Brian Wilson: Saying goodbye to summer

The Beach Boys' final song was titled Summer's Gone. A tribute to youth, the band's saddest song: "Summer is over. I'll sit and watch the waves. We laughed, we cried. We lived, we died." Goodbye Brian Wilson, goodbye summer.

Brian Wilson performing on stage at the 54th Grammy Awards in 2012 - Photo: AFP

A jump from A major to F major on a 12-string guitar, a sudden, atonal leap, as if pulling us into a bright dream—that's how The Beach Boys' song "Wouldn't It Be Nice?" began, that's how their album "Pet Sounds" began, and that's how a new chapter of popular music began.

The Beach Boys didn't try to trick us at all.

In 1965, Brian Wilson heard The Beatles' Rubber Soul . The album's unique quality sparked an ambition in Wilson: to create the greatest rock album, one that would surpass Rubber Soul . However, this seemingly grand ambition was actually quite modest, as he only aimed for the album to remain popular for ten years.

Wilson ultimately surpassed its 10-year target. For nearly 60 years, Pet Sounds has remained a musical marvel.

People are still amazed by the sophisticated arrangements of the 13 songs, and still listen attentively to the stories about how Wilson pioneered transforming the recording studio into a sound laboratory.

The Beach Boys - Wouldn't It Be Nice

There's the bridge of God Only Knows with the sound of sleigh bells blending with piano and harpsichord. Then there's Wilson mimicking dog barking and the sound of a passing train to conclude Caroline, No. 1.

Wilson's recordings feature a long list of instruments, from familiar ones like guitar, piano, accordion, flute, bass, and organ to lesser-known instruments like timpani and güiro, even a piano with weights placed on the hammers, and things that aren't instruments at all, like soda cans or cups.

Goodbye Brian Wilson

Avant-garde as it may be, what perhaps makes the Beach Boys' music most beloved is that it doesn't try to trick us. Despite its complexity, the songs don't seem dangerous, nor do they shy away from the listener or appear more intelligent than them.

The harmonies in The Beach Boys' music are incredibly beautiful; they use dissonances without being jarring, they flow seamlessly and harmoniously like waves continuously merging and dissolving into each other – music that seems measured by the golden ratio, music that can only be heard in dreams.

Listening to The Beach Boys' music, it's hard to imagine that their songwriter and main producer lived a life tormented by depression.

The Beach Boys' music is so bright, so full of joy, not the kind of superficial joy that makes you jump for joy, but a kind of enduring joy that radiates from within.

The music, inspired by Californian summers and surfers, seems to contain a gentle sun, a smile—a soft one, but one that never fades.

In real life, that smile sometimes fades. Brian Wilson has admitted at times that he's run out of ideas. On the one hand, he expressed his displeasure when Paul McCartney called "God Only Knows" the greatest song ever written, "If that's the case, then what do I have left to do?", Wilson asked.

On the other hand, he claimed to be running out of ideas. That contradiction is very human. Unlike the other members of The Beatles who constantly "competed" with a desire to prove themselves, Brian even felt guilty for being labeled a genius, fearing that people would pay more attention to him than the band, and so he gradually reduced his activities with the group.

That's probably good for The Beach Boys too. With The Beatles, listening to their music was also listening to their lives and their fame. But with The Beach Boys, listening to their music is simply listening to music; we get to enjoy it in its purest form.

We don't even know that the person who created this surfing-themed music doesn't actually surf. We don't care about Brian Wilson's personal life. We only care about the harmonies, the sound experiments, the melodies.

The Beach Boys' final song was titled Summer's Gone. A tribute to youth, the band's saddest song: "Summer is over. I'll sit and watch the waves. We laughed, we cried. We lived, we died." Goodbye Brian Wilson, goodbye summer.

In The Rolling Stones' 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, Pet Sounds ranked second, behind only The Beatles ' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band . But without Pet Sounds , without the studio experiments of Brian Wilson, the musical genius who recently passed away at the age of 82, would there be Sgt. Pepper's ?

Let me borrow the title of a classic song by The Beach Boys to answer right away: God Only Knows.

HIEN TRANG

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/brian-wilson-tien-mot-mua-he-20250615090438132.htm