Now playing: All the Brian Wilson, and you should play it, too.

Brian Wilson has left us. I had a moment when I heard, some tears. You know how it is when you’re in public, and you don’t want to display emotion, but some displays do not ask permission, and there we were.

(If I’m being honest, I had a couple of moments later, too, and one today. It’s like someone ripped the blue out of the sky and refused to put it back. I’m glad it’s overcast today.)

Word Raccoon pats me on the head, tells me we will be okay. And we will, because we’ve still got his music. But oh, I’m sad he’s gone.


In March 1999, our family took a weeklong trip to Ann Arbor because Barry had training there. Turned out Brian Wilson was going to be in town performing, so we all went to hear him.

Brian was so overwhelmed by the applause when he came onstage that he turned around and almost walked off—until someone gently spun him back around and helped him to the piano.

I wanted to go hug him and tell him he could go home if he wanted, and he could even keep the money because he had been so brave. The world needs a network of patrons who can support those with genius who don’t desire to go on the road.   

We ALMOST saw him in Nashville when we lived there – he was performing at the 4^th of July celebration, but we didn’t hear about until it was underway, and it wasn’t possible to get there before it ended.

I could be remembering this wrong, but I think Barry’s bestie was visiting with his boys and we rushed through dinner at the Loveless trying to make it in time and didn’t.

In July 2019, in Fort Wayne, Barry and I saw Brian again. He was fresh off hip surgery, relying on a walker. He came out onstage with it, made his way to the piano, and played with his entire heart.

Onstage or off, I imagine he was the same person, because he was his art and it enveloped him and made the world, once he had sunk into it, irrelevant and invisible.

Afterward, as we made our way around the building to get to our car, they were bringing him out the back, still on that walker. I hated they hadn’t sheltered him from the public eye somehow.

All this when live concerts, from what I’ve read, terrified him.

Brave, brave Brian. Sweet, tortured artist who gave us more than he needed to. I miss you already.

I’ve watched the documentaries. I’ve read the books. I’ve heard the fascinating outtakes. He was so much more than the young man who initially wrote songs about cars and the beach and played bass, keys, and sang with such innocence.

From all accounts, he had a difficult upbringing, and people sometimes painted him as weak in a way I don’t think he was, as needing stronger people around him just to function. And in day-to-day life, it sounds like that was true.

But they don’t say that he kept going. He kept creating. That’s not weakness. That’s being engaged to the muse.


Have you paid attention to how the lyrics nestle against the music, how they lift or trouble or hold each other? Have you heard the groundbreaking Pet Sounds, or Smile, (either version) or his later solo work? Love and Mercy is a sermon the world could use right now!

His experiments and harmonies created an unprecedented cove of indescribable music that had never existed and feel like a place all their own.

He’s in my “top 5 artists I need to protect.” Again, not trying to fragilize him, but some gifts are so precious you want to keep them safe.

He sang with conviction. You believed he meant every word, because he did. His beautiful voice slid atop like it lived in his songs. Sometimes he wrote the lyrics, sometimes not, but it didn’t matter when he sang them because he owned them without an ounce of ego. I’ve never known an artist besides him who could meld it all so artfully and yet without artifice.

It’s like he interpreted the world from his own frequency, his own pocket of reality, and translated it into keyboard, bass, layered voices, and ache. He embodied music, and I don’t say that lightly.

Thank you, Brian. Thank you. I wish I could do you justice. I wish the world had deserved you.

Okay, enough seriousness. Word Raccoon, would you like to do an interpretive dance? Maybe paint a mural?

She’s been waiting for the spotlight. She’s been a busy, busy creative gorl, eating images and handing out love poems.

Currently she’s eating a brownie, watching the birds own the new eyesore of a fence that looks like glorified popsicle sticks adjacent to our favorite café, and WR wants to shout that.

I think I’ve convinced her that a poem is the way to go, and that hey, the squirrels and birds seem to like it.

And I am begging her to take a nap before her, er, our hair appointment. I’ve promised her we will hunt for more poetry at the bookstore this afternoon, and visit our local bookstore uptown tomorrow as well.

She’s still in a timeout for her shenanigans yesterday. She was so hopped up on muse hormones and leftover metaphor fumes that she was halfway to climbing the curtains and reciting Patti Smith lyrics while chewing on someone’s collarbone.

The “booty call bat signal” post is under lock and key until she calms down. SMH.

In the meantime, here’s what’s definitely only a partial list of essential Brian songs in no particular order. Consume responsibly. Some side effects might be wailing as you contemplate his absence and, more commonly, tears. And LMK if you want me to share a link to my playlist.



“God Only Knows” – The Beach Boys
A cathedral made of air.

“Surf’s Up” – The Beach Boys
Unruly. Glorious. Stars blinking Morse code

“Wouldn’t It Be Nice” – The Beach Boys
All those drums are just hearts pretending to be steady.

“Love and Mercy” – Brian Wilson (solo)
This one puts its hand on your shoulder and leaves it there.

“Caroline, No” – The Beach Boys
Regret as soundtrack: soft, golden, but never too late.

“Til I Die” – The Beach Boys
Driftwood poetry.

“That Lucky Old Sun (Reprise)” – Brian Wilson (solo)

Feels like flipping through polaroids with sand in your shoes.

“Heroes and Villains” – The Beach Boys
Pop rollercoaster music with zero safety rails. Smile sessions meet dream logic.

“In My Room” – The Beach Boys
The national anthem of introverts and daydreamers

“Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)” – The Beach Boys
Whispers you don’t want to interrupt. Love so tender it can’t bear words.

“Busy Doin’ Nothin’” – The Beach Boys
The best to-do list ever set to music.

“Imagination” – Brian Wilson (solo)
A quiet tribute to the inside of his own skull.

“I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times” – The Beach Boys
All sigh, no apology.

“Our Prayer” – The Beach Boys
The kind of throat clearing we’d all prefer to hear.

“The Warmth of the Sun” – The Beach Boys
Mourning dressed in sunbeam gauze.