I was preparing something else for this week’s midweek post but the sad news of Brian Wilson’s passing has changed that. I’ve already seen several tributes to the man and his music, and no doubt there will be many others, but it wouldn’t feel right for me not to add mine. I’m not going to go into a long description of his life, the troubles he went through with his mental health and his domineering father: others are far better qualified than I to discuss that. I just want to play you some of his music, which is what I have been doing since I heard the news yesterday.

I will share just one tribute before I start the tunes. This is what Elton John said last night:

Brian Wilson was always so kind to me from the day I met him. He sang ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight’ at a tribute concert in 2003, and it was an extraordinary moment for me. I played on his solo records, he sang on my album, The Union, and even performed for my AIDS Foundation. 

I grew to love him as a person, and for me, he was the biggest influence on my songwriting ever; he was a musical genius and revolutionary. He changed the goalposts when it came to writing songs and shaped music forever. A true giant.

That kind of says it all, really. My formative years for my musical tastes were the Sixties: I was born in 1953 and started getting into music from an early age, around 7, I think, and then came The Beatles! Not far behind, though we didn’t get as much radio coverage of them until the pirate radio stations redressed the balance, were The Beach Boys, but I fell in love with their sound. So today I’m going to play you some of their wonderful music – all are songs written or co-written by Brian.

‘They’ say you should leave the best for last, but sod it, what do ‘they’ know? Here’s one of Brian’s masterpieces:

Good Vibrations was released as a single in October 1966, and went to #1 just about everywhere that Wikipedia includes in its listings, going Platinum in both the US and the UK. It took months to write and record, which is why it missed out on being on their Pet Sounds album, but it did eventually feature on the follow up, Smiley Smile, the following year. The techniques Brian used to record the song were little short of revolutionary in the pop music world at that time: he has said that he took some influences from The Beatles’ Rubber Soul album, and they returned the compliment on Sgt Pepper.

The song was a far cry from the surfing simplicity of earlier Beach Boys songs, many of which I loved to bits and managed to get on compilation albums. Like this one:

Fun, Fun, Fun was a single in February 1964, and became the opening track on their album Shut Down Volume 2 the following month. That wasn’t their biggest selling album, reaching #13 in the US, but the single got to #5 there. Neither made the UK charts – I guess we needed some persuasion that summer could be full of sunshine and fun! But how could you not like that?

I mentioned Pet Sounds just now, and it seems right that I should play some of its tracks – namely, three of the singles it spawned, though two of them were released as a double A-side. After Caroline No, this was the second single, which Brian adapted from a Bahamian folk song:

Sloop John B was a big success, getting to #3 in the US and #2 in the UK – finally, the British record buying public had caught up with them! To be fair, they did get to #3 here the previous year with Barbara Ann, but as Brian didn’t write that one it is outside my scope for today.

This was the first track on the double A-side, still one of the best musical invitations for underage sex that I know:

Wouldn’t It Be Nice, of course. And here is the other side:

In the US the two sides were given their own chart placings: #8 and #39 respectively. Here in the UK God Only Knows emerged as the favoured track, peaking at #2. To my ears, it is one of the greatest love songs of all time, and why I’m so sad at the passing of a musical genius.

The real follow up to Good Vibrations – after a space filler – was another of Brian’s epics, one which actually did better in chart terms here than it did in the US. The single was shorter, but this is the full extended version:

Heroes And Villains was, as the video showed, recorded for the Smile sessions, which became the Smiley Smile album in September 1967. The abandoned album was reworked as The Smile Sessions in October 2011, largely due to Brian’s efforts. I bought Heroes And Villains as a single, and still love it to this day: it peaked at #8 in the UK and #12 in the US.

For my penultimate song today I’m playing another that did better here than across the pond, another which I bought and have always loved:

Do It Again was a kind of throwback to the band’s surfing days, deliberately revisiting those themes in its lyrics, and became a rather unlikely #1 here after it came out in July 1968. It only made #20 in the US, which might have been preoccupied with other things at the time, like war. A shame, really, as it is such a great song and encapsulates everything I, and so many others, love about The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson.

Having played seven of Brian’s finest, I thought that I shouldn’t go on for too long. But which one to sign off with? Having given this a fair bit of thought I’m going with the quirky B-side to Heroes And Villains:

Brian sometimes closed his solo concerts with You’re Welcome and it seems a fitting end to my tribute to this musical genius. Thank you, Brian, for the huge amount of pleasure your songs have given me for more than sixty years.

R.I.P. Brian Wilson