Brian Wilson didn't even surf

But he understood the power of the wave.

Imagine Mozart doing a brand collab with Tiger Beat. That was Brian Wilson’s Beach Boys: lush, complex orchestrations paired with lyrics reeking of hormonal teenage fantasy.

RIP Brian Wilson

The Beach Boys – along with Motown and the Beatles – captured my favorite thing in music: effervescent, catchy AF pop songs even kids can love delivered via an insane level of musical sophistication for music nerds to obsess over too. High or low doesn’t matter…either way, you’re gonna get it.

Also, I love how Beach Boys songs are always about one of the following:

1. Surfing

2. Fast cars

3. Being too young to get married

4. The inescapable existential dread of human existence

Yup, that pretty much covers it. 🏄‍♂️

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My Beach Boys experience started back when I was a kid:

My parents had that album on vinyl (the cover is implanted in my memory) and it was part of my youthful summers. No one at the block party could resist aural cotton candy like this:

Later, there was a soda commercial that aired a ton featuring “Good Vibrations.” I had no idea what vibrations were or what a theremin was, but I knew something groovy was happening.

In college, I discovered the music snob go-to Pet Sounds. Some folks now argue “God Only Knows” is the best song ever, but I don’t even think it’s the best song on Pet Sounds. For me, that’s “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?”

Man, Hal Blaine on the drums is such a firecracker. And damn, the song just has so much yearning.

Wouldn't it be nice if we were older?
Then we wouldn't have to wait so long
And wouldn't it be nice to live together
In the kind of world where we belong?

The lyrics, vocals, harmonies, and instrumentation plead for a better life, a better world, a better love. It’s a song about reaching. It’s a child’s view of the world delivered with the sophistication of a savant. “Teenage symphonies to god” as Wilson put it.

Did we talk about those harmonies yet? The group mighta been the best barbershop quartet ever. There’s just something about the way family members harmonize, you can hear they’ve known each other forever. Isolate the vocals on just about any of their tracks and bask in the glow…

It always blows me away that Brian had all the melodies, harmonies, and arrangements in his head. The word “genius” is wildly overused, but Wilson deserves that label as much as any rock musician.

Something else I think about with Beach Boys songs: The Wrecking Crew would lay the tracks down and not even know what vocals would wind up on ‘em. They’d leave the studio and only hear the finished version with vocals much later. What a mindf*ck that musta been. Even without the vocals, the music rips...

Talk about being in the pocket. Best band ever (along with the Motown house band). You’ve seen this doc on ‘em, right?

And if you’re a real Wrecking Crew head, watch this Carol Kaye (the WC bass player) interview too. She is such a badass. For a gal to get the respect of those dudes back then, you know she’s next level.

I got pretty obsessed. I was in a band and writing songs and consuming whatever biographies/documentaries I could find to figure out how did this music happen?

One thing that kept coming up was how much Wilson was obsessed with Phil Spector’s "Wall of Sound" and this track specifically:

That recording was the pinnacle to Wilson. And one of the Spector techniques Wilson loved was having multiple instruments play the same melody to, in effect, create a new instrument. Get the same line on bass harmonica, harpsichord, and guitar, and, voila, you just invented the harpsitarica! (Well, something like that.)

Songwriting taught me to judge a vocal melody by playing it on an instrument instead of singing it. That way you could see if it still stands up without the lyrics getting in the way. Here's a great Beach Boys cover that shows how gorgeous the lead melody is on "Warmth of the Sun."

So many albums I loved were clearly inspired by the Beach Boys too. Big Star, Matthew Sweet, Velvet Crush, the High Llamas, Olivia Tremor Control, Passion Pit, etc. I mean, this album might as well be a “Pet Sounds” sequel…

None of those acts consistently hit the heights of Wilson, but sometimes the magic is in the missing. And damn, Matthew Sweet came pretty close.

I too was influenced by Wilson and crew. This “Midnight” track was me holed up during a Xmas week in Chicago circa 2000 deciding to write and record (I’m playing all the instruments except drums) a track influenced by the arrangement to “Good Vibrations.”

Here’s another one from a couple years later that apes the song structure of classic Beach Boys tracks like “Surfer Girl.”

Back to Brian: The falsetto. You know that’s Brian doing the tippy top vocal stuff, right? High head voice and falsetto mingling seamlessly in a way that’s feminine yet muscular at the same time.

Brian Wilson didn’t actually surf. But his music rode a current the same way surfers ride the ocean. His songs were a balancing act – childish yet muscular, sad yet sunny, accessible yet complex, holy yet innocent.

And while he disliked the beach, he understood the power of the wave. How you wait for it, catch it at just the right moment, and ride it until it breaks you. Even though you know it won’t last, you chase it anyway.

The wave isn’t just water, it’s young love too. You go after it even though it’ll leave you on the rocks. You risk it all because that moment when you’re actually inside the tube? Man, it’s cosmic. Catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world.

Here’s how one surfer describes riding inside the Pipeline tube:

The first thing that got my attention was how the noise of the crashing wave suddenly went silent. It was eerie and made me think about silence being deafening…Everything seemed to slow down. This slow motion sensation, combined with the silence, had me wondering whether I had entered a different world from the one outside the tube. The most distinct impression I experienced inside the tube was a feeling of complete awe.

That’s a feeling that only comes in glimpses – and then you come down. Crashing out can make you feel so alone, like you weren’t made for these times. And that’s when you crave the thing we all do: a nurturing voice whispering that it’s going to be okay. Don’t worry, baby. Everything will turn out alright.

Brian Wilson’s life took some heartbreaking turns. But he left the rest of us with a gift: music that makes you feel like everything will turn out alright. 🙏

Here’s a playlist with my fave Brian Wilson tracks:

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More music musings:

🪇 Spotify Wrapped is so popular 'cuz it is an oasis of data-backed reality in an ocean of fake reality. It’s classic show don’t tell.

🪇 Dear musicians, never put a phone ringing into one of your songs. Just don't do it. Never. Stop. Thank you.

🪇 Classic rock station in NYC used to do a "top 500 of all time" countdown every Labor Day weekend. In ninth grade, I sat through all of it and taped each song on a boombox, keeping just the ones I really liked. I listened to those tapes throughout high school. Those songs changed my life.

🪇 Once upon a time, Casey Kasem was the algorithm.

Pop, rock, R&B, etc. He was the Walter Cronkite of Top 40 tunes. Back then, we all met around the same "water cooler." Now, we all get exactly what we want and nothing else – and that’s why we never agree on anything anymore.

🪇 In retrospect, this was the hawk tua of political anthems...

🪇 Saw this video where Jonny Marr talks about the time a then-unknown Madonna opened up for The Smiths and it reminded me of how, decades ago, I went to see Wilco in Chicago at Lounge Ax and the opener was some boring dude doing solo acoustic stuff while sitting down so I just ignored him. Of course, it was Elliott Smith right before “Either/Or” broke, which turned out to be one of my fave albums so…whoops.

🪇 Crazy that The Strokes came up with the theme song to social media decades ago...

🪇 My go-to coffeeshop just hired a barista who is clearly in a death metal band and the playlist has shifted so severely that I am contemplating turning into one of those bitchy kooks on Yelp ‘cuz it’s so intolerable. He's currently playing Disturbed and, well, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

🪇 Separated at birth:

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Ya made it! Well done/you have good taste. Share with a friend who digs good music too.

-Matt