Brian Wilson

1942-2025 

“I didn’t own any Beach Boys records because I was a jazzer who bought only 10-inch albums, but every time you heard their new single, you knew it was a hit from the first two bars. Brian was writing unbelievably sophisticated music, especially vocally – no one was doing those Four Freshmen-style harmonies in rock’n’roll. 

I first met Brian in a recording studio. I was a copywriter working on a jingle, and I recognised him and said Hi. He said, ‘Come listen to this,’ and played me a few bits and pieces. That was typical of Brian. I once saw him grab the postman and ask his opinion of a tune he had just written. He was childlike in his excitement over something he’d done.  

He’d only want to talk about music at the start. But later on, we got into discussions of philosophy, and I soon saw a complex personality emerge. The lyrical ideas he’d suggest were a combination of naivety and romanticism, with a sadness behind it. He’d gaze into the distance and say, ‘There was this one time with my mother walking down the street…’ or, ‘Did you ever know a girl in high school, the most beautiful woman, but now she’s changed?’ which became Caroline, No. 

We could ramble for a couple of hours and whatever the mood became would influence what we’d end up writing. We’d migrate to the piano, me with my little yellow legal pad and pencil. I never wrote a lyric and then brought it to him, and only onn Wouldn’t It Be Nice did Brian want to finish a song before asking for the lyric. It amuses me that people think we conceived a theme, in that Pet Sounds starts at innocence with Wouldn’t It Be Nice and ends at experience with Caroline, No. Maybe Brian sensed something which influenced the sequencing, but I just wrote one song at a time. We smoked grass a few times. One time, we made hash brownies from the Alice B Toklas cookbook, but we put way too much in and we were just basket cases. 

Of the lyrics I wrote with Brian, I’m proudest of God Only Knows. ‘I may not always love you’ is a daring way to start a song. It still gets played at weddings and means so much to people. I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times was an unusual, interesting emotion I shared with Brian – I was a softie, too. It was wonderful, and embarrassing, that Pet Sounds re-emerged, to be voted the greatest album ever. Years later, some guy told me it saved his life. His drunk dad kept beating up his mum; the son would go to his room, think of jumping out the window, but put on Pet Sounds and somehow get through. It bowls you over.” 

Tony Asher 

“What Brian Wilson came to mean was an ideal of innocence and naivety that went beyond teenage life and sprang fully developed songs. 

Adult and childlike at the same time. 

I thought how it was difficult for me not to believe everything he said. 

There was something genuine in every lyric. That can be a very heavy burden for a songwriter.

Slow Dazzle sold best of my solo albums until then. Most of it was written in the studio. 

My Beach Boys records  were my personal soundtrack.

Somebody told me later that Brian Wilson heard ‘Mr. Wilson’ and thought it was ‘sarcastic’, which I can’t really say I understand. I’ll concede a healthy dose of irony, but it’s still a tribute to him.

Brian Wilson wasn’t too pleased with ‘I believe you, Mr Wilson, I believe you anyway’. But the thing is, it’s about him and the former prime minister Harold Wilson. So either way, I lose with him. He doesn’t want to share a song with Harold Wilson.”

John Cale

"When the Velvet Underground actually came out very very few people were interested in them, whatever they claim now. I remember when they came out, and very few people were interested in them at all. And for a certainty I knew that they were going to become one of the most interesting groups, y’know (…)

I think maybe someone like Van Dyke Parks [Brian Wilson partner compose] is that kind of person… I think I might be [laughter]. 

I think that there are certain artists who speak to other artists more than a public, alright? 

So they go through two stages. They are received by other artists and then diffused, right? 

For example, one of my main activities is working with other people, right, and I regard that as something I like doing very much indeed. 

Now when I work with other people what happens is there’s a – a union is attempted between their ideas and my ideas. Normally this works out. 

And so by this method, since these people often sell more records than me, my ideas reach some kind of fruition, and kind of feed back into the outside circle of ideas.

I’ve just been working with Bowie. Which is very good because that way I shall have reached a lot of people.” 

Brian Eno 

Brian Wilson was the most musically inventive voice in all of pop, with an otherwordly ear for harmony. He was also visionary leader of America's greatest band, The Beach Boys. If there'd been no Beach Boys, there would have been no "Racing In The Street". Listen to "Summer's Gone" from The Beach Boys' last album "That's Why God Made The Radio" and weep. Farewell, Maestro. Nothing but love and a lovely lasting debt from all of us over here on E Street. 

Bruce Springsteen