Ken Barnes plays a key role in Ross on Radio, editing the newsletter that you read each week, continuing a relationship that goes back more than 40 years to the trade publication Radio & Records. Barnes is in the process of writing about his entire singles collection in alphabetical order for the forthcoming 45 Revelations. When Brian Wilson died, he was a logical go-to person for an appreciation, having already been one of the band’s early biographers.
Barnes wrote about two key Wilson moments—one definingly familiar, one not. Then we decided there should be a playlist, which follows.
The Pet Sounds album may have been too abrupt a transition from the basic Beach Boys sound — “Barbara Ann” had only recently dropped off of early 1966’s radio playlists. But Brian Wilson had one more universal touchstone in his back pocket.
“Good Vibrations” had been occupying a considerable portion of Brian’s time since February, simultaneously with his work on Pet Sounds. He would record segments of the song (he called them “feels”) and assemble them like a Rubik’s cube, cutting take after take. By some estimates the record cost more in session fees than the entirety of Pet Sounds (no lo-fi project itself). Different versions came close to completion, but Brian remained unsatisfied until endless vocal sessions were finished in late September, finally consummating his unified feels theory.
The wait, of course, was well worth it. Released in mid-October, “Good Vibrations” was No. 1 by the end of November, and has been acclaimed in many polls as the best single of all time. Millions of airings later, it still sounds remarkable. Five distinct modules (depending on how you count) are integrated with deceptive seamlessness: an ethereal verse conjuring the “blossom world” of the lyrics; the driving, doowop-flavored chorus; a wordless bridge headed toward sensations of elation; a sudden plunge into foreboding church organ and an undercurrent of doubt mixed with determination to preserve the vibes; and the wordless burst of harmonies toward the end that leads into the otherworldly electro-theremin coda. It doesn’t matter that Michael Love’s words, after the evocative first verse, are flower-power gabble – it was flower-power gabble perfectly timed for the changing times.
Brian’s modular structure prefigured the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life”; the Who’s first mini-opera, “A Quick One While He’s Away”; Jimmy Webb’s “MacArthur Park”; and many others. In that sense, “Good Vibrations” is for better and worse a crucially influential record, one of the cornerstones of progressive rock and a musical forefather of anything that plays outside the confines of the classic pop song. Is it also the greatest single? I’m not ready to call that shot; my copout is overfamiliarity. Even a record as luminous as “Good Vibrations” grows stale with too much exposure; we simply know it too well.
Whatever history’s verdict on the single, it’s clear looking back that it represents the Beach Boys’ career peak. They had, for now, won the great race. This competition among the top pop acts to outdo each other with each new release had raged since 1963, when Phil Spector and Jack Nitzsche first declared their intentions to revolutionize American music with little symphonies for the kids. The Beatles and the Stones, the Beach Boys and the Four Seasons, Motown’s Holland/Dozier/Holland (and, later, Norman Whitfield), Bob Dylan and the Byrds submitted their entries along the way. The Beach Boys, that family act from the Southern California suburbs, scorned by the real surf bands as posers who couldn’t play their instruments, had become – by some measures, including popularity polls that ranked them over the Beatles in the latter group’s homeland – the world’s reigning pop group, and “Good Vibrations” (and by association, Pet Sounds) the high-water mark everyone else aspired to match.
It was a long way down from the pinnacle. Tormented by his failure to complete the even-more-ambitious Smile album in 1967, Brian increasingly withdrew from the leadership of the band he’d started. The 1971 B-side “’Til I Die” is his last transcendent record with the Beach Boys. There would be further minor highlights and flashes of musical brilliance, but from this point on his songs were hamstrung by an unavoidable element of juvenility (or simplicity, if you’re inclined to be kind).
Perhaps those latter efforts were the best anyone could reasonably expect from an afflicted individual tormented internally and externally in unimaginable ways, but Wilson certainly never again approached the profound combination of mordantly resigned philosophical detachment and somber serenity in “’Til I Die.” The ending round is as poignant as the one on “God Only Knows” is uplifting. If a record can fairly be called heartbreaking, “’Til I Die” fully qualifies.
And now here are 18 more key moments:
“Surfin’ USA”: The Beach Boys determined that the musical format of Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” would ideally suit their latest ode to surfing’s nationwide conquest. However naïve their concept may have been, it worked (ultimately to Berry’s benefit), nearly becoming their first No. 1.
“Shut Down”: A sterling example of car-crazy acuity, this near-top-20 “Surfin’ USA” B-side was their first big hot-rod hit. A record by Los Angeles DJ Roger Christian, “The Last Drag,” supplied many of the lyrics and plot points.
“Surfer Girl”: Among the other changes it rang in, “Surfer Girl” brought traditional romance to the beach. The first surf ballad hit, it set swooning falsetto and billowy harmonies to an almost-too-sweet melody, with words to match.
“In My Room”: In 1963 Brian Wilson was certainly not yet the eccentric recluse who hung out in a sandbox. Obviously, though, the prolific composer/producer/arranger required a certain amount of alone time, and, intentionally or not, he further broadened the Beach Boys’ appeal by crafting an anthem for the nerds. The record reached virtually hymn-like levels of haunting delicacy, capped by Brian’s achingly pure final falsetto flight.
“Fun, Fun, Fun”: The Beatles had landed when this early-1964 record charted, but its top 5 success showed that the Beach Boys’ audience was still receptive to carefree tales of teenage hedonism. The lyrics, though initially credited solely to Brian Wilson, are a classic Mike Love teen fantasy.
“The Warmth of the Sun”: An early-1964 album track picked as a non-competitive B-side to “Dance, Dance, Dance” half a year later, this lush ballad wraps some of Mike and Brian’s most desolate lyrics in swaths of dense harmonies, embodying the sunglow that is the forsaken singer’s sole consolation.
“Drive-In”: When asked his favorite composition for a ’90s documentary, he named this All Summer Long LP track. The filmmakers, who were anticipating something from Pet Sounds, were jolted by his selection of yet another carefree tale of teenage hedonism, but he was dead serious.
“Don’t Worry Baby”: Brian’s growing obsession with Phil Spector’s production techniques is put to spectacular use here – the urgent immediacy of Spector’s full-barreled sonic attack has its edges softened by a yearning melody and lulling harmonies. Even an element so seemingly inconsequential as the dead-simple string-plunking of the guitar was lifted wholesale as the anchoring motif for one of the most revolutionary records in pop history, “Mr. Tambourine Man” by the Byrds.
“She Knows Me Too Well”: The first of three B-sides taken from the “ballad” side of The Beach Boys Today album. Slightly less sophisticated but possibly even more melodically wondrous than the more widely acclaimed Pet Sounds, Today’s second side is for the most part a suite of pure elegance. Beginning with the alarming line “Sometimes I have a weird way of showing my love,” “She Knows Me” is a stark confession of male frailty and fallibility remarkable for the time, long before the days of singer-songwriters who poured out their every neurosis at the drop of a guitar pick.
“California Girls”: All of Mike Love’s pandering to regional beauties had the good fortune to be introduced by an elegant keyboard introduction that, for once, actually deserves the threadbare description “iconic.” The chorus is as hooky as anything Brian ever wrote, and if you can somehow banish the impact of the millions of times you’ve heard it or the hit David Lee Roth cover from 1985, it’s a mesmerizing and magnificent record.
“Girl Don’t Tell Me”: Flip side of “Barbara Ann,” this one may be the single most charming Beach Boys composition. It sounds dead simple (though it isn’t; check the chords sometime) and wistfully transcendent.
“God Only Knows”: Paired with “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” it made up a split-airplay half of one of the greatest double-sided hit singles in pop history. Beneath its majestic, circular melodic structure and choir-like bonus round of harmonies lies one clingy love song: What appears to be an expression of devotion projects a morbid fear of abandonment and even terminal despair that would appall the object of its obsessions. At the time, some media gatekeepers were reportedly concerned that the lyrics were taking the Lord’s name in vain; maybe they should have keeping an eye on the emotional support hotlines instead.
“Surf’s Up”: The grail, the great white wail, this track from the uncompleted Smile album had surfaced briefly in April 1967 in a piano/vocal performance by Brian on a Leonard Bernstein TV special and had been instantly canonized. Even in this stark setting, with Brian’s falsetto raging nearly out of control, the song’s extraordinary ambition and obscurity are evident. Carl Wilson polished it up, augmented it, and sang it himself for 1971’s same-titled album; Brian’s version can be heard on 2011’s Smile Sessions box.
“Do It Again”: This 1968 comeback hit is possibly a little too simplistic, eventually becoming another of those Beach Boys classics that became dulled from overexposure. But there’s no denying the hypnotic potency of the record’s throbbing bassline, and just when it’s starting to sound too monolithic, they throw in that lovely reflective bridgelet that harks all the way back to the “lonely sea.”
“Break Away”: Written with Brian’s estranged father, Murry Wilson, this 1969 orphan single tends to be underrated, but it’s a glorious return to form, combining the sophistication of Pet Sounds with the exuberance of the group’s earlier hits. But – taking into consideration Brian’s well-documented, ongoing aural-hallucination affliction – there’s a disturbing couplet that strikes a little too close to the bone: “When I lay down on my bed/I heard voices in my head.”
“This Whole World”: Mysteriously relegated to a 1970 B-side, it’s a spectacular mantra mesh of doowop and TM, meditated to the songs Brian loved as a kid. The music – from Carl’s unutterably sweet lead vocal to the everpresent, gently decorative chimes to the sublimely witty “aum bop-did-it” background chant that holds the song together – is otherworldly. The song’s astonishing intricacy defines Brian Wilson’s unique gifts in two minutes flat.
“Honkin’ Down the Highway”: Brian’s last time at the controls of a Beach Boys album, 1977’s The Beach Boys Love You, divided fans and critics as few of the group’s albums have – some view it as an endearing, eccentric audio-verité snapshot of the state of Brian Wilson, others see an alarmingly dumbed-down, eccentric snapshot of an artist whose frightening decline was just starting to come to public attention.
“Honkin’ Down the Highway,” the sole song deemed single-worthy in the U.S., is one of the album’s more conventional tunes, with a solid cruising rhythm and subtle melodic shifts that reassure concerned listeners that its author’s musical gifts are substantially intact. Even the most concerned listener is bound to smile at the opening line: “Honking, honking down the gosh-darn highway.”
“Love and Mercy”: Brian’s solo career had its missteps, its traumas, and its triumphs, but hits were sadly absent. This track from his debut album on his own, a touchstone to past glories, has at least attained the status of the standard-bearing anthem for his final decades.
