“Profound”: The musician Linda Ronstadt said had no equal
The road to any great song normally comes down to the performance. Singing is a lot like acting most of the time, and if there had been the musical equivalent of the Academy Awards, Linda Ronstadt would have cleaned up every year for how well she portrayed the characters in her songs. But when listening to the songwriters that came before her, she knew that no one could compete with the scope that Brian Wilson worked with.
Compared to the other mainstream acts that came out of California, though, Ronstadt had moved on to country territory by the time she started making waves. It was clear that the first wave of sunshine and revolution were finally over, and with the new decade promising to be a lot darker than the last, her takes on tracks like ‘When Will I Be Loved’ were a good indication that things still weren’t all bad.
But even with half a decade since Pet Sounds dropped, Wilson was still considered one of the almighty geniuses of pop music. He may not have had the most awe-inspiring lyrics this side of Bob Dylan, but whenever he opened his mouth to sing, Wilson got his way into people’s hearts just by being one of the masters of melody, almost like he was channelling something from the cosmos.
Then again, that just comes from his years of practice. Listening to people like The Four Freshmen was bound to rub off on the way he constructed harmony, and even if he was writing a basic chord sequence a la Chuck Berry, he still knew that he could put together material that made people’s hearts dance.
Even by The Beatles’ standards, though, Wilson was in a whole different league. In a song like ‘Good Vibrations’, the main body of the piece goes through three distinct movements that are more often found in classical music, but it never feels disjointed for a second because of just how airtight the arrangement is.
Since Ronstadt was known to follow the standard method of songwriting, she could only look on in amazement at what Wilson could do, saying, “I don’t think there’s anyone his equal in popular music for this fifty years. They were really deep, profound emotions that came out of a lot of pain. ‘Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)’ has one of the most beautiful arcs of a melody I’ve ever heard.”
Outside of its phenomenal melody, there’s no other person who could have sold that song in question other than Wilson. Carl Wilson did an extraordinary job bringing ‘God Only Knows’ to life, but the sound of a tender soul trying to comfort his significant other only works when it comes from that sense of innocence that Brian had in his voice.
Although Brian would venture in and out of The Beach Boys for years due to his own struggles with mental health, there’s no denying that he did give to the world was nothing short of miraculous. Most people can only dream of writing tunes this good, but by sitting at his piano, Brian may as well have taken out a piece of his heart and laid it down on tape for the world to see.
