‘The Beach Boys Love You’: Their most troubling masterpiece
Every great song Brian Wilson ever made had to come from a place of fun before anything else. The whole reason he needed to break out from the traditional surfing songs was all about following his heart, and the minute that Pet Sounds was gifted to the world, people started to realise the true musical genius underneath all those soaring harmonies. But Brian did have a bit of a wilderness period throughout his career, and while The Beach Boys Love You falls right in the middle of their catalogue, it’s definitely one of the most concerning albums of their career.
Before getting into the content itself, it’s important to realise where the band was at this stage of their career. Brian had been out of commission for years and was under the watchful eye of therapist and certified asshole Dr Eugene Landy, but when he finally became inspired to work again, he came back to a band that had become a nostalgia act. Mike Love had been calling the shots and turned the band into the kind of one-trick pony he never wanted to be, so The Beach Boys Love You was his excuse to get them all back on track.
After all, he never lost his touch with melody by any stretch, but the lyrical content on the record leaves a lot to be desired. This is no longer the kind of brokenhearted kid who wrote tunes like ‘God Only Knows’ and ‘Caroline No’. This was a full-grown man, and listening to some of the songs when you get older gives off the impression of someone delusional about love.
Tracks like ‘Good Time’ and ‘Mona’ are cute romps for what they are, but on the other hand, there are tunes like ‘Roller Skating Child’ that are more than a little bit troubling. Brian typically had someone like Tony Asher helping him work through his lyrics, but when left to his own devices, making a song halfway between a song for his kids and an ode to an old flame is more than a little creepy. Hearing him talk about a little girl is a decent start, but then singing about taking her home to make love to her is enough to make anyone feel dirty inside by association.
And that’s before getting into Brian’s voice on the record. Since he had put music on the backburner for a few years, no one expected him to have the same strength in his voice, but the strange croak that he’s developed leaves a lot to be desired, to the point where his wife, Marilyn, is singing much better than he is on ‘Let’s Put Our Hearts Together’.
But that’s not really the full story here. Brian was already going through some of the worst eras of his life when he rejoined the band, so when listening to him cry out about yearning to go back to high school, I don’t hear someone who’s trying to be the creepy uncle of rock and roll. This is someone who has had many years robbed from him after spending them in a bed, so this is making up for the time that he had lost.
It’s not like all the tunes are quite as uncomfortable as ‘Roller Skating Child’, either. There is the occasional tune like ‘I Wanna Pick You Up’, but songs like ‘Solar System’ is a nice way to talk about the love that extends beyond galaxies, and ‘I’ll Bet He’s Nice’ has the same kind of brokenhearted romanticism that always turned up in all of Brian’s greatest tunes.
The majority of the record might be a bit awkward, but The Beach Boys Love You has the one thing that many later Beach Boys albums don’t have: authenticity. No matter how many times Mike Love tries to sell the same schtick when he takes the band on the road, hearing Brian work out his problems and coming off as a little bit strange is far more interesting than seeing them perform ‘Barbara Ann’ for the 500th time. And given the ideas Love had for the band’s future, Brian’s vulnerability is worth more than anything off of Summer in Paradise.
