Wouldnt It Be Nice | Page 3

blew that with cigarettes some thirty years ago. I just want to be able to do what it is that I'm thinking. Brian is the most athletic singer that I know.
"The importance of a vocalist can't be diminished. In the case of Orange Crate Art, it really is 'the singer, not the song.' That's why his name is first on the album. There is such pathos in his voice."
And in fact this is the reason that the idea of a collaboration between Parks and Wilson has haunted Brian Wilson fans for so many years. "Brian has done some of his own best lyrics," Parks says, thinking of songs like "Love and Mercy" and "'Til I Die," both of which have wonderful renditions on I Just Wasn't Made For These Times. "But I also think that it's good for Brian to have somebody around to be wrong, from time to time. With a collaborator you always have an idiot next to you, saying the wrong thing--that's a service I've provided for Brian."
What Parks has actually provided are lyrics with enough substance to bear up under the weight of the feelings Wilson brings to them. One of the struggles Wilson's fans go through is dealing with the cognitive dissonance of songs like "Don't Worry, Baby"--full of wrenching emotion, but ultimately still a song about auto racing: "She makes me come alive/And makes me want to drive."
Parks's lyrics, on the other hand, are intricate, punning, and full of internal rhymes: "From the vine of a vintage cru/Comes the wine of this rendezvous." Wilson's voice finds the emotion beneath the surface and gives it to the listener unfiltered.
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People change themselves by asking "what if," and use role models to help define those changes. Heroes show us things in ourselves that we can nurture and bring to the front.
For many, Brian Wilson is a hero because he has the strength to maintain his innocence when so many people, for so many years, have tried to steal it from him, because he is willing, time and again, to offer his raw emotions to a world where feelings are out of fashion.
Watching Wilson offer up his feelings to be stepped on is a difficult experience. It offers some insight into why so many, over the years, might have tried to move in and protect him. It is especially difficult to watch when it's the Beach Boys, who have been at the center of so many past injuries--lawsuits, appointed caretakers, even the death of Smile itself--who are hurting him again today.
"I think Phil Spector's music is very current," Wilson says, out of nowhere. "The boys and I went out there on a limb for him, went out there and spread his rock and roll message. And the guys got so into that enthusiasm it took them on a thirty-five year orbit around the world. And those guys never once complained. It was rough on them, all that time they spent on the road."
When asked what he's working on now, he says, "I've been trying to write some songs that are right for my group."
That group is not producer Andy Paley, and the musicians with whom Wilson has been recording again, in the spontaneous, pick-up-the-phone-and-book-a-studio manner he used so often in the sixties. No, he's talking about the Beach Boys.
"We think," Wilson says. "We don't know. The guys won't respond. We put out little feelers, 'How would you like to get together and have a listening party?' and then they all called up and canceled.
"The thing with the boys is, they're great, professional singers. It kind of hurts to feel like I'm going to lose them, or that they're not gonna take my trip. Hurts my feelings a little bit."
It's disturbing to think that Wilson, who is capable of solo work on the level of "Love and Mercy" would attempt to write another "Kokomo." There are so many possibilities available to him right now, including writing music for Parks's lyrics, a true collaboration. Parks has also offered to produce an album of Wilson singing standards--they recorded an acappella version of "Rhapsody in Blue" and a version of "Our Love is Here to Stay" which didn't make the final cut for Orange Crate Art. David Leaf, Wilson's friend and biographer, has talked about one day working with Wilson to arrange some of the Smile music for a symphonic performance--a genuinely brilliant idea.
For Brian Wilson that freedom seems the most frightening thing of all.
Wilson is dismissive of the idea of another solo album. "I did one with Van Dyke. That's a solo album."
As for one with songs that he's written on it, "No," he says, with a short laugh. "Not really." Words come easily enough for Wilson, sometimes great rushes of them, but it's easy to see in his face that