On a perfectly sunny day, the week before the start of summer and the day of the strawberry moon, Brian Wilson sailed on from this earth.
One of my biggest heroes is gone…it doesn’t quite feel real. Words seem inadequate, but I know I have to write. I can’t keep this emotion locked inside or limited to the tears that come whenever it hits me again. These moments become more frequent and more painful as a growing number of my musical inspirations from the ’60s and ’70s have died, with many current artists influenced by their sounds but few true innovators carrying on the spirit in the culture today.
As Beach Boys fans around the world grapple with the heartbreaking loss of the band’s leader, co-founder, and a larger than life musical figure, as I grieve, I feel called to express two ultimate truths: Pop music as we know it would not exist without Brian Wilson. And I would not be who I am without Brian Wilson.
I consider him many things: a poet, a visionary, an alchemist and adventurer, an inspiration, a sensitive soul, the first real music magician, a genius composer (and I mean genius in the truest sense of the word), a kind and honest man. But at the end of the day I am a music nerd of the heart, not the head…so while I can’t exactly prattle on about the technical expertise behind Brian’s gorgeous surf rock and baroque pop symphonies or the complex chord changes and progressions he pulled out of thin air, I can easily speak about how his art has moved me.
If souls have sounds, I believe mine is the music of The Beach Boys. I had a mish-mosh of encounters with their songs throughout my childhood, and it was always a delight to hear and sing along with the upbeat tunes. They took on much more significance as I got older and discovered the seemingly endless well of emotion living and breathing between those flawless melodies and harmonies.
“In My Room” in particular cut right to the most vulnerable parts of me. As a 14-year-old, I was astonished to hear someone so honestly articulate their solitude; in doing so, Brian validated my own. The melancholy felt like an invitation into his secret space and made me reflect on mine with deep appreciation. In a few minutes I went from knowing next to nothing about Brian to all I needed to know — somewhere out there, in another time and place, someone had the exact same experience as me. And they created a beautiful song from it. That meant maybe it was okay! Maybe I wasn’t a weirdo for preferring my own company and constantly reflecting on everything and needing time alone in my room! The mere idea that I could learn to accept this about myself was nothing short of revolutionary in my fragile adolescence.
There were so many other life-changing initial listens, the physical and emotional remnants still echoing in my body when I play the songs now. The first time I heard “Feel Flows” (thanks to my all-time favorite movie, Almost Famous), I was convinced the band had time traveled; there was just no way the song was made in 1971…it sounded like the future. Some songs resonate so personally I don’t know if I can talk about them; all I can do is clutch them close to my heart as private treasures.
And of course, joining countless others in what has become the budding music fan’s stereotypical rite of passage, the first time I listened to the full Pet Sounds album I was transfixed and transformed. It opened a portal inside me to so many intimate thoughts and feelings I’d never had adequate language for. That was Brian’s gift, his innate ability to create vast, rich, complex emotional soundscapes that seemed to speak to you individually. He made you feel seen, heard, and understood.
I instantly saw why Pet Sounds received critical acclaim and wide recognition over time as the greatest album ever – which it objectively is – Brian’s mind-blowing and masterful production setting the stage for a different piece of his soul to be bared with each instrumental and lyrical part sung in his pure, crystal clear voice. And at twenty-three years old, which is just astonishing! One album that was created 59 years ago flipped the music landscape entirely on its head, carved infinite paths forward and beyond, and still sounds fresh and timeless to this day. Listening to it reminds me that love is in the tender noticing of things.
His musical prowess will be lauded forever, as it should, but I will remember and honor Brian most for this groundbreaking sincerity and vulnerability in song. He shaped the central personality and exploratory nature of The Beach Boys as a band in doing so. But more than that, he gave us all permission to feel to the fullest, and we are better off for it (especially men) and need it more than ever in our society. I am so grateful to him for representing us introverts and “big feelers” and observers out there, whether he realized it or not. The people who hear so much in the silence and can’t help but find meaning in nearly every moment. Brian showed us that it’s not a bad thing to have an immense and sometimes overwhelming mix of passion, curiosity, melancholy, and wonder swirling inside you — in fact, it is the very best thing, no matter how hard it gets or how often people misunderstand it or try to stamp it out. You can and must use the big feelings as the foundation for a fulfilling life.
One of the many random scribblings in my Notes app reads: “whimsy and awe, joy and light / the ethos I strive to embody in this life.” Much of that stems from my obsessions with the hippie subculture of the 1960s and the disco days of the 1970s, but it was Brian who truly emulated and illuminated these values to me through sound. He helped me discover my free spirit and natural sense of childlike wonder and instill it within myself as a permanent guiding light. Through my own mental health struggles and the rough waves of life, the band’s music has served as the first step up and out and back on my path of healing. From gray to technicolor, from despair to hope, from depression to joy and fun! I will always experience it as the most comforting hug and the most expansive rainbow spectrum of happiness, humanity, and love.
The Beach Boys are America’s band and yours and mine. Their songs are deeply woven into my DNA, even when I’m not listening. I think of them every single time I am outside on a gorgeous spring or summer day and the mild breeze tickles my skin and senses. Every time I sit quietly and feel the warm sun on my face. Every year around the end of January when the holiday and new year rush is over and I’m sick of winter and longing for those tantalizingly warm days again. Every time I go to the beach or dream about or visit California, of course. Every time I see something awe-inspiring in nature, especially the sunset. Every day of every summer. And Brian sits at the heart it all, even more so now that he’s not here. My entire perspective and disposition and the beauty I see around me is largely thanks to his example, the magic that he found and made through so much light and dark.
Yes, Brian struggled for most of his life and faced demons as we all do. If you know even a piece of what he went through (if you don’t, please read his memoir, I Am Brian Wilson, and watch the movie Love & Mercy), you know there was no guarantee he would come out the other side, nor do so with his optimism and gentle ways still intact, but he did. He fought to survive and eventually thrived once again making music. Yes, I know he was 82 years old and went peacefully and it is a miracle he lived as long as he did – actually, more than a miracle, it is a credit to his incredible fortitude and hard work and love. I know he is reunited with Carl and Dennis, the three brothers singing those heavenly harmonies together again, and there’s been a massive outpouring of a special kind of love that could only match the special person he was. No, none of this makes his passing any less devastating.
In this sorrow, I feel an urgent desire to make sure everyone else acknowledges his genius and legacy, too. I want so badly to shake each person by the shoulders and shout DO YOU KNOW. DO YOU REALLY TRULY DEEPLY UNDERSTAND. THE GRAVITY OF THIS TREMENDOUS LOSS. DO YOU FEEL THE FULL WEIGHT OF THIS MAN’S IMPACT. HE HEARD GOD IN THE MUSIC IN HIS HEAD AND TRANSMITTED THE DIVINE TO US. THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER BRIAN WILSON.
It seems the phrase of the moment is “God only knows what we’ll be without him,” but it’s so commonly used in these tributes because it’s true. It feels like the world’s almost gone back to gray, the color suddenly taken away…almost. But not entirely. I know the way through is by focusing on the fact that we have the glorious gift of Brian’s music to enjoy as long as we are alive, thank goodness. We have his life lessons and legacy to remind us of what is earnest and true and most important. In these powerful and precious ways, he will be here forever even as he rests in the peace he’s always deserved.
There will never be another Brian Wilson, and how blessed we are to bear witness to everything he so graciously created and shared with this whole world, stemming from the music he alone could hear.
“My love’s like the warmth of the sun, it won’t ever die.”