each syllable even as he pushes against the top of his range. Wilson’s twenty-first century would be a justified series of victory laps, and this was one of the sweetest.

15. “Think about the Days” (from That’s Why God Made the Radio, 2012)

The return of the Beach Boys in 2012 begins the only appropriate way, with a wordless piece that – through its titular demand, dreamy harmonies, and cradling piano – places That’s Why God Made the Radio in their favored mode of the mythical past. It’s a throwback, recalling the barbershop swoon of early track “Their Hearts Were Full of Spring.” It’s an invocation, not unlike the let-there-be-light burst of Smile opener “Our Prayer.” And it’s a thesis statement, somewhere between “Do It Again” and “Disney Girls (1957).” While it’s far from the only good moment on Radio (check out Love’s lush “Daybreak Over the Ocean” or Wilson’s gorgeous closer “Summer’s Gone”), “Think About the Days” is perhaps the only time that the group fully recaptures the old magic while also acknowledging the costs and losses along the way.

16. “Sketches of Smile” (from At My Piano, 2021)

Time for a confession: Before this week, I’m not sure that I had never listened to 2021’s At My Piano, on which Wilson offers solo-piano instrumental versions of some of his classics. Listening to it now, I’m floored. This is such elegant and lovely stuff, spotlighting the richness of Wilson’s melodies and their place in a set of interlocking song traditions across both 19^th and 20^th centuries. “Sketches of Smile” is a stand-in for the whole album, but I chose it for how effectively it captures the strange beauty of the Smile songs – from “Our Prayer” to “Surf’s Up” – in a setting free of the lush harmonies, layered productions, or Van Dyke Parks’ puzzle-box lyrics. (All of which I love, of course.) It also frees the songs from the fifty years of mythologizing that has surrounded Smile, and Brian Wilson, for both better and worse. As a final statement, it couldn’t be better. Here, at his piano, Brian Wilson delivers these songs with a kind of playful wonder, as though his works remain newly delightful, even for him and even all these years later. They work that way for me too, and I know they always will. For that I am grateful. Amen. (adapted from last Monday’s “Turn It Up”)

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