(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Sun 29 March 2026 6:00, UK
The entire impact of The Beach Boys can really be summed up in what Brian Wilson brought to the table.
Yes, there were other members of the band that helped create those soaring harmonies, but if you were to break down the raw essence of what the band were all about, every single one of Brian’s contributions to the band managed to outshine everything else that his brothers ever did. But even if he was the musical equivalent of Mozart whenever he worked on one of their songs, he felt that his collaborators were much better lyricists than he would ever be.
Then again, it was never exactly that hard to write a standard Beach Boys song during their inception. Their entire appeal centred around three things, and the formula seemed to be very simple, going from one song to the next: love song, summer song, driving song, repeat. It wasn’t that complicated by any stretch, but that might have been the problem. Wilson didn’t sign up to fall into a holding pattern, and when looking through some of their masterpieces like Pet Sounds, the greatest moments come from when they are delving into more serious subject matter.
Van Dyke Parks may have helped with their tunes later on records like Surf’s Up, but Peter Asher was the real match made in heaven when Wilson started writing tunes. He didn’t have that much experience in the musical field, but even when writing commercial jingles, all Asher needed to provide was a couple of lines for Wilson to come back with musical diamonds like ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’.
But when talking about The Beach Boys, it’s hard to get past the elephant in the room that is Mike Love. Love did have that signature voice that made many of their songs work so well, but given his reputation as being one of the biggest jackasses in the industry, it’s not like Wilson was thrilled to be working with him every time he went into the studio. Love had already started to be too nitpicky about their psychedelic music, but it’s also hard to imagine some of the band’s best songs without his involvement.
It is laughable for him to think he deserved a writing credit on ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ for writing what amounts to three words, but there’s a reason why ‘California Girls’ is still considered their signature song. He was the one who captured that fun-in-the-sun attitude in their lyrics, and as long as Wilson was still working with the band, he felt that Love was the best person to help translate his ideas.
But out of every collaborator he worked with, Wilson always felt an affinity to the way that Asher wrote with him, saying, “Tony Asher had the ability to put into words what I felt in my heart, and the Wrecking Crew musicians helped me achieve what I heard in my head, and that’s what made Pet Sounds so special to me.” And when you hear his voice on a lot of those songs, you can really hear that aching in his voice.
Even though the band’s main calling card was everyone singing together, there’s no one else who could have done ‘I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times’ but Wilson. He was the one who truly felt like an outsider in the band, and everything from ‘God Only Knows’ and ‘Caroline No’ wouldn’t have been able to happen with Asher’s simplicity behind everything.
So while Love can try and take credit for the songs that he wrote that made The Beach Boys so special, Wilson always had space in his heart for what Asher brought to the table. He was never the greatest with words, so Asher was the emotional translator who helped him verbalise everything he was feeling.
