The song Brian Wilson called a great achievement in music: “It’ll lift your spirits up”
Of all the great feats conquered by Brian Wilson in the musical realm throughout his lifetime, there are many to choose from.
Legions of stratospheric artists and everyday punters alike will point to the world-renowned gems found on Pet Sounds, like ‘Good Vibrations’ and ‘God Only Knows’, as the pinnacle of everything the man stood for. Those who knew him more intimately might highlight something like Smile, the triumphant record that brought him back to the top after years of bleak struggle.
None of these would be wrong assertions, but the missing link in all of it is the final casting word from Wilson himself. As it turns out, his view of one of his great achievements in music, despite everything the world is led to believe about him, is something just a little bit different.
His brother and bandmate, Dennis Wilson, had perhaps previously cast him in an unfair light by saying, “Brian Wilson is The Beach Boys. He is the band. We’re his fucking messengers. He is all of it. Period. We’re nothing. He’s everything.” But the reality was that Wilson knew the strengths of his group through and through, and when to lean on them.
That was especially true when it came to a song like ‘California Saga/California’, which was actually written by Al Jardine and became the first of his compositions to ever appear on an album by The Beach Boys. The 1960s had been a period of prolific highs for the band with Wilson at the front and centre, but by the time the ‘70s dawned, it was time to let someone else shine.
It was the reason why the ‘California Saga’, and Jardine’s contributions to it, became so integral to their 1973 record Holland, which Wilson claimed was “a great achievement in music”. It clearly had an effect on him during a particularly perilous period in his life. “If you’re scared and you don’t know what to anticipate, play a record like that, and it’ll lift your spirits up,” he suggested.
There was, however, something slightly ironic about Wilson’s comments on this being a special high point for The Beach Boys, given that, infamously, he was barely present for the recording of the album as a whole. Jardine later recalled the frontman appearing at the studio one night, singing the line “On my way to sunny Californ-i-a,” having not been seen for a month, and then promptly leaving again.
Perhaps it was a sense of guilty conscience playing into Wilson’s psyche, but it was more than likely a pivotal moment for him in realising that the rest of the band were absolutely capable of sharing the load. He may well have been the mastermind, but being around his energy in such close proximity was bound to rub off somehow on Jardine and Co.
Wilson may have been “everything” to The Beach Boys, but the ultimate red herring and mistake is to think he was solely responsible for everything they ever created. His brothers and Jardine may have got the sour reputation of background men, but within the real confines of the band, everyone knew the musical genius was not just one man.
