We Loved You, Brian Wilson

Brian Wilson died and with him – this is going to sound corny – the innocence and youth of my generation also died. In reality, it died a long time ago. But when I listen to his songs as I did today, I’m brought back to when I had young dreams, and the entire world seemed open to me. Life was full of sunlight and everything was warm and everything felt good.

Wilson was the genius behind the Beach Boys, a great American band. You know that. You know he burned out early. That also is symbolic of his and my generation as we lurch toward the end.

I listened to his lyrics in the 1960s in Brooklyn and imagined the Beach Boys’ California as the Garden of Eden on Earth – this was before filling up your gas tank in California cost a month’s wages. I heard words like huarache sandals and had no idea what huaraches were. I heard about places like Del Mar, Ventura County, Santa Cruz, Doheny Way and Redondo Beach – are you kidding me? What were these places? What did they look and smell like – probably like palm trees? And did they actually exist on Earth as I knew it, an Earth filled with steam pouring out of New York’s sidewalk grates and bad smells on the subway, and hot nights with people sleeping on fire escapes.

I was jealous of the Beach Boys’ world, and I longed for it.

Longing was the emotion I felt, and longing has everything to do with Brian Wilson. Longing. His early songs were about longing, teenage longing to be precise, and they expressed what I felt but didn’t understand. I bet you know what I mean.

My favorite song is ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ by Wilson along with Mike Love and Tony Asher. It starts with the heartbreakingly beautiful two lines:

Wouldn't it be nice if we were older?
Then we wouldn't have to wait so long

Oh God, the feeling that there was a life out there waiting to be experienced with the girl you loved even if she wore braces and had thick ankles. The idea that you could sleep the entire night with her in your own bed and no one would tell you no.

But of course, the song is about more than that. The refrain is wouldn’t it be nice, and it means it would be nice, but it won’t happen. The refrain itself admits the impossibility of the dream because it really is impossible. Kids have to grow up before they can experience these things and when they grow up, maybe the dreams won’t feel so great, won’t fulfill what a teenager imagined. Life can fall short that way.

So, Wilson is celebrating the most beautiful dreams and denying them in the same song. Words don’t get deeper than that, and Wilson’s words make me want to cry.