The “beautiful” 1964 song Brian Wilson wanted to sound angelic: “One of the prettiest songs”
Anything that Brian Wilson ever made sounded like it was touched by some musical god half the time.
Everything that he made was intended to be the most beautiful music that anyone had ever heard, but he never seemed to want to take credit for anything that he ever wrote. It was all about what he felt inside that led him to play whatever chords he did, but he felt certain songs had the kind of melodies that were too beautiful for words when he first laid them down in the studio.
But the further that you go back in the band’s timeline, the less essential their work becomes. Their first songs weren’t bad by any means, but since the surf rock craze was just getting started, their music sounded a lot more primitive than it became. A lot of their tunes were a bit more dopey than usual whenever they made their tunes, and Wilson would have been the first person to say that he wasn’t the best lyricist in the world.
There’s a reason why Tony Asher and Van Dyke Parks have writing credits for their work on some of their best albums, and as much as Mike Love ruined the vibe of nearly every single show that they played, you can’t deny that he had a handle on what the fans wanted. His melodies on ‘California Girls’ and ‘That’s Not Me’ are classic for a reason, but Wilson didn’t concern himself with writing pop songs.
He only wanted to make music that showed a different piece of his heart, and that came from listening to what his competition was doing. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were taking chances, so there was no reason for him not to be taking chances as well, but it’s not like he was always focused on writing tunes about the sunny side of life. ‘Surfer Girl’ was the first truly romantic song he ever made, and ‘In My Room’ is a better look into his psyche than virtually anything else they made.
Since they were known as ‘America’s Band’, though, they were going to need to come correct if they were writing about a piece of history like the death of John F Kennedy. His assassination took the wind out of everyone’s sails back in 1963, and while most bands wouldn’t have touched this kind of idea if they could help it, Wilson knew that he needed to write the kind of song that would do justice to losing one of the most powerful men in the country.
‘The Warmth of the Sun’ was a lot more mellow than what everyone else would have done with a tribute song, but Wilson couldn’t deny that it was them operating at the peak of their powers, saying, “Probably Mike Love’s most beautiful lyrics he’s ever written and one of the prettiest songs I ever wrote. I think it’s because JFK had died the day before. We dedicated it to him and I tried to sing it sweetly and angelically, trying to capture the sound of a sweet angel.”
Half of Wilson’s material already sounds like a Californian angel anyway, but what’s different about this song is that you can feel the kind of tenderness in the way that they sing. They knew that the country was going through a moment of turmoil, all over a senseless act of violence, and it was up to everyone else to try to make sense and try to move on in whatever way they could from day to day.
It wasn’t going to be easy, but Wilson figured that a song could be his one way of giving some light back into the world. As his album said, making people smile was one of his greatest strengths, and he was going to do everything that he could to make sure that people left his songs with a smile on their faces.
