God Only Knows

A few years ago, I remember seeing a photo of Paul McCartney meeting Brian Wilson, backstage. Paul has a coat over his arm and he is leaning forward, almost reverentially, towards Brian, who is seated.

The rivalry between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones was made much of in the media at the time but it was about style and youth culture rather than about musical quality and development, where there was really no contest.

The band the Beatles themselves took note of were the Beach Boys - and therefore - Brian Wilson.

On my way back home from the gym in the car this morning, I flicked through my favourite Beach Boys tracks, from the just over two minutes of concentrated and energy packed exuberance of “Darling,” to “God Only Knows,” which still sends a shiver down my spine every time I listen to it, and which was lauded by Paul, himself, allegedly, as “the best song of all time.”

Then I happened on a line from “When I grow up to be a man,” which asked, “Will I dig the same things that turn me on as a kid?” How prophetic was that? 

Trains, football, music, girls – the list is pretty much the same as it always was. My wife and I met for the first time 50 years ago this spring. As Brian Wilson so succinctly put it, “God only knows what I’d be without you.”

In Porthmadog, to pick up an original painting by Robert Dafydd Cadwalader of the brig, Gomer, on which Chris’s great, great grandfather learnt to sail. The trains, on this occasion, were just around the corner.