Wouldnt It Be Nice | Page 3

together, and
that's how it started."
There were musical reasons as well. "I can't do the things with my
voice that I want to write. I don't have a falsetto break. I 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.
*
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