Brian Wilson, Love, and My Need for Mercy
Long ago, my first love, Pammy, entered into that room inside me that the music of Brian Wilson had opened.
By Scott Samuelson
One of my big regrets in life, the kind that tortures me at three in the morning, may not seem like a big deal when you first hear about it: I once said that I hated the Beach Boys.
In the wake of Brian Wilson’s death, I want to apologize for that vicious lie—though I’m afraid that my apology comes decades too late to the one person I really wish I could give it to.
The Beach Boys made the music that I first fell in love with. When I was a kid in the early 1980s, my family had only a handful of records and tapes. We rarely listened to music unless it happened to come from the TV. I wanted to try out a new pair of headphones and plugged them into the boombox that my mom and sisters used for their Jane Fonda workout. Because the Beach Boys compilation Endless Summer was lying around, it was what I stuck into the tape deck.
A few drumbeats—suddenly the glorious …
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