Brian Wilson 1942-2025

Some hit you hard and this is one. I didn’t expect to find myself crying. After all, these are the numbers when lifetimes end. At 82, Brian had lived to produce what will forever remain at the pinnacle of popular music, some of the greatest songs there are. “God Only Knows” is the spectacular, unearthly song that can only be said to be the workings of genius, pulled out of the cosmos and put together by him, his two brothers, two friends and a stellar studio band, as if an artifact of how good human creation can be. How great we are, when we aren’t doing the usual.

A friend of mine who I was in several bands with used to always go on about The Beach Boys, and I was dismissive. “Be True to Your School?” Give me a break. “Good Vibrations” was cool, “In My Room” was beautiful, but the clean-cut surfing ethos was lost on me, I hated those kind of granfalloons, guys with cars and surfboards and tans who got the girls. It was an illusion, of course, Brian himself never surfed, was shy and introverted. But my friend, Bart, insisted that I had to listen to later stuff, specifically the Pet Sounds album.

I did. It was revelation, and I became a Brian Wilson fan. The Beach Boys themselves were ok when they were still in orbit around Brian, but then with Brian’s retreat into his bed, the infamous and misnamed Mike Love turned them to a cash machine good time oldies touring band.

Brian’s story is long and complicated, with tragic elements of people taking advantage of his vulnerability, mental instabilities, and I won’t go into the details here, which are well known. He eventually rebounded somewhat, and toured with the terrific backing band, The Wondermints. I was living in the Back Bay of Boston at the time, and heard music coming from the Hatch Shell, familiar music, and as I got closer I realized it was Brian Wilson. There is something to be said for big cities. I later saw Brian at the Orpheum in Boston performing the Smile album, with a large band. It was an incredible thing.

That Brian was such a fragile guy is what got to me on hearing of his death, I think. Fragility gets steamrolled by the world, but in fragility, the most precious things are often found.

The world is best served when it protects its Brians.