It was coincidental timing that we saw Barenaked Ladies on Sunday. They were the headliner of the concert I’ve been touching on this week. And they, of course, did their modern version of Brian Wilson. Today, of course, came the news that the legendary musician Brian Wilson had died. It was not BNL’s best sound of the night, frankly. Then again, it’s not Ed Robertson’s song. (Every time I see them I think, Maybe this will be the night Steven Page strolls out from stage left … )
BNL is still a fine band, and they put on a nice show, that one is just off a bit. The live shows were always better with Page, but you understand why they parted ways in 2009. Anyway, here’s Page fronting Brian Wilson for BNL.
As a gag, Brian Wilson covered BNL’s song about Brian Wilson.
Some years back, Wilson talked about a song, and a sound, to which he aspired:
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys estimates that he’s heard “Be My Baby,” by the Ronettes, more than 1,000 times. The very first listen, 50 years ago this month, still haunts him.
“I was driving and I had to pull over to the side of the road — it blew my mind,” Mr. Wilson said, repeating a story that has become something of a legend. “It was a shock.” Just 21 and already frustrated with his band’s basic surf music, he bought the single and set about deconstructing its arrangement and production.
“I started analyzing all the guitars, pianos, bass, drums and percussion,” he said by telephone. “Once I got all those learned, I knew how to produce records.”
Those records, many fans would contend, weren’t half bad, but if you ask Mr. Wilson, they still don’t stack up.
“I felt like I wanted to try to do something as good as that song and I never did,” he said. “I’ve stopped trying.” Mr. Wilson added: “It’s the greatest record ever produced. No one will ever top that one.”
You know it; it’s Phil Spector, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry. It’s the Wrecking Crew, a wall of sound. It’s 18-year-old Veronica Bennett in those resonant Gold Star Studios.
My favorite will forever be.
Another bit of coincidental timing: as I write this, there’s an insurance commercial on using a brassy instrumental version of Good Vibrations as bed music. That song turns 60 next year.
Update: Some years back, BBC radio brought together a tremendous sequence of performances to celebrate another of Wilson’s brilliant pieces of art, and a classic song of our era.
