I was doing a crossword this morning when I was confronted with the clue, “’John B,’ e.g.” Five letters. I vaguely remembered the Beach Boys did a song…was that the John B? I filed that away and moved on. By the end of the puzzle, I’d found my hunch was right. I’ll let you figure out the word. Not hard for Beach Boys fans.
But this led to a bit of free-flow thought this morning, and while I was walking the dog, I looked up the Beach Boys’ Greatest Hits and let it ride.
I’ve mentioned here before that I haven’t been the biggest of Beach Boys fans. Not by a long shot. That changed a little bit when I saw the documentary Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road on a plane back from the States a couple of years ago. I kind of appreciated Wilson’s musical genius after that, so I quite enjoyed the walk this morning.
Back in 2020, I wrote a short piece about a song that took me somewhere I’d never been. I just went back and reread it (you should too), and it’s beautiful, if only to me. As I listened to the Beach Boys, I got some of the same feeling. I’d never been a SoCal surf-boy. Nor a hot-rodder with my girl on a Saturday night. It wasn’t that way in the 70s. Not in Wisconsin. And not that I would’ve been through it all if I’d been born ten years earlier in Inglewood, California (Wilson’s hometown) either. But there still was a feel for that place I’d never been, and I found myself imagining what it would be like.
Wouldn’t it be nice?