“Endless Summer” was such a mainstay of my childhood. I don’t remember when I first heard it or what sucked me in at age 7. I have no idea how I came to possess this greatest hits compilation.

All I know is I absolutely treasured my cassette copy of it.

I had the flow of “Catch a Wave” to “The Warmth of the Sun” to “Surfin’ U.S.A.” memorized like it was my second grade spelling homework. I loved the way “Wendy” blasted to life when I’d flip to the B-side. I hoped high school would feel like a line out of “Be True to Your School.” (Spoiler alert: it absolutely did not.)

The year I left the cassette behind at my grandparent’s summer cottage in Wisconsin was heartbreak city. My ears craved the songs and those sounds. I counted down the days until it arrived back home in Texas, returned safely to my hands to be popped back in my Walkman and overplayed to my heart’s content.

I can’t tell you when or where or how it all began.

But I can tell you why I loved The Beach Boys: Brian Wilson.

 

At the tender ages of 7 or 10 or even 13, I didn’t have a sense of who this man was in the landscape of music history…but by 18, I had learned.

He pioneered the concept album with “Pet Sounds” — without it, there would be no “Sgt. Pepper.” He experimented with sounds outside of traditional instruments to create masterpieces, like the theremin in “Good Vibrations” or hell, even Paul McCartney crunching carrots and celery sticks on my fave hidden gem, “Vega-Tables.” And he defined the genre of surf rock, leaving behind him a sudsy, Pacific blue wake of bands imitating his defining style and sound.

But to me? He was the man writing the soundtrack of my life from practically my beginning.

I so distinctly remember the summer after third grade, bopping along to “Surfin’ U.S.A.” and rewriting the lyrics to ‘tell Mrs. Adams we’re surfin’, surfin’ U.S.A.’ — a nod to the teacher I’d just spent the school year with. I still sing the line this way in my head most times I hear it.

By age 14, “In My Room” would turn my pink-and-blue bedroom into a safe haven in headphones on the days when I was feeling extra angsty and like the world just didn’t understand. That song would return at 35, ready to break my heart as I listened to it one last time before saying goodbye to that childhood bedroom forever. Goodbye to my world where I could go and tell my secrets to…

Somewhere in my early 20s, I’d listen to “God Only Knows” and wonder if I’d ever find another human being in this world that made me feel like that song does. (More spoilers: close but so far, no.)

Now at 41, I listen to “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times” regularly as I look out at the chaotic, sometimes unrecognizable, world I live in, thinking, Same, BDub. Same…

Brian co-wrote every single one of those songs. His words shaped my world, sometimes giving me unrealistic expectations and at other times providing the deep comfort I’ve only found in lyrics.

His music is engrained into my life in a way no other band will ever be — yeah, not even that one. (IYKYK…)

My love of his work shaped me as a music fan, pushing me toward appreciating those writing and playing their own work over simply performing.

 

I suppose another way to say it is…god only knows what I’d be without you.

 

As a music fan, it is inevitable you find yourself arriving at “the day the music died.”

Today is mine.

So Brian: thank you for everything. Thank you for finding your way into my life and ears and heart at such a young age. Thank you for giving me such a deep-seated appreciation for beautifully crafted music, time and time again. Thank you for sharing your words, silly and significant, in ways that will always resonate with me across the decades of my life.

And thank you for you spending your one, beautiful life creating pure musical magic for us — for me.

It shaped me in ways you will never know, but I will be forever grateful we found each other.