Brian Wilson RIP

BRIAN WILSON, who as the leader and chief songwriter of the Beach Boys became rock’s poet laureate of surf-and-sun innocence, but also an embodiment of damaged genius through his struggles with mental illness and drugs, has died. He was 82. The surviving Beach Boys, Mike Love and Al Jardine, paid tribute, as did Bob Dylan, Carole King, and many more. (So many more.) Brian Wilson's ears and musical mind launched a saga that seemed to contain the whole American experience, which is one reason why the Beach Boys were for so long a musical fixture on the Fourth of July. His “teenage symphonies to God” made him the poet laureate of adolescent heartbreak. Where would American pop music be without Brian Wilson? God only knows. And while "Fun, Fun, Fun," "I Get Around," "California Girls," "Good Vibrations," "God Only Knows," and even "Little Saint Nick" remain part of our collective musical consciousness, it may be "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" that first comes to my mind when I think of Brian Wilson the man. And I think of lesser known tunes like "Let Him Run Wild," "When I Grow Up To Be A Man," "She Knows Me Too Well," "She's Not The Little Girl I Once Knew," "Here Today," and the epic "Surf's Up" as just a few of his masterful pop innovations. I count myself lucky to have seen him play on several occasions over the years. A great light has gone out; we shall not see his likes again. May he enjoy an endless Summer.