25 Essential Brian Wilson Songs

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Listening to Brian Wilson's music was like growing up with him. Beginning with songs about teenage kicks like surfing, driving, and chasing girls, he matured into thoughtful and introspective meditations on young adulthood and the eternal quests for 'Good Vibrations' and 'Love and Mercy.' As a songwriter, arranger, and producer he blended the sensibilities of Fifties vocal pop, Wall of Sound girl groups, and a love of Chuck Berry's lyrical joie de vivre into the Beach Boys' unique sound, thanks in no small part to his ear for complex harmonies and unforgettable melodies. The Beach Boys were America's first great rock group, and their influence — and Brian Wilson's songwriting — has been reverberating ever since. Here are 25 of his greatest songs.
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Elton John Calls Late Brian Wilson 'The Biggest Influence on My Songwriting'The Beach Boys' second single, and first for Capitol Records, was directly inspired by Chuck Berry's mix of simple chords and lyrics with a list of place names. 'Surfin' Safari' is one of the group's many tributes to California, with an open invitation to their fans to join them on the shores of Huntington, Malibu, and Laguna. Upon its release, 'Surfin' Safari' would prove to be a big surprise to the label: places like Phoenix, Detroit, and New York City (where there was notably no surfing) would be integral to the song's radio success. Giving the song its extra edge were the counterpoint harmonies that became the Beach Boys' signature, thanks to Wilson's brilliant vocal arrangements. It was the band's first song to feature them. —Brittany Spanos When one thinks of the California Sound, the Beach Boys' 1963 hit is the archetype. Building upon the previous success of their surf soundtracks, 'Surfin' U.S.A.' perfects the model. Wilson rewrote Chuck Berry's 'Sweet Little Sixteen' with lyrics about all the places one could surf while further emphasizing that California is the dream place to do so. The song peaked at Number Three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, though Billboard would name it the Number One song of the year. An album of the same name would follow a few months later, one Wilson would describe as an example of his rapid mastering of the production skills that showcased the boys' voices. —B.S.The Beach Boys were just beginning their run of hits that offered a utopian vision of life in Southern California, and Brian Wilson was already looking to write songs that communicated something more intimate and complicated underneath the sun and fun. 'In My Room' is his ode to the comfort and solace he can only find when he's alone in his private world. He was inspired by memories of times he'd spent as a child singing with his brothers in the bedroom they shared, which made Dennis and Carl's performance on the track especially poignant. 'You're not afraid when you're in your room. It's absolutely true,' he later said. The beautiful melancholic song suggested new emotional possibilities for rock that also could be heard in the Beatles' 'There's a Place,' and it echoes forward through the years — in a sense, it might be considered the first emo song. —Jon DolanThe Beach Boys' omnipresent Christmas carol 'Little Saint Nick' is really just another Beach Boys song, 'Little Deuce Coupe,' with mistletoe. Brian Wilson conceded as much in his memoir, I Am Brian Wilson. But despite his dismissiveness, the song, which he co-wrote with Mike Love, has had as much staying power as anything else he wrote since its catchy 'Merry Christmas, Saint Nick' refrain and reminder that 'Christmas comes each time this year' have made playing it a yuletide tradition. It's at once a great hot-rod song, a great rock song, and a great Christmas song, which explains why it reached its Billboard chart peak (Number 25) last year, and will likely return to the charts when Christmas comes again. —Kory GrowThe impact that the Ronettes' 'Be My Baby' had on Brian Wilson can hardly be overstated. He told one interviewer that he'd listened to it 'more than 1,000 times' — probably a low estimate — and frequently recounted the story of how he'd pulled over his car when he first heard it on the radio in 1963, floored by Phil Spector's force-of-nature studio sound. 'I felt like I wanted to try to do something as good as that song, and I never did,' Wilson lamented. Make up your own mind when you listen to this 1964 Beach Boys classic, which he wrote with lyricist Roger Christian in the hopes that Spector would record it with the Ronettes (Spector wasn't interested). Wilson's vision of a drag racer who might be heading out to meet his doom, and the consoling words he holds onto, has a mournful power that goes much deeper than the cars-and-girls canon it's still technically part of. —Simon Vozick-LevinsonOn one hand, the Beach Boys' first chart-topping single feels pretty basic: If you don't pay much attention at first, it feels like the first surf-world bragging song ('Yeah, the bad guys know us and they leave us alone'), and that ridiculously propulsive chorus, driven by Wilson's falsetto, conjures the sound of a car shifting gears as it tears out of town. But this being a Brian Wilson track, 'I Get Around' is also multilayered. Was it his response to the British Invasion bands that were starting to home in on the Beach Boys' turf in 1964? ('Some people were saying we were even better, that our songs were more interesting or sophisticated or created more positive energy,' Wilson wrote about the song in I Am Brian Wilson.) Was it, as Love has said, their commentary on their newfound fame and fortune and how itchy it made them? Did Murry Wilson prod Brian into a fight during the recording by messing with the arrangement? Not so simple after all, but Brian wouldn't have had it any other way. —David BrowneA slow shuffling declaration of love, 'The Warmth of the Sun' benefits from Brian Wilson's elastic falsetto, his knack for vocal harmonies that support and elevate a melody, and the deep passion he sang with. 'My love's like the warmth of the sun, it won't ever die,' he sings at the end before oohing and ahhing his way into the fadeout like he's in ecstasy. You wouldn't know it from the song, but he and Mike Love wrote it the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. 'I called Mike and he asked me if I wanted to write a song about it,' Wilson wrote in I Am Brian Wilson. 'I said sure.' He estimated it took all of half an hour to write, but it was special enough for him to rank it with 'Good Vibrations,' 'California Girls,' and 'Caroline, No' as his best songs. —K.G.In just over two minutes, Wilson and co-writer Mike Love tell an ultra-catchy tale of teenage rebellion, parental retribution, and eventual salvation. Powered by Chuck Berry riffs, ace backing vocals, and forward momentum that makes everything feel like a speeding T-bird, the 1964 hit feels like another classic snapshot of California adolescence — even if the real-life T-Bird-borrowing teen who inspired it was from Utah. –Christian HoardTalk about a song that could have ended up in the scrap heap. Brian Wilson himself wanted to sing this song when it was first cut on The Beach Boys Today!, then decided Al Jardine was the best choice. ('I produced the Beach Boys so I decided who would sing lead,' Wilson later said.) In the studio, Jardine struggled with his new task. If that wasn't iffy enough, the first version felt cutesy and rinky-dink. But the guitar-heavier remake on the following year's Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) doesn't just nail the arrangement at last — it also transforms what was once a novelty into one of the most jubilant songs in the band's canon. Wilson's instincts were right. Who can't sing along with that chorus, particularly the bow-bow-wow part? Even if the mythical Rhonda (or 'Ronda,' as it was first spelled) doesn't come to the rescue of the jilted narrator, the music does. —D.B.In 1965, as the story goes, Brian Wilson took LSD for the first time, sat down at a piano, and wrote 'California Girls.' In subsequent years he'd clarify that he actually wrote it a little later, in the afterglow of that first trip, but the myth suits the grandeur of the song — an early hint of the orchestral majesty and spiritual yearning to come, draped almost comically over Mike Love's lyrics about cuties in bikinis. 'California Girls' was one of Wilson's favorite Beach Boys songs, and with good reason; it's something like the ultimate expression of the group's first golden era, and the beginning of everything else. Fifty years later, he told Rolling Stone he was still stuck on those chords. 'I can't write a song to save my life,' he said. 'I sit at the piano and try, but all I want to do is rewrite 'California Girls.' How am I gonna do something better than that?' —S.V.L.Brian Wilson came up with 'Girl Don't Tell Me' on his honeymoon, committing the idea to memory so he could write it down and finish it when he got back home. Taking huge inspiration from the Beatles, especially 'Ticket to Ride,' which the song mirrors lyrically and musically, he wrote a lovely ode to the dejected feeling that comes when a summer crush fails to turn into something more. He handed the vocal to Carl Wilson, who sang it minus any backing vocals, upping the song's sense of stark teenage romantic betrayal. —J.D.Few people experienced more bad vibrations than Brian Wilson, but even by 1966, he was still able to create the sound of sunshine. 'Good Vibrations' is a monumentally complex, cut-and-paste masterpiece, a series of mini compositions recorded in pieces, with a nonlinearity that feels decades ahead of its time. Wilson brought his sublime creations, and his bandmate Mike Love brought the ridiculous — rhyming vibrations with the nonword 'excitations.' Somehow, the song needed both. —Brian HiattThe cresting harmonies and exquisite arrangement of 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' help transform a narrative of teenage longing — potentially saccharine in other hands — into an existential, universal quest for a 'world where we belong.' Wilson dictated every bit of the recording, going as far as to sing the opening fill to master session drummer Hal Blaine: 'It's like this … Boom, ba-doom … first beat of the last bar of the intro.' The result was one of the most perfect songs ever made. —B.H.'God Only Knows' is widely considered to be one of the greatest songs of all time, so beloved that even Paul McCartney hailed it as his favorite. Despite its dazzling musical complexity, it came together fairly quickly. 'I could say that I really worked forever on it, that I spent a year imagining how the melody would work and another year on the lyrics,' Brian Wilson said. 'But the facts are that Tony [Asher] and I sat down at a piano and wrote it in 45 minutes.' The Pet Sounds masterpiece contains sleigh bells, French horns, and Carl Wilson's finest vocal performance. It was a daring and unconventional love song at the time, from its starting line ('I may not always love you') to its use of the word 'God.' It concludes with vocal rounds, giving the song a heavenly quality. 'That's the feeling,' Wilson said, 'That it could go on forever.' —Angie MartoccioAl Jardine was tuned into the folk revival when he suggested to Brian Wilson that the Beach Boys should cover this traditional West Indies shanty about an awful boat ride. Wilson wasn't impressed: 'He said, 'I'm not a big fan of the Kingston Trio,'' Jardine later recalled. 'He wasn't into folk music. But I didn't give up on the idea.' After some structural tweaks by Jardine, Wilson warmed to the song, giving it a sprightly arrangement full of flutes that showcased his brilliance as a studio maestro. He ended up giving 'Sloop John B.' prime placement as the last song on Side A of Pet Sounds — the only non-original on the track list, and an effective counterpoint to the profoundly personal expressions all around it. —S.V.L.'God Only Knows' might be the best song on Pet Sounds, but Brian Wilson's favorite was always the final track, 'Caroline, No.' 'I did it all by myself,' he said. 'I wrote the music. I sang the vocal. I even wrote the title, in a way.' It's a devastating closer: 'Where did your long hair go? Where is the girl I used to know?' he sings with his voice sped up, making him sound younger than he was. The whimsical flourishes — featuring two barking dogs, a water jug, and a passing locomotive train — only make it sweeter, like some LSD-fueled fever dream. 'Her hair gets shorter,' Wilson said. 'But most of the change is in how the guy sees her. She doesn't seem as happy to him, and when she doesn't seem as happy, then she doesn't make him as happy. It was a cycle that kept going.' —A.M.Ad man Tony Asher gave voice to Brian Wilson's feelings of alienation in the lyrics to this Pet Sounds highlight, and Wilson matched them with one of his most sensitive arrangements. 'Sometimes I feel very sad,' he sings with exceptional candor as the Beach Boys' haunting contrapuntal harmonies rise up around him, along with shuddering harpsichords, clarinets, and timpanis. (The song also features the first-ever use of a theremin in a pop song. 'I wanted it to sound eerie, and that ended up with a situation where I introduced a new instrument to rock & roll,' Wilson would later write.) 'I Just Wasn't Made for These Times' sums up so much about Wilson — all the pain, all the beauty that came from the knowledge that he wasn't like everyone else. —S.V.L.From his odes to Johnny Carson and vegetables to 'She's Goin' Bald,' Brian Wilson wasn't afraid to let his obsessions and oddball infatuations run wild. But when it came to blending what-the-hell? imagery with an arrangement that felt like a trip into a musical funhouse, this Smile (and later Smiley Smile) sonic contraption can't be beat. His first collaboration with Van Dyke Parks, 'Heroes and Villains' hustles and bustles out of the gate with lyrics that suggest an Old West homage. But its shifts — into a wordless vocal chorale that sounds like the hippest barbershop quintet and elliptical lyrics that don't adhere to that initial storyline — are both baffling and uplifting. At his peak, no one packed more into a few minutes of pop than Wilson did. —D.B.The collapse of the Smile sessions in the spring of 1967 was a major setback for Brian Wilson, but that narrative sometimes obscures the fact that he was back to creating some incredible pop songs by later that same year — like this sparkling garage-R&B gem from Wild Honey, released that December. Reusing the verse melody he'd written a few years earlier for a forgotten 45 by teen singer Sharon Marie, called 'Thinkin' 'Bout You Baby,' and tacking on an ecstatic new chorus with help from Mike Love, Wilson called in a barn burner of a lead vocal from his brother Carl and came up with a mini masterpiece. Many years later, a trio of young French musicians called themselves Darlin' in its honor before slimming down to a duo and picking a new name: Daft Punk. —S.V.L.Mike Love and Brian Wilson were one of the all-time great songwriting partnerships in the first half of the Sixties, and though Wilson's genius eventually sent him searching for other collaborators in the decade's second half, the two very different cousins reunited in 1968 for one perfect throwback. ''Do It Again' was written at Mike's house in Beverly Hills,' Wilson would recall later. 'He and I wrote that song together in about 45 minutes. It came very fast. He came up with that lyric so fast I couldn't believe it.' Though the good old days they were writing about were only about three years in the rearview at the time, Wilson and Love conjured just the right sense of dawning nostalgia to set up decades of feel-good vibes for fans. —S.V.L.A gem from the abandoned Smile album, 'Surf's Up' is one of the earliest songs Brian Wilson wrote with Van Dyke Parks, when he famously put a sandbox around his living room piano for inspiration. Officially released five years later as the title track to their 1971 album Surf's Up, it's one of the Beach Boys' most stunning songs, featuring references to short stories by Edgar Allan Poe and Guy de Maupassant, a Moog synthesizer, and backing vocals from the Wilson family (even Brian's wife at the time, Marilyn, sang on it). 'Once someone told me that someone they had met said that 'Surf's Up' was important and really great,' Wilson wrote in his memoir, I Am Brian Wilson. ''Oh,' I said. 'Who?' My head was turned when they said the name so I didn't really hear. 'Say it again,' I said and turned my head the right way. The person who thought it was great was Leonard Bernstein. Can you even imagine?' —A.M.Brian Wilson returned to the Beach Boys touring lineup in 1976 for a successful run of 'Brian's Back!' shows, and the next year he oversaw the creation of a new record, The Beach Boys Love You, for the first time since Pet Sounds. The original title was 'Brian Wilson Loves You,' since it's a solo album in everything but name. Wilson wrote nearly every song himself, and played practically all the instruments, including a state-of-the art synthesizer. The highlight is the gentle ballad 'The Night Was So Young,' which is supposedly about Wilson's relationship with his mistress, Debbie Keil. 'The moon shining bright on my window sill,' he wrote. 'I think of her lips, it chills me inside.' Much like 'God Only Knows' a dozen years earlier, Wilson gave it to his kid brother Carl to sing. And once again, Carl made the words sparkle with tenderness and longing. —Andy GreeneThe late Seventies were not an easy time for Brian Wilson. He was drinking heavily, doing cocaine, going through a divorce, and was briefly institutionalized at a mental hospital. In his memoir, I Am Brian Wilson, he describes 1978 as 'one of the worst years of my life.' But despite his despair and deteriorating health, he still made music, like this highlight from 1980's Keepin' the Summer Alive. It's a euphoric, unabashed outpouring of love that borders on doo-wop, with layers and layers of harmonies that the Beach Boys shed off like a sweater on the beach. Even Wilson, who said those years were painful for him to think about, admitted he liked the song. 'Most fans of the band don't like those records,' he said. 'Some fans don't even know about them. There are only a few songs on those records that I like when I think about them, like 'Good Timin'' and 'Goin' On,' but mostly they aren't worth thinking about too hard.' —A.M.While Brian Wilson's third solo album got a lukewarm reception, its lead single, 'Your Imagination,' ended up becoming a radio hit. On the track, Wilson is in a nostalgic mood, referencing the types of early songs he made with the Beach Boys. 'Another car running fast/Another song on the beach/I take a trip through the past,' he sings on the song's first verse, adding a touch of sadness to the summery references, nearly 40 years after Wilson's lyrics and arrangements helped define what a summer song should sound like. —B.S.Although Brian Wilson sings that he was 'sittin' in a crummy movie' in the opening lines of 'Love and Mercy,' the song really came to him where they usually do, at his piano bench, in about 45 minutes. 'I was sitting there with a bottle of champagne, kind of buzzed, thinking of a song by [Burt] Bacharach and [Hal] David, 'What the World Needs Now Is Love,'' he wrote of the song in his memoir, I Am Brian Wilson. 'I wanted to write a song about what the world needed. It needed love and mercy.' The track is a moving, gentle ballad — as good as Wilson's Sixties ruminations — and its message resounds today. —K.G.
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