The five most bizarre songs Brian Wilson ever wrote
Brian Wilson could be described by any number of superlatives – a genius, a visionary, a pioneer. Of course, for once, they weren’t just hyperbole used to flatter artists, because in his case, they were actually true. No one, in all their years, managed to change the fabric of the music industry as much as he did, fighting at times to be heard but ultimately coming out on top.
This is all well and good in principle, but the fact is that when someone is regarded in such high status, the chances are that they were probably a little weird as well. It was an element that certainly rang true in Wilson’s discography, as aside from the mainstream heights of the likes of ‘Surfin’ USA’ and ‘God Only Knows’ with The Beach Boys, he was more than capable of diving head-first into some pretty bizarre sonic depths.
Much of this would have been rooted in his penchant for pioneering new musical techniques and sounds, but there were also many aspects of Wilson’s real life that no doubt would have played a significant part in shaping his occasional sonic oddities. This was a man on whom fame had already taken its toll at the mere age of 22, and although his mental health problems were an ever-present force throughout the rest of his life, their influence was nonetheless arguably huge in understanding his real psyche.
As such, through all the struggles and successes he faced throughout the course of his musical tenure, everything that Wilson ever felt or experienced was often channelled through his songs. From the sublime to the downright bizarre, he truly covered every sonic base – naturally helped along by a fresh vision or sound he had picked up along the way, too.
Five of the weirdest songs by Brian Wilson:
‘A Day in the Life of a Tree’
While the image of Wilson and Greta Thunberg in the same room together is a strange mirage in itself, the innovative musician and climate activist may have had more in common than you might at first believe. Just take The Beach Boys’ 1971 song ‘A Day in the Life of a Tree’ as the keenest example, in which the shiny sounds of surf pop were contrasted with a stark message about the state of the planet.
The concept of a tree singing out loud about all the woes that have befallen it in its life seems pretty strange by any normal standards, but this was undercut by the notion that it was sending a statement about the environmental toll of the modern world. Indeed, Wilson said of it in his 2016 memoir: “[It’s] a big song because it’s about how people treat the earth, but it’s also a small song because it’s about how one living thing can feel stripped down and wrong for the world.”
‘Mt Vernon and Fairway’
Of course, there’s nothing more fantasy-inducing than a fairytale, which was exactly what Wilson channelled in his 1973 tune ‘Mt Vernon and Fairway’, which appeared as a bonus track on the album Holland. As a 12-minute odyssey of fantastical nature, on the surface it seems the antithesis to reality, but the deeper you dive, the more similarities to Wilson’s own life are revealed.
Telling the story of a pied-piper style boy who lives inside a transistor radio, ‘Mt Vernon and Fairway’ explores how the child would impart magical music to the masses, before he eventually disappears and everyone forgets he ever existed. It may sound dark, but it’s only natural that these are the darkest anxieties of any artist when fame is volatile and success is frequently hard-fought. If one thing’s certain in Wilson’s case, however, it’s that his memory will only live on and on.
‘Smart Girls’
You’d be surprised just how many stars from the ‘60s and ‘70s tried their hand at rapping when the genre was growing in popularity. There was a common misconception across the board that rap music was just talking fast, and therefore was easy, but all we have to do is look at the disasters that unfurled when creatives like Brian Wilson tried their hand at the genre to see that that’s not the case.
‘Smart Girls’ was Wilson’s first (and thankfully only) attempt at spitting bars. The song was (what I presume was supposed to be) a feminist anthem, where he raps about how he doesn’t care how a woman looks and more so about their brain. It’s a pretty bad track, both thematically and in its execution, but credit to the man for trying.
‘Vegetables’
The Smile sessions sound like such an interesting period in music, one where no idea was too bold but also where everything committed to the record had to be uncompromisingly perfect. The result is that there are tracks out there which sound pretty good, with those iconic harmonies taking precedent and exciting basslines undercutting them, but they also have a strange ideology behind them. One of the best examples of this is the song ‘Vegetables’.
The song doesn’t progress too much, but is instead an ode to the vegetable, as the band sing about how much they love eating them, with occasional noises in the background, like someone chomping on what is presumably a piece of lettuce or a carrot. The track was supposed to be Wilson’s love letter to organic food, but was also a satire about how people thought marijuana would put him and his friends into a vegetative state. The end result is a truly bizarre song.
‘Fire’
There are some songs which are weird because they just sound weird, and both ‘Vegetables’ and ‘Smart Girls’ fit nicely into that category. However, there are other tracks that are weird, not because of how they sound, but because of how people interpret them. One of the best examples of this is the track ‘Fire’, which Brian Wilson managed to convince himself was cursed.
While the Beach Boys were recording the track, a building nearby burned down. Brian Wilson managed to convince himself that this wasn’t a coincidence and that the two incidents must have been connected. “I began to think that we started that fire somehow, mystically,” he said, “I was able to get a hold of all these drugs and they messed me up, they messed my mind up. I took the LSD, and that just totally took my head off.”
