‘Warmth of the Sun’–Sam Robson
‘Please Let Me Wonder’–Sam Robson
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“So where are you, Jeff, in your new novel, The Greatest Band that Never Was?”
“My alter-ego is the protagonist, Shelly Griffin, a 43-year old, single, blonde shiksa from small-town dead-end rural Rust Belt Ohio.”
“But you’re an old white man from the other side of the world. What’s the connection?”
“When Shelly sets out on the impossible search to track down Decapede 36 years after their acrimonious breakup, she says ‘You can do anything—all you need is a dream and a plan.’ “
“What’s the connection?”
“She learned that from me and my Brian Wilson A Cappella project.”
“Please explain.”
“It’s simple. In 1965, four ‘minor’ Beach Boys songs planted a dream in my warped little adolescent brain. Half a century later I made that dream come true.”
There are two kinds of people in the world
Those who get Brian Wilson and those who don’t.
In 1965, everyone else was living on The A Side– dancing, driving, surfing and falling in love to Beach Boys’ hits like ‘Dance, Dance, Dance’, ‘Do You Wanna Dance’, ‘Help Me Rhonda’ and ‘I Get Around’
Me? I was awkward, alone, horny, and chronically broken-hearted, living on The B Side—‘Warmth of the Sun’, ‘Please Let Me Wonder’, ‘Kiss Me Baby’, ‘Don’t Worry Baby’.
I would lie In My Room dreaming of a Surfer Girl, grappling with my fears, my emotional turmoil, my bewilderment, my longings, listening to Brian explore the same things happening to him for the first time, with the most intense colors of a lifetime. And forging from that this most beautiful music.
And though as they languished in obscurity, even in 1964-5, I heard glorious, exquisitely excruciating passion in those four introspective, melancholy songs which would prove to be the harbinger for “Pet Sounds”.
I repeat: There are two kinds of people in the world, those who get Brian Wilson and those who don’t.
Even then, amidst The Agony and The Acne, I knew something was wrong with those recordings. I could hear in my mind Murry Wilson shouting into Brian’s good ear, “Turn up Dennis!! How are people supposed to dance to that mush?” But pop pap as those 4 recordings were, they were permanently tattooed into my soul.
“Jeff,” I said, “those songs need to be sung correctly.”
Brian Wilson A Cappella Project (aka Jeff’s Obsession)
Forty years later, I heard for the first time Vocal Line, the incomparable Contemporary A Cappella rhythm choir from Aarhus, Denmark, under the baton of Jens Johansen. Their music stunned me. It presented a new style, a new mindset, a 32-voice instrument created by God. I wobbled out of the concert, walked up to Jens and said, “The universe will not be aligned until those four Brian Wilson songs are properly restored to their core beauty in a vocal setting.” He smiled tolerantly and tiptoed away.
But I was bitten. I went home and created Vocalocity, with the secret agenda of getting them to sing those songs. They’re a great a cappella group, but they’re millenials and strangers to Brian Wilson.
I tried everywhere, the Ancient Mariner of a cappella. The Real Group wished me luck. The Swingles wished me luck. Deke Sharon wished me luck. Roger Treece wished me luck. Van Dyke Parks wished me luck. I wrote Brian, but the email is floating somewhere in the cybersphere.
So then I went and commissioned some of the best a cappella arrangers in the world to write scores for these four songs. Their mission was restoration, to remain faithful to the spirit of the original, to release the beauty of the music buried under the little tin AM radio production of these four diamonds in the rough. I was thrilled beyond words with the scores.
I formed For Adults Only, a group of a dozen trained singers ‘of a certain age’ to sing them. We tried, and enjoyed trying, but we didn’t make it. This is not simple music.
Then came the plague, and I figured there might be some causal connection, some kind of perverse divine retribution for neglecting my mission.
I approached Sam Robson, a young Brit I’ve long admired greatly, a schizoid vocalist extraordinaire. He took the four great scores, put on a tall coned cap, chanted ‘Double, double toil and trouble;/Fire burn and caldron bubble’, and birthed from dust and bytes and memories and notation squiggles and my obsession these four living, breathing homages to Brian’s nascent masterpieces.
Fears? – ‘Don’t Worry Baby’
These were a few songs of uncommon beauty, unnoticed precursors of “Pet Sounds”. Only one of them scratched the charts, ‘Don’t Worry, Baby’. Even back then, I could preternaturally sense that Brian had written a wrenching teen drama, a knight mounted for battle on his 409, the fair damsel’s bunting tied around the big buckle on the left wrist of his leather jacket.
For me, ‘Don’t Worry, Baby’ expresses the epitome of the male/female yin/yang—when you race today, if you take along my love with you, nothing can go wrong. She lays his head on her breast, strokes his cheek, and whispers ‘Don’t worry, baby’. What more could a man ask for in life?
Bewilderment? – ‘Please Let Me Wonder’
‘Please Let Me Wonder‘ is about the fundamental incomprehensibility of love. The glorious, heartbreaking harmonies, the entrancing tapestry of the counter-melody. The song itself is a wonder, as ineffable as love itself. The arrangement is by Ohad Goldbart. He and I speak a private musical language. I know that Ohad gets Brian Wilson.
Emotional Turmoil? – ‘Kiss Me Baby’
‘Kiss Me, Baby’ is the ultimate culprit, the song for me, as precious to me as it is obscure to the world. “Then I wondered as it got light, were you still awake like me?” What is worse than lost love at seventeen at four in the morning? Words fail me. This song was the inescapable soundtrack for the nadir of my life. It was playing in my head as I stood on the lip of the abyss.
Longings? – ‘The Warmth of the Sun’
Brian heard about JFK’s assassination, went to his piano and wrote ‘Warmth of the Sun’. When the arranger agreed to take on the challenge, he wondered “What am I supposed to do with a perfect song?” Just listen.
I could only imagine what these great arrangements would sound like till Sam Robson came along with his superhuman vocal powers and realized them in his own singular style. Thank you for the fine work, Sam.
What was the question?
Oh, where am I in the novel?
It’s not often that we mortals get to realize a dream. Getting this half-century old music out from inside my head and into the metaverse, just because I could–that’s a rare, blessed moment of “Good job, Jeff,” straining a neck muscle while patting myself on the back.
Shelly Griffin learned that from me.
Dreaming dreams and making them come true.
The Greatest Band that Never Was, now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
For Extra Credit:
118: Brian Wilson, ‘Surf’s Up’ (“SMiLE”)
004: The Beach Boys, ‘Kiss Me Baby’
230: The Beach Boys, ‘Here Today’ (“Pet Sounds” Unsurpassed Masters Vol. 14)
158: Paul Simon, ‘Surfer Girl’
174: Vocal Line, ‘Don’t Give Up’
188: Imogen Heap/Vocal Line, ‘Let Go’
269: Brian Wilson, ‘Sandy’/’Sherri She Needs Me’/’She Says That She Needs Me’
Put me in the “gets Brian Wilson” column.
Ever since I heard Warmth of the Sun” so many summers ago.
A 7th grade not so popular pre teen who shared the same ocean breeze and sun with Brian and Crew up the street in Hawthorne, CA. I haven’t ventured far, and all I have to do is get down to the shore here in Hermosa Beach and it all comes flooding back. This music is the soundtrack of my most tender years. Thanks for sharing.