I was born too late for the 60s, but as I grew up and started to discover pop music (often through my sister's record collection), there were two bands that stood out for me. Two bands which came to define 60s music for me. Music that is timeless. Music that represents the very best pop could be.
Those two bands were not the two obvious ones.
They were the Supremes... and The Beach Boys.
For me then, the passing of Brian Wilson last week is very hard to process. Words don't seem adequate to express how I feel about the Beach Boys, and without Brian, the Beach Boys wouldn't have existed.
Brian Wilson envisioned a USA that anyone would want to live in. A land of sun and surf and love and promise. Bruce Springsteen recognised that, and carried on the work in many of his own songs. When I was a kid, I dreamed of living in their America. Of course, it's a myth... today more than ever. But I don't think the UK is any better. It's just the way the world is turning. And at least America had that myth to strive towards... the Britain I grew up in didn't even have that. Instead, we had a bitter hankering for the days of the Empire... or a justifiable guilt for the same. Today, I'd still choose to live in Brian Wilson's America if it were an option... I hope his heaven is just like that.
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Back in 2012, I compiled My Top Ten Beach Boys Songs. I'd stand behind most of that list today. The Number One is indisputable. 13 years ago, I questioned whether it was "the greatest love song ever written". There is, of course, another contender to that title, that being my favourite song of all time. Objectively speaking, God Only Knows is probably even better than Wichita Lineman... but there's more to our favourites than objectivity. Still, God Only Knows is in my all time Top Ten... and this whole paragraph is the kind of nonsense a certain type of muso (myself included) spends far too much bandwidth worrying about.
If you should ever leave me
Well, life would still go on, believe me
The world could show nothing to me
So what good would living do me?
Rest in peace, Brian. You had a tough life, but a wonderful one. And your legacy is eternal...
Lovely memories of how you came to love The Beach Boys. I too would love to live in Brian's America - what a time to live in Southern California. We've missed the boat now.
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