Friday Blog 51; Brian Wilson
He meant an awful lot to me
Brian Wilson and Shane McGowan are two of my favorite lyricists, and they’re almost opposites. Shane’s filth and fury, his pugnacious anger, were very different from Brian’s sweetness, his innocence and light.
They both had difficult lives, struggled with depression and substances and showed their scars and damage outwardly in their later years of slow. stilted or slurred speech.
I never got to see The Pogues (or The Popes) live unfortunately. I feel very fortunate to have gotten to see Brian Wilson live twice. I saw him during the brief period where the living Beach Boys stopped suing each other long enough to play a few shows. It was sad. Mike Love is a heinous, awful man and this was definitely the Mike Love show. Brian went through the motions and the part that really bummed me out is when they took an intermission and Brian just sat in a folding chair off to the side of the stage waiting to go back and finish. He seemed so out of it.
But prior to that I saw Brian Wilson with his own band doing Smile in its entirety. Smile was one of those legendary unfinished albums, talked about and speculated about and inflated to legendary status. I owned multiple bootlegs of the Smile sessions and I loved the music. When it was announced that Brian Wilson was finally releasing an official version of Smile I was sure it would be awful. In fact, I went to my local record store’s listening station to hear it before I’d buy it.
It was great! They just nailed it. I purchased Brian Wilson presents Smile on CD and I played it again and again. When he announced he’d tour with it, I begged my dad to get us tickets and pops, as usual, came through. Wilson and his band played a greatest hits of Beach Boys tunes to start the show and then after a break played Smile live, which required a large, very well rehearsed band. I was in heaven. When they got to the end of the album I didn’t dare hope for an encore. He’d been so present, and seemed genuinely excited to be playing, but they’d just given us over 90 minutes of music.
Brian walked back onto the stage by himself. He sat at the piano and he talked about Sept 11th. His first thought when the attacks happened wasn’t revenge, retaliation, anger or fear. His first thought was, “What are we doing that anyone can hate us this much?” He played the song that he wrote that day, just him and his piano and it was simple, and naive, and pure, and all the things I’d come to love about this man and his music. I sat and listened to him with tears on my cheeks.
Pet Sounds is still my go to album when I’m feeling down and I need comfort and to know that I’m not alone in feeling out of place, lonely, and wanting a break from it all. The Beach Boys earlier albums are perfect for car rides or BBQs and their post Pet Sounds output is very much worth sifting through for the gems that are plentiful even after their artistic peak.
My generation grew up with Beach Boys music being used in commercials, and they seemed corny and cheesy to many of us. I hadn’t really listened to them in years when, in my early twenties my friend Patrick gifted me a copy of Surfs Up he found at a thrift store and knew I would love. The whole record is fantastic but Brian’s three very depressing songs on this album at the end side 2 grabbed a hold of me and made me want more. I became a fan and an ambassador. I argued with anyone who dared dismiss them, and I hope I made a few converts.
Brian Wilson was one of the greatest musical geniuses of all time, as well as an incredible producer, and a beautiful, sweet soul, knocked about and damaged but a stubborn survivor.
We are so lucky he left behind so many great recordings to continue to add harmony and beauty to our days and nights.
