God only knows what pop would be without him. Brian Wilson, undeniably one of the great pop songwriters, has passed, and his masterpiece “God Only Knows” is one of a vast trove of classic songs running through the world’s collective ear in his wake. A touchstone from Pet Sounds — arguably the greatest pop album yet made — the song’s wistful emotional palette and surprising harmonic twists and experimental sonic touches represent a pinnacle in pop song history.
Among the many cover versions of “God Only Knows,” David Bowie offered a sensitive take on his Tonight album and jazz pianist Brad Mehldau’s insightful rendition — tapping into the inherent jazz colors in such other Pet Sounds songs as “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on my Shoulders)” and “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times.”
In an interview, Wilson told me, “I like David’s version. Andy Williams did a version, too.” Wilson was beloved in arty, hipster and mainstream spheres.
After Wilson’s death on June 11, superlatives were abundant in tributes to this Beach Boy, whose personal brilliance was the not-so-secret key ingredient in the band’s legacy. This naturally gifted and exploratory Wilson brother — sibling of Dennis and Carl — outta Hawthorne, California, had a troubled path in life, including a long dark period grappling with mental issues and misaligned reality bearings. Meanwhile, the Beach Boys sailed forward, with Brian only in spirit and as the primary architect of its songbook.
But Wilson’s muse kept resurfacing and urging him forward, in spurts, and Santa Barbara audiences were fortunate to witness some of Wilson’s appearances over the past two decades. Wilson performed at the Lobero Theatre in 2008, after the release of his concept album That Lucky Old Sun, and in a brief reunion with the Beach Boys in an epic show at the Santa Barbara Bowl in 2012, during a special 50th anniversary tour. Another special occasion which passed through town was Wilson’s 50th anniversary tour celebrating Pet Sounds, heard in its fastidiously recreated glory at the Bowl in 2017.
Santa Barbara has figured into the Beach Boys saga in various ways, although Brian never lived in these parts. Mike Love established the “Love Songs” compound on the Mesa, overlooking the ocean, in the ‘70s. Former Santa Barbaran musicians Randell Kirsch, Jeffrey Foskett, bassist Robbie Scharf and the late drummer Paul Bergerot are among the musicians who have circulated in the ranks of the Beach Boys, proper, and with Wilson during his periodic solo career flowerings. In a local connection once removed, Montecitan jazz saxophone legend Charles Lloyd played with the Beach Boys and collaborated with Love in the 1970s.
One of the more recent sightings of Brian Wilson in public came with a storied Pet Sounds tour, which ambitiously showcased the Pet Sounds album en toto, with songs in order.
Listening back to Pet Sounds, as one should, it becomes repeatedly apparent that although the pop radio-ready tracks — the bejeweled “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “Sloop John B,” and “Caroline, No,” for instance — are less musically engaging than “deep cuts” with deeper musical content, such as “Don’t Talk” and the dreamy instrumental “Let’s Go Away for Awhile.” Not enough is made of the strong imprint of jazz influence on Wilson’s writing and production. He admits that “I like Ramsey Lewis and John Coltrane,” he said in an interview.
More specifically, the intricate vocal harmonies of the Four Freshman had a direct impact on the Beach Boys sound. “They were a jazz group,” Wilson commented, “a modern harmony group. I learned to sing falsetto from the Four Freshman. I learned a lot from the Four Freshmen. I really did. ‘Surfer Girl’ was very influenced by the Four Freshmen.”
Pop legend and the circle of influence have it that Wilson was inspired by the Beatles’ Rubber Soul, feeding into Pet Sounds, which inspired Paul McCartney and his mates to launch the last creative outpouring of their career with Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. Next in line was the infamously “lost” Beach Boys SMiLE album, left unfinished until 2004.
In an interview we did before his Lobero show promoting That Lucky Old Sun, Wilson reflected on the interrupted arc of SMiLE: “That’s the first concept album I ever made, right? I was a little scared to try something new. But it worked. That was a tough one. We put SMiLE on the shelf for 37 years and we finally finished the third movement to it and finished it. All of a sudden, we wrote all the segues and the narration together.”
Expanding on his interest in larger form writing, Wilson added, “I should write an opera sometime. I will try that sometime.”
Cut to an interview around the time of his Pet Sounds Bowl show, and he talked about reconnecting with his muse and launching a new project. “I haven’t written a song in four-and-a-half years,” he said, “but I’m going to start soon. I’m going to record a rock ‘n’ roll album, with a lot of good rock ‘n’ roll songs. It’s going to be original. I don’t think this is going to be anything like Pet Sounds. Pet Sounds was just a one-time thing.”
It was a one-time thing in the grandest sense, an ingenious anomaly in the history of pop record-making
“I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times,” another jazz-tinged wonder, is considered a tender anthem of youthful alienation and wariness about finding one’s place in society and the world. But it could also be read as a tribute to Brian Wilson’s unique dual position, both deep inside and on his own private outskirts of the pop music world. As he sings, undercoated by a slithery theremin part and vocal harmony pads, “They say I got brains / but they ain’t doin’ me no good / I wish they could.”
We beg to differ. Brian Wilson is gone but never forgotten. His brains and heart have done us all a lot of good.
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