That’s a thing I never got straight: is this Brian or Carl singing? I can’t tell their voices apart. Both wonderful of course.
While I love Pet Sounds, it was popular before my time. Wilson was a great visionary and his music timeless and brilliant.
So hoist up the John B’s sail
See how the mainsail sets
Call for the captain ashore,
And let me go home
Let me go home
I wanna go home, (yeah, yeah)
Well, I feel so broke up
I wanna go home.
It’s Carl. FWIW, for at least the last 35 years, Al Jardine’s son Matt sang the falsetto parts for Brian.
Yeah, I knew that, but I meant that in general, I can’t tell their voices apart.
Mostly, I had wondered if Brian, in 2014, could still sing like that. (And I had not realized that it wasn’t him on the original recording.)
Not much new info. But plenty of pictures.
To reinforce that point, I was listening to the Beach Boys a lot one beautiful summer when, on one particularly gorgeous day, I got on my motorcycle with my GF behind me, who was every bit as gorgeous as the summer day, later to be my wife. We biked around 30 miles to a local marina and went sailing. Listening to the Beach Boys on the boat stereo. The Beach Boys: part of the happiest times of my life.
And you were listening to this song? 
The advantage of him having his own band apart from Mike Love’s “official” Beach Boys outfit was that his aging voice was suited to all of the Mike Love parts on the old records and he could let others sing the old Brian Wilson parts.
It was indeed a Honda, but not like some of those wimpy bikes pictured in the video. It was a CX500, closely modeled on its big brother the Gold Wing, with a water cooled engine and shaft drive. Good times! That was a summer to remember. It was when she moved in with me. And I was constantly listening to the Beach Boys. What more can I say?
Could have been. It’s all pretty produced, and it’s only 2 seconds of pretty easy singing.
I saw Brian Wilson in 2016, and in my opinion, acknowledging that it was just one night, he could barely keep it together. He sang some, but generally would start off and not even complete a single verse before another band member would sing through the rest of the song. He was at the piano and played it a little, but mixed way down in the mix. There were a few nice moments, but generally I walked away from that show feeling like I was watching Christopher Pike in his chair. It was really depressing.
Like @Loach , I have never quite understood the esteem other musicians had for Wilson (or of Pet Sounds). He has written some great songs, and plenty of throw-aways. I suspect there’s a bit of a “you had to be there” wrapped up in it, along with a dose of “what would he have done if his life hadn’t been as screwed up as it was” that goes into that assessment. Which is not arguing that he wasn’t significant in the development of pop song writing. Just that his legacy doesn’t particularly stand out to me.
At any rate, 82 is not young, though not as old as some. Sorry to see him go, and in the upcoming decade I expect the giants of the 50s 60s and 70s are going to start passing away at an expected but alarming rate.
Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan are all in their mid-80s. Ugh. The cultural impact of their inevitable passing will be enormous.
My wife and I saw all three at Desert Trip in 2016 instead of going to Europe on vacation. Europe will always be there.
I have a black & grey Hawaiian shirt. I am wearing it. Never thought that I’d own a mourning Hawaiian shirt but it seems so appropriate today.
I saw him lose his shit over a beach ball bouncing among the crowd in 2012. I saw him again in 2019 and he gave a great performance. He definitely had his highs and lows.
I can believe it.
Part of being a professional musician is being able to consistently deliver the goods.
Part of being a living legend is that people will pay to see you perform even if you can no longer consistently deliver the goods.
The word ‘genius’ is thrown around too liberally, but it definitely applied to Wilson. People will still be listening to his work in a hundred years. RIP.
He was one of my favorite songwriters. Amazing talent. Loved when Belushi and Ackroyd came to take him away for violating the California Surfing Act.
SiriusXM is dedicating channel 79 to all Beach Boys today and tomorrow.
They may have thrown this together too fast. When they played “Good Vibrations” they showed the Pet Sounds cover. Uh, no. It appeared on Smiley Smile.
I havent had a chance yet for a good relisten to my Sly and the Family Stone favorites.
I had always had respect for the Beach Boys, genre defining, great harmonies, fun music. But, God Only Knows is amazing, a brilliant piece of music. It is one of those songs I had heard and enjoyed many times before I really, really listened to it.