Songsmith And Beach Boy Brian Wilson Gone But In Good Company

Surf’s Up

Brian Wilson gone? Yes, at the age of 82, the surf’s forever up for the man at the heart of The Beach Boys sound. For a long time I saw The Beach Boys as a formula, a brand name and verrrry American, I thought : toothpaste smiles, sunshine lyrics and good times almost too good to be true. There were some great songs in there too, some of which you couldn’t get out of your head : I Get Around, Good Vibrations, Surfin’ USA, Wouldn’t It Be Nice, California Girls. The list is an endless summer and the stuff of daytime radio when I was growing up.

That would change in late 1975 thanks to Robin, a friend at Keele University. I was a music enthusiast at the time, but Robin was a music fan who was also a musician and totally unafraid of liking music which others considered too pop to be of interest. He knew what he liked, and he could tell you why it was good.

As we got to know each other and shared our tastes, I began to realise that there was a lot more than I thought to the music I saw as just pop music which we heard on the radio. No, Robin told me, it was artful and interesting. He promised me a short tape with a few songs which I wouldn’t have heard. When he gave it to me, there was no specific Side A or Side B, as he had removed any labeling, leaving just 15 minutes of music on each side.

Let me give you more details. If you prefer to hear the songs for yourself first, then or go now and listen to the songs on that cassette on the playlist which you will find here.

Surf’s Up

Brian Wilson‘s passing yesterday reminded me that on one side of that tape – which I no longer have, naturally – were 4 songs by The Beach Boys. Not the songs I was used to hearing, but deeper, stranger stuff : Don’t Go Near The Water, Disney Girls and Surf’s Up, all coming from the 1971 album Surf’s Up which had been such a long time coming.

Brian Wilson had begun working on the song Surf’s Up in 1967 in the search for a new direction to take the group’s sound. All three songs in Robin‘s selection were dreamier than any of the Beach Boys‘ hits I knew, and I actually found myself liking the soothing effect they had on me. Why hadn’t I explored this side of music before?

Just to set me back on my feet at the end, Robin slipped in Breakaway as the final track. He said it was a hit single originally dating from roughly the same period as the others but that, listening to it after hearing the preceeding tracks should make it sound different to my ears. It was a lesson in musicology.

Voices and melodies

The flip side was different. It started with two tracks from Young Americans, the US-recorded soul-based album by David Bowie in 1975, because Robin was amazed that I had never heard this album and only knew the singles Fame and Young Americans. “Listen to the other songs beyond the singles, he said. Listen to the vocal work, he said, because you have to listen to the way the voices are woven together.” He chose Win and Can You Hear Me as examples, and they gave me the shivers because they were smoother, sweeter and probably more melodic than what I was used to listening to. Just like those Beach Boys songs from Surf’s Up still echoing in my head. To complete that side, he added Feed Me by Elton John from Rock of the Westies, his then most recent album, also US-recorded. Robin was a big fan of Elton John‘s rounded, crafted compositions, again because of the vocals and the melodies. He said to listen to the melodies : “They’re perfect, and his vocals are the perfect counterpoint.“

Brian Wilson in good company

I can honestly say I would never have listened to any of these without his nudging me. Robin and I lost touch as he graduated before me. But I’ve always been grateful for his shining that light.

Brian Wilson is now definitively in that other dimension he so seriously tried to explore during his life with us. Hope he finds that perfect wave. And company as good as Robin gave him in among all those voices and melodies.