Brian Wilson\u2019s death provides another opportunity for a review of his creative output and artistic struggles. Both were a reflection, if indirectly, of the broader contradictory interaction between the peak of the post-World War II economic boom in the US and the conscious struggle for artistic expression in the 1960s.<\/p>\n
The WIlson brothers, 1963<\/p>\n
David Walsh\u2019s\u00a0essay from 2000<\/a>\u00a0examines the general socio-economic processes at work that formed the broader backdrop of the \u201cCalifornia sound\u201d that the Beach Boys contributed towards creating.\u00a0<\/p>\n The particular factors of Brian Wilson\u2019s musical vision and how it developed also deserves a comment, and a good point of departure could be re-dissecting the title of \u201cgenius\u201d bestowed upon him since 1966.<\/p>\n \u201cSurfin\u2019 Safari\u201d<\/a>\u00a0was recorded in 1962, and in it one can already notice the vocal and harmonic interplay that would become one of Wilson\u2019s compositional trademarks. In August 1964, Wilson wrote \u201cShe Knows Me Too Well,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0which appeared on the album\u00a0The Beach Boys Today!, released in 1965. The maturation of Wilson\u2019s musical sensibilities within just two years (compositionally, melodically and harmonically), with various inflection points alomng the way,\u00a0is one of the most astonishing to be found in popular music during the 1960s.<\/p>\n Other artists of the time made their own rapidly progressive developments in their respective musical fields, the most well-known being the Beatles and Bob Dylan, but also other California-based groups like Love (e.g., from their first garage rock album to \u201cAndmoreagain\u201d and \u201cOld Man\u201d) and Buffalo Springfield (e.g., from their first record to Neil Young\u2019s \u201cExpecting to Fly\u201d), as well as Miles Davis and John Coltrane in the field of jazz. But what explains Wilson\u2019s singular development, and what did it reflect about his contemporaneous artistic, cultural, and social milieu?<\/p>\n Before the\u00a0Today!\u00a0record, Brian Wilson\u2019s ear for composition and production was moving more firmly into the style of doo wop and Phil Spector territory than the rock and roll camp. The Beach Boys were heavily indebted to rock and roll (the instrumental \u201cStoked,\u201d the \u201cJohnny B. Goode\u201d riff in the intro of \u201cFun Fun Fun,\u201d etc.), but it was something about pop music, the intricate vocal harmonies found in doo wop and their correspondingly emotional impact that captured Wilson\u2019s ear more than the overdriven guitar tones and brash rhythms of rock and roll.<\/p>\n The band members were very young during the early-to-mid 1960s, and one, naturally, comes across many examples of juvenile topics and expressions in their early output (\u201cChug-A-Lug,\u201d \u201cShut Down,\u201d \u201cSurfer\u2019s Rule,\u201d etc.). As Walsh wrote: \u201cAfter the despair of the Depression and the traumas and restrictions of the war period, money in one’s pocket and the ability to lift one’s head and have a little freedom of movement must have been welcome.\u201d On the other hand, the band\u2019s early output includes the gorgeously simplistic\u00a0\u201cSurfer Girl,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0the big hits that have lost none of their arresting power (\u201cIn My Room,\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t Worry, Baby\u201d, etc.), their rendition of \u201cTheir Hearts Were Full of Spring\u201d (and their own version of the song, \u201cA Young Man is Gone\u201d) and the vocal break in\u00a0\u201cWhy Do Fools Fall in Love?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n While record company executives pushed the band\u2019s surfer and hot-rod aesthetics on the market, one of the outstanding inflection points during their remarkably productive pre-Today!\u00a0period is the song\u00a0\u201cWarmth of the Sun.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0The background to its composition, noted in James Brewer\u2019s obituary<\/a>, disproves the widely held belief that the band was impervious to the tumultuous socio-political events of the 1960s, but does not disprove it completely.<\/p>\n The Beach Boys Today!\u00a0was recorded during both\u00a0the peak<\/a> of the postwar economic boom in the U.S., as well as during the intensification of the competition between the most popular music acts on either side of the Atlantic Ocean. These factors, combined with Wilson\u2019s increasing fascination with and emulation of Phil Spector\u2019s recording techniques, in conjunction with the shift of the band\u2019s thematic focus away from surfing and cars, were the objective impulses behind the\u00a0Today!\u00a0album.<\/p>\n While consistently ebullient (\u201cDo You Wanna Dance?\u201d), the former artistically silly and inconsequential qualities of the Beach Boys\u2019s music organically transformed into a more earnest approach to growing up (\u201cWhen I Grow Up\u201d), love (\u201cKiss Me, Baby\u201d) and heartache (\u201cPlease Let Me Wonder\u201d). The album contains the band\u2019s most mature, sophisticated, and honest material up to that point, with the voice of none other than Dennis Wilson, who sang the innocent \u201cLittle Girl (You\u2019re My Miss America)\u201d two years prior, convincingly painting the portrait of a nervous and neurotic young man in love on the album\u2019s enigmatic conclusion, \u201cIn the Back of My Mind.\u201d<\/p>\n The cumulative effect of\u00a0Today!\u00a0leaves one with the impression that while the band and Wilson weren\u2019t explicitly or implicitly addressing the objective conditions of social and political reality in their music (social inequality, war, civil rights), the multifaceted perturbations in postwar America were nonetheless beginning to penetrate and disturb their previously bright and sunny outlook.\u00a0<\/p>\n The contradiction is that while Wilson reacted\u00a0socially\u00a0by gazing more inward than outward, his\u00a0artistic\u00a0response blossomed and became more advanced.<\/p>\n During the band\u2019s transition into its musical adolescence, that is, during the uneven transition between the\u00a0Today!\u00a0and\u00a0Pet Sounds, Brian Wilson explored more openly less conventional modulation technique in the chorus of \u201cCalifornia Girls\u201d (which Wilson said\u00a0in 2010<\/a>\u00a0was influenced by Johann Sebastian Bach), and ramping up his own version of Spector\u2019s \u201cwall-of-sound\u201d production, he began sculpting the foundation for \u201cWouldn\u2019t It Be Nice\u201d with the song, \u201cThe Little Girl I Once Knew.\u201d Both singles challenged the then limits of pop song structure. The Boys also confronted not-so-discreetly the abuse of the Wilson patriarch and their former manager, Murry Wilson, during this time (\u201cI’m Bugged at My Ol\u2019 Man\u201d).\u00a0<\/p>\n It is noteworthy that this phase of Wilson\u2019s musical evolution took place as Washington was increasing its imperialist machinations in Vietnam, and as the civil rights movement was reaching a fever pitch, among many other domestic and international developments.<\/p>\n Much has been written about the monumental\u00a0Pet Sounds album, including on the WSWS, and it is not the intention to add more to what has already been said many times over at this point. Nonetheless, to paraphrase Walsh, anyone who turns their nose up at \u201cthe lyricism, gravity and yearning\u201d of the record is doing themselves a great injustice.<\/p>\n However, the unrealized\u00a0Smile\u00a0project Wilson embarked on after Pet Sounds\u00a0is where one\u00a0truly\u00a0comes to grasp his musical ingenuity and his tragically unsuccessful struggle to maintain it.<\/p>\n There are three official renditions of this record\u2014Smiley Smile, released in 1967;\u00a0Brian Wilson Presents Smile, recorded and released in 2004; and\u00a0The Smile Sessions, released in 2011. It is this writer\u2019s opinion that the latter of the three should be consulted and studied the closest.<\/p>\n With Wilson\u2019s creativity firing on all cylinders, especially as he sought to best the Beatles in album construction and production, he was inspired to compose what he termed a \u201cteenage symphony to god\u201d during the antechamber of the socio-politically revolutionary 1968-1975 period. The sessions for\u00a0Smile\u00a0were recorded during 1966-1967, more-or-less concluding before the \u201clong hot summer\u201d of social and anti-war unrest in the U.S. in 1967 but nonetheless occurring during what is considered\u00a0one of the most momentous years for popular music<\/a>\u00a0during the 20th century.<\/p>\n Exhausted by the ferocious demands forced onto him by the music business, plagued by drug abuse and personal problems, disoriented by the countless\u00a0unhealthy ideologies<\/a>\u00a0of the day, stifled by creative tensions within the band, demoralized by getting beat to the punch by the Beatles\u2019\u00a0Sgt. Pepper, and undoubtedly if only remotely shaken up by the social and political upheavals,\u00a0Smile\u00a0was ultimately unfinished. An embarrassing grotesque of the work was released later in 1967 to meet contractual obligations, and abbreviated bootlegs were circulated.<\/p>\n But what is contained within those original sessions?<\/p>\n Based on the 2011 track listing, the album can be divided into three sections, with the sections themselves and in aggregate demonstrating a mesmerizing cohesion.<\/p>\n The first two sections open with remarkable inroads into new harmonic and melodic territory: the madrigal-esque \u201cOur Prayer,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0performed\u00a0a cappella, that indisputably establishes the band\u2019s vocal abilities, and the coming-of-age\u00a0\u201cWonderful,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0which is poignant, triumphant and elliptical in equal measure. Each of the three sections conclude with a grandiose example of the \u201cmodular\u201d style<\/a>\u00a0of composing that Brian Wilson had already begun experimenting with (e.g., \u201cLet\u2019s Go Away for Awhile\u201d from\u00a0Pet Sounds)\u2014\u201cCabin Essence\u201d<\/a>, \u201cSurf\u2019s Up\u201d and \u201cGood Vibrations,\u201d the latter brilliantly introduced by a fleeting reprise of \u201cOur Prayer.\u201d<\/p>\n The myriad different compositional arrangements and recording techniques incorporated into the record, reflected by the quirky, multi-part \u201cHeroes and Villains\u201d to the ambitious odes to the four elements, and above all in the captivating ways Wilson developed the\u00a0vocal interplay<\/a>\u00a0of the band, clearly indicate a break from conventional or traditional pop songcraft and an evolution towards sweeping modes of musical expression. One can hear this amidst the\u00a0Sessions\u2019 unpolished fidelity and overall incomplete presentation.<\/p>\n All and sundry, including Wilson, have categorically proclaimed \u201cGod Only Knows\u201d as his \u201cgreatest musical achievement.\u201d But Wilson\u2019s efforts for\u00a0Smile\u00a0were starting to grab the attention of more discerning ears at the time.<\/p>\n The second section contains what is arguably Wilson\u2019s boldest attempt at musical expression. Its majestic climax,\u00a0\u201cSurf\u2019s Up,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0caught the attention of classical musician and television producer, David Oppenheim, who featured it in his documentary,\u00a0Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution<\/a>\u00a0(1967). Hosted by Leonard Bernstein, the documentary showcases Wilson performing the song alone at the piano.<\/p>\n While describing \u201cSurf\u2019s Up\u201d as \u201ctoo complex to get…the first time around\u201d, Oppenheim says that \u201cIt could come only out of the ferment that characterizes today\u2019s pop music scene.\u201d He continued: \u201cPoetic, beautiful even in its obscurity, \u2018Surf\u2019s Up\u2019 is one aspect of new things happening in pop music today. As such, it is a symbol of the change many of these young musicians see in our future.\u201d<\/p>\n Van Dyke Parks, Wilson\u2019s creative partner during the Smile\u00a0sessions, wrote in\u00a0a tribute<\/a>\u00a0to Wilson that the two were consciously attempting to \u201creinvent the song form\u201d while composing \u201cSurf\u2019s Up.\u201d The band later took\u00a0great pride<\/a>\u00a0in the classical world\u2019s acknowledgement of its singular greatness. The song was officially released later in 1971 on an album bearing the same name.<\/p>\n What Walsh wrote about the Beach Boys in general can be especially emphasized for \u201cSurf\u2019s Up\u201d: \u201cThose extraordinary, unearthly falsetto voices soaring one upon the other express, in my view, an unconscious desire for a more exalted, more perfected reality, something transcendent. There is no other way to explain their enduring power and meaning.\u201d And yet, the cryptically social-conscious lyrics (\u201ca blind class aristocracy, back through the opera glass you see, the pit and the pendulum drawn\u201d; \u201ccolumnated ruins domino\u201d; \u201ca children\u2019s song, have you listened as they played, their song is love, and the children know the way\u201d), suggest, much like the conclusion to Love\u2019s\u00a0Forever Changes\u00a0(also released in 1967), a semi-conscious, unsettling recognition that the skies on the horizon of society were starting to gray.<\/p>\n Six songs from the\u00a0Smile\u00a0sessions were later released on Smiley Smile. Aside from \u201cGood Vibrations\u201d, the remaining five are vastly different versions of the same material from the sessions. It\u2019s enough to briefly sample \u201cFall Breaks and Back to Winter,\u201d \u201cWind Chimes\u201d and \u201cWonderful\u201d from\u00a0Smiley Smile\u00a0and compare them with their\u00a0Smile Sessions equivalents to immediately realize just how artistically confused and bad of a personal state Wilson had been reduced to in so short of a time.<\/p>\n During the years 1962 to 1967, Wilson was a supernova in the world of popular music that, thanks to a steady access to musical and financial resources, managerial and media promotions and a healthy competitive spirit, was able to burn brightly. Wilson\u2019s Icarus, however, was one that imploded internally amid flight rather than having his wings scorched by the heat of the sun. In any case, he plunged fast and hard down into the ocean, and aside from paltry glimmers of resistance (a release of \u201cOur Prayer\u201d and \u201cCabin Essence\u201d on the\u00a020\/20\u00a0album, the dreamy\u00a0\u201cAll I Wanna Do\u201d<\/a>\u00a0from the\u00a0Sunflower\u00a0record, even the novel albeit musically insipid \u201cStudent Demonstration Time\u201d from\u00a0Surf\u2019s Up), Wilson\u2019s musical vision faded out and the band\u2019s social relevance waned right at the start of the 1968-1975 period.\u00a0<\/p>\n Put another way, the purpose of the Beach Boys music, namely, what Wilson was trying to achieve, had been lost. There\u2019s the oft referenced lyrics from \u201cI Just Wasn\u2019t Made For These Times,\u201d but one of Wilson\u2019s last great songs, \u201c\u2018Til I Die,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0reflects this inner\u00a0and outer\u00a0reality in the most stark, even bleak manner possible. The story of his listening to the Ronettes-Spector\u2019s \u201cBe My Baby\u201d on repeat after he retreated into his room during the 1970s seems to indicate more of a grasping at something lost\u2014an unperfected, intangible musical ideal\u2014than a psychological disorder, though the latter should not be discounted.<\/p>\n This also points to why the band, in the absence of Wilson\u2019s direction, would ultimately revert into an oldies act come the 1970s to protect and prolong their revenue stream, culminating in the woefully retrogressive \u201cKokomo.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The painful conclusion that should not be avoided is that Brian Wilson\u00a0the musical genius\u00a0deceased sometime in the early 1970s. For at least 50 years, he contributed next to nothing musically that came remotely close to the apex that was original\u00a0Smile Sessions.<\/p>\n Pitiful ridicules<\/a>,\u00a0political prostration<\/a>\u00a0and lackluster revamps and rehashes of old material robbed of his magnificent falsetto and singular leadership (Brian Wilson Presents Smile, reunion tours, etc.) are some of the stinging fits of agony that piled on top of Brian Wilson losing his musical vision to oblivion.<\/p>\n To conclude, Wilson\u2019s more serious executions of his distinct vision of pop music, distinct particularly to the historical setting of the U.S. during the 1960s, was an oblique yet important artistic reflection of the short-lived postwar economic boom and all of its unstable contradictions that eventually exploded.<\/p>\n At the peak of his creative powers, aesthetically exploring while precariously shouldering one of the particles of contemporary musical vocabulary amidst the socio-political volcano rumbling in the background, Brian Wilson strove for and demonstrated a profound synthesis of different compositional styles along with complex harmonies and accessible melodies. In this way, he really was someone that was born exactly for the times that he flourished in.<\/p>\n The cultural consciousness of posterity is enriched by Wilson\u2019s 1962-1967 output. His greatest accomplishments during that period remain relevant, genuine, substantial, and intensely moving.<\/p>\n Sign up for the WSWS email newsletter<\/p>\nSurfin’ Safari (1962)<\/p>\n
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The Beach Boys Today! (1965)<\/p>\n
Surf’s Up (1971)<\/p>\n
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The Smile Sessions (2011)<\/p>\n