4th of July, Convertible Dreams & Pet Sounds
I own a convertible because of Brian Wilson.
I was a lifeguard for four summers because of Brian Wilson.
My college license plate on my 1981 Monte Carlo read "Surf BU" because of Brian Wilson.
I was President of the Surf and Sandcastle Club in high school because of Brian Wilson.
And like Brian Wilson, I never surfed.
But when I inserted the Endless Summer cassette, which I bought at Sound Warehouse, into my car stereo at 16, something washed over me: freedom, joy, summer, and endless possibilities. You could not help but SMiLE, roll down your windows, and hit the road to find your friends for a new adventure.
I filled my navy blue Monte Carlo with my high school friends like Lisa, Dana, Page, Tammy, and Lindsey. Sure, I had guy friends, but living the Beach Boys dream meant girls (even though I wasn't dating any of them… I think they just needed a ride), and the radio turned up loud.
We were nowhere near the ocean, and my car was not a hot rod. Yet we sang all the words to the Beach Boys songs in my car as if it were all true for us. Though it was the early 1980s, and music had changed, we played Beach Boys albums at our high school parties and danced late into the night. Again, freedom, joy, summer, and endless possibilities.
For my Senior English class, I chose to write my research paper on "The Beach Boys and Their Influence on Modern Music." My research brought me to the conclusion that so many knew before me. Brian Wilson was the heart and soul behind the Beach Boys. He was a musical genius.
Of all of the band members, I felt some kinship with him. Maybe it was because we were both named "Brian." Or perhaps it had to do with my last name being "Summerall." I secretly hoped it was some combination of two Latin root words that, when combined, meant "Endless Summer.”
Diving into everything I could learn about Brian, I found that the Beach Boys were more than just sun, surf, and summer. Songs like "In My Room," "The Warmth of the Sun," and "Please Let Me Wonder" were filled with longing, heartbreak, and deep emotion.
Then I discovered Pet Sounds. Director Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous) puts it better than I could.
"You find songs so personal that they feel like someone's been reading your diary... you ache hearing these songs; they're filled with secret cries for help disguised in harmonies; for me, Pet Sounds is a record that takes you gently by the lapels and says, "Here's what it feels like to be alive."
So many times in high school, college, and adult life, Brian's music did that for me.
Maybe I relate to it all so much because Brian is a flawed man who can sing of both heartache and hope, sadness and surf. His mental issues have been well documented. Wilson suffered from Schizoaffective Disorder, Depression, and Auditory Hallucinations. Even when on stage singing "Fun, Fun, Fun," voices inside his head spoke of hurting him and told him he was worthless.
It's no wonder he turned to drugs in the '60s to self-medicate at a time when mental health issues were not talked about or correctly treated.
Brian described his feelings in many of his lyrics. You can't listen to songs like "Until I Die" or "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" without feeling his struggle.
Although my mental issues are not at the same level as Brian's, I've dealt with depression and anxiety for most of my adult life. His lyrics let me know I was not alone and often put words to my feelings.
Henri Nouwen, a Dutch Catholic priest, professor, writer, psychologist, and theologian, says that when true dialogue between the artist and his listeners takes place, then the audience member can say...
"What you say loudly, I whispered in the dark; what you pronounce so clearly, I had some suspicion about; what you had put in the foreground, I felt in the back of my mind… Yes, I find myself in your words."
The other night, I lay on the couch in our living room and listened to Pet Sounds from beginning to end. I let myself feel all the emotions. Joy, sadness, longing, heartache, and hope washed over me in lush harmonies.
That may be the secret. Maybe that’s the real genius. All of these emotions can occupy the same space all at once. And Brian was the only one who had the ear, mind, and heart to put them all together in perfect, unmatched harmony.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines harmony as the agreement of ideas, feelings, actions, or a pleasing combination of different parts. In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds to create new, distinct musical ideas.
Brian Wilson did both.
As the Beach Boys said at his passing, “He allowed us to show the world what vulnerability and brilliance sound like in harmony.”
He took sorrow and layered it beside joy, wrapped pain in melody, and told the truth in a way that somehow made it beautiful.
The Bible is full of broken people who sang anyway. David composed psalms while hiding in caves. Paul and Silas sang hymns from prison.
Brian’s harmonies showed me that beauty could come from a troubled mind. That our weaknesses — our “thorns in the flesh” — don’t disqualify us. If anything, they’re the canvas for grace. “My power is made perfect in weakness,” Jesus said in 2 Corinthians 12:9.
The picture above is from backstage at a Brian Wilson concert. Beach Boys Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin joined his band for that tour to play Pet Sounds live from beginning to end. I took my oldest child, David, and we sat in the front row directly in front of Brian’s keyboard. It’s a memory I will never forget. In a way, with David there, it was high school me standing next to old man me. Harmony.
High school me would have been pleased with old man me.
The other evening, Michele and I drove through our neighborhood (the same neighborhood we grew up in) in the convertible with the top down. The Beach Boys were on the stereo. I told her, “Here I am at 60, driving around in a convertible on the streets I grew up on with a beautiful girl by my side while listening to the Beach Boys. If you had told me in high school that this is where I would be at 60, I’d have smiled and said I had it all.”
It’s true.
To conclude this essay, which is now longer than my Senior English research paper, I’ll close with Brian’s own words about heaven:
“I saw the future, a vision of music, in a dream I had one night, and I foresaw the future. It was way, way, way farther than now even. I heard all kinds of celestial, heavenly sounds. It just blew my mind. I think eventually we’re headed to that heaven.”
Thank you, Brian Wilson, for letting me experience a bit of that heaven through your music from my high school days to today. I can't wait to hear your completed harmonies on the other side.
On July 4, 1980, the Beach Boys performed a legendary free concert at the Washington Monument, drawing an estimated 500,000 fans to the National Mall for one of the largest Independence Day celebrations in U.S. history. The event was hailed by President Jimmy Carter, who called them “America’s band.” Televised on HBO, I still have a VHS copy of that concert I recorded in 1980. Of course, now, I have nothing to play that cassette on, so I’m thankful for this copy on YouTube. Enjoy & happy 4th of July!