[Brian Wilson passed away on June 11th, nine days shy of his 83rd birthday. The following was posted on the main Beach Boys forum I frequent, written straight off the top of my head, minimally edited. It’s rough, but honest.]
Brian Wilson changed my life with his incomparable music. I don’t mean simply enhanced it (although God knows that would have been enough), I mean actually changed the course of my life post summer 1975 when I took my headlong dive into the world of Wilson. I didn’t realise it at the time, nor did the true import dawn on me for decades, but fact is, the vast majority of what’s happened to me in the last fifty years is a direct result of Nick Kent’s three part NME article about Brian, June 1975. Consider: had I not developed, almost instantly, my obsession with Brian & The Beach Boys, I wouldn’t have started to find out as much as I possibly could, which led to subscribing to Beach Boys Stomp in 1977 and meeting renowned rock journalist John Tobler the following year. From that sprung such a writing career as I once had – why JT thought I’d be a good collabarator is an eternal mystery – and from that, my initial entree into the deeper world of BB fandom, the online community and Facebook. Along the way I had the great good fortune to meet Brian several times, mostly in meet ‘n’ greets where it was obvious he would rather have been anywhere else, but on a handful of occasions in a semi-social environment and there, when he was either surrounded by people he trusted or at a piano, a different Brian emerged: relaxed, funny, engaged, considerate. In 1985, in the studio in LA I sat open-mouthed as he played “Rhapsody In Blue” to an audience of me, watching the stress leave his body as the music worked its magic on him. Fast forward nineteen years to his dressing room at the RFH during the second BWPS run: a bunch of us had been granted admittance (bless you Jeff) and as you do I said “we met in 1985”, not thinking for a moment he’d remember. “Sure, you’re the interview guy, I played “Rhapsody In Blue” for you”. My brain froze. He remembered. He remembered me. I nearly cried. Another five years, it’s The Roundhouse, and as we stood in line for a photo he said to me from the corner of his mouth “sorry to hear about your mom”. She’d passed a few days earlier, yet somehow he knew (bless you again Jeff) and those few words meant the world to me. How I held it together I have no idea. That’s private Brian and I feel honoured to have experienced it for just a few fleeting moments.
Others far better qualified than I have praised his musical ability, but to even a musical illiterate such as I, what he did shone like a beacon because it hit us on an almost visceral level. Aside from the obvious, I recall hearing the “Midnight’s Another Day” demo and literally crying at the bleak magnificence of it. I think it’s the best thing he’s done since, oh, the seventies. F. Scott Fitzgerald once said “there are no second acts in American lives”… but he’d never met Brian Wilson. He had at least four and while the first was far and away the most glittering, what he achieved in the new millennium was by no means insignifcant, a stunning six year sweep from BWPS to BWRG, and the 2012 coda (fifth act?) of TWGMTR with it’s wrenching closing trilogy.
But… Brian’s crowning achievement may have been to simply survive and latterly flourish, to achieve a degree of peace and contentment. The stories behind that statement are all too well know to repeat here, but something BW friend and biographer David Leaf said back in the seventies makes you think (and I paraphrase slightly): “if Brian made music to make himself happy, imagine how unhappy he must have been feeling to write such powerful songs”. His passing was hardly unexpected but even so, it hit me much harder than I expected. In part this was eased by the astonishing level of both the coverage, and the outpouring of love and respect for him from all quarters… and yes, Brian was loved. Because he loved us, and because he was utterly loveable.
He’s at peace now, the voices are stilled and he’s reunited with his brothers, and for that I’m so happy for him… but on the 12th I woke to a world without Brian Wilson, and it was a world not a little diminished.
