Everyone has a soft spot for the music that was the soundtrack to our own teenage years. The music my siblings and I listened to, specifically the older ones of us seven kids, was a more innocent music than the hard rock, loud beat, heavy metal, punk, sounds that came along later.
We had Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka, Ricky Nelson, Annette, Connie Francis, Fabian, the Everly Brothers, Lesley Gore, Elvis, Chuck Berry, and others. Their music was soft-spoken. It had words that told a story, usually about teenage angst, broken hearts and break-ups, dating your best girl or boy. We also had the syncopated groups with backup singers. Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Temptations, the Four Seasons, the Shirelles.
And we had the beginnings of a different music. James Brown, Janis, CCR, Aretha, and all the ones that provided the backdrop to the Vietnam War. And of course, we were there for the British Invasion. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones the biggest names. But also Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Animals, Herman’s Hermits.
Many others too numerous to list. It was a great time for music that was more about the words and less about the hard, loud, what I like to call screaming. Ha! The songs told a story. And that story was our story. We were the ones with the broken hearts, the ones trying to find ourselves, the ones growing up. They weren’t three words you often can’t even hear repeated over and over. We were readers of books, we were writers of diaries where we put on paper how we felt. Where we told our story. Our counselors were our best friends and our music. Our parents didn’t anguish over our teenage problems and even if they did none of us average families could afford counseling. Most of us never even heard of such a thing!
In among this group of singers, and bands, and storytellers, we had The Beach Boys. Who told us if we all only had a beach and a surfboard, and a little deuce coupe, and blonde hair, everything would be perfect. And we wanted that. We felt it was in our reach, somehow. If everybody only had an ocean.
Rest in peace, Brian Wilson.
