Boyish and Dictatorial

My friend sent me a link this morning to a Dennis Wilson album from 1977, ‘Pacific Ocean Blue.’  Generally I can’t do much work with a sound track that has lyrics on it.  I’ll throw on bee bop and ride the high hat and make that the pacing for the run through my to-do list.  As suggested by my dear chum who sent it my way, this album is somber and emotional with some surprisingly endearing bits.  Apparently it wasn’t well received at the time and as a result he had to cancel the tour that had been planned, as the record company withdrew its support.  He drowned, drunk, six years later.

Youtube lists out clips and you might want to click on to complement your Dennis Wilson tapas.  Among these selection is a video entitled “Brian Wilson - Songwriter 1962 - 1969.”  Where as Dennis represents an interesting side bar, Brian is a magisterial composer whom I’ve long adored.  There’s a picture of him leaning over the control board in the studio, looking boyish and dictatorial in equal measure.  I clicked on it with no intention to watch the entire three hours worth.  But once it was under way it was clear that I would need to see it through.

I had never really traced the precise progression of all the early Beach Boys tunes.  I knew the rough chronology of the early classics and had listened to them all countless times when I was ten.  But I hadn’t considered them as a progression of triumph to triumph.  I hadn’t considered what they meant to the songwriter himself and where it began to drive him.  They were all lodged in my mind at least as a prelude to the arrival of “Pet Sounds”, which changes everything.  Appropriately they were all a prelude to the arrival of me, as well, who arrived just in time to appreciate the album's impact, twenty-six days earlier that year.

I tried to work and let the sound track of the documentary run.  This email should be easy enough to knock off.  I just have to remind the guy to send that note.  But of course I can’t make much progress.  I keep looking back.  Now the introduction of the Beatles into Brian’s competitive consciousness in 1964 is simply too overwhelming to consider peripherally.  It’s one thing to reckon with America’s Beatle collision in general, but for the Beach Boys, as the top pop group out there, the disruption must have been especially dramatic.   Who are these guys, who speak and dress and sound so distinct?   To Brian’s lasting credit he decided to rise to the occasion and compete, rather effectively.