The song Brian Wilson said he could never improve: “How am I gonna do better”
Any pop musician who’s ever tried to write their magnum opus is always going to be living in the shadow of Brian Wilson.
Others may have taken the genre in different directions and even managed to build on what Wilson had started in the 1960s, but even The Beatles had to admit that the Beach Boys mastermind could not be equalled when looking at his track record for hits. The man simply exuded music out of every single pore in his body, but he knew that there was no point in trying to change the formula when he perfected it.
Because when you think about it, the band had been able to stick to the formula pretty well up until the release of Pet Sounds. The idea of fun-in-the-sun music suited them fine, and while they have lived up to that reputation for years whenever they hit the road, it’s nice, like they would have been legends were it not for Wilson wanting to think outside the box every now and again whenever they played.
The doo-wop stylings of their first records were fun while they lasted, but they were also fairly primitive at the time. Anyone would have grown tired of that kind of music once the British invasion kicked in, so why not try to throw in some other influences now and again? But before Pet Sounds was even a thought, Wilson had already begun to woodshed his own version of contemporary music.
Even though his father may have been resistant to them going outside their comfort zone, The Beach Boys Today has some of the first steps towards new territory. The ballads on the flipside of the record were basically a schematic for what Wilson would be doing one album later, but as the psychedelic age started, ‘California Girls’ became the kind of song that painted Wilson’s home as a musical utopia half the time.
And listening to it from back to front, it almost feels like a test-run for a tune like ‘Good Vibrations’. Looking at the construction of the track, it’s actually a fairly odd tune all things considered, complete with the almost-orchestral swell at the beginning before swapping between different keys seamlessly across the verses and the choruses.
Wilson already had his personal favourites, but even though he held ‘California Girls’ in high regard, he also felt discouraged for thinking that it was almost too good, saying, “I can’t write a song to save my life. I sit at the piano and try, but all I want to do is rewrite ‘California Girls.’ How am I gonna do something better than that? It’s a fucked-up trip.” At the same time, Wilson might have been too hard on himself given where he went later.
Not many people could claim to have a song like ‘Surf’s Up’ under their belt, either, and even though Pet Sounds does have the same sheen that he had with ‘California Girls’, no one’s going to mistake tunes like ‘God Only Knows’ and ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ for anything else whenever they came on. They were their own musical symphonies, and even up until the final Beach Boys record That’s Why God Made the Radio, there were still hints of that musical magic every time Wilson arranged a tune.
Then again, there is something to be said about knocking a song out of the park far better than anything else. The Beach Boys will always have the iconic ‘Surfin USA’ to liven up the crowd, the heartbreaking ballads like ‘Surfer Girls’, and even the handful of cheesy tunes like ‘Kokomo’, but if you’re talking about what makes them one of the greatest pop acts of all time, ‘California Girls’ pretty much has everything you need.
