There's always a gap between songs and the songwriter (probably true of most artists)--Keith Richard isn't really a street fighting man, Merle Haggard didn't actually embody the workingman's blues, and so on. But the gap between the cheerful promise of the Beach Boys music and Brian Wilson's actual life was particularly stark.
The Beach Boys were my first concert too, a continent away in Jersey City and I'm sure quite a few years apart, and yet it was the same songs and the same voices and, I suspect, the same emotions. Which is one other magical thing that music can do.
There's always a gap between songs and the songwriter (probably true of most artists)--Keith Richard isn't really a street fighting man, Merle Haggard didn't actually embody the workingman's blues, and so on. But the gap between the cheerful promise of the Beach Boys music and Brian Wilson's actual life was particularly stark.
The Beach Boys were my first concert too, a continent away in Jersey City and I'm sure quite a few years apart, and yet it was the same songs and the same voices and, I suspect, the same emotions. Which is one other magical thing that music can do.
Nice one Gina. I wrote about his memoir.
https://substack.com/@johnnogowski2/note/c-125149922?r=7pf7u&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action