{"id":299218,"date":"2025-12-04T20:35:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T20:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/299218\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T20:35:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T20:35:11","slug":"brian-wilsons-favourite-lyric-that-the-beatles-ever-wrote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/299218\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Wilson\u2019s favourite lyric that The Beatles ever wrote"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Brian<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Caribou Records \/ Public Domain)<\/p>\n

Thu 4 December 2025 17:31, UK <\/p>\n

Strawberries and cream, Sunday\u2019s frozen pitch and a thermos flask, drunken 2am texts and mornings of regret, none of them pair quite as synonymously as The Beatles and The Beach Boys<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They were two of the most defining bands of the 1960s, who both shared the uncanny knack of straddling genres and pushing forth into pastures anew, not to mention the harmonies\u2026 those beautiful damn harmonies. <\/p>\n

Without one, there might not have been the other. As Paul McCartney once proudly proclaimed, \u201cI figure no one is educated musically \u2018til they\u2019ve heard Pet Sounds<\/a>.\u201d And John Lennon also had huge respect for Brian Wilson. In 1965, the bespectacled Beatle notably said, \u201cHe never tours or anything. He just sits at home thinking up fantastic arrangements out of his head.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A year later, The Beatles would quit the hectic ways of the road and take a similar scientific, studio approach to capturing the zeitgeist. While there were a million and one other reasons behind the Fab Four forgoing the road, one of them was certainly a bid to match their Californian counterparts.<\/p>\n

Given that the curtailment (even though they had played an unprecedented number of shows in their early days) set them up for criticisms like Keith Richards claiming they were \u201cnever quite there\u201d when it came to \u201cthe live thing\u201d, it seems they were more concerned with keeping pace with Wilson and mustering similar cutting-edge, timeless songs.<\/p>\n

\"Paul<\/a>Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson. (Credits: Paul McCartney)<\/p>\n

It was a symbiotic relationship, where one band drove the other to new heights. Wilson was particularly keen on layering more profound spirituality in his tracks, as The Beatles had done before him, once they met with Bob Dylan. The cycle of the \u201860s led to a whirlwind of inspired art.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Everything existed in a frenzy of freshness. In fact, Graham Nash recalls moving to Laurel Canyon and having people knock on his door to go up the road and listen in on the new song Wilson was working on. Invariably, he sat stoned in a living room listening to a song that will now live on forever.<\/p>\n

Ideas were swapped as readily as a joint, and you can trace the impact one inspired move had on a peer with relative ease. There was, in fact, one lyric, in particular, that piqued Wilson\u2019s interest when he was looking to expand his metaphysical horizons. It set him off on a rampage, strutting about a Hollywood Hills part, hollering about how damn good it was. A single line, no less\u2026 and the lyric wasn\u2019t bad either.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt must have been in November of 1965,\u201d Wilson recalled. \u201cI was living in this house in the Hollywood Hills then, way up on Laurel Way, and I remember sitting in the living room one night talking with some friends when another friend came in with a copy of the Beatles\u2019 new one, Rubber Soul, I don\u2019t know if it had even come out yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, in a typically \u201860s fashion, by hook or by crook Wilson\u2019s associate had a bonafide copy. The party hushed, symbolic of the esteem that The Beatles were held in even by the very people that they themselves admired. \u201cSo, we put it on the record player and, wow. As soon as I started hearing it I loved it. I mean, LOVED it!\u201d It remains one of his favourite albums to this day, but back upon first listen it really changed his worldview. <\/p>\n

One lyric stood out as the strand he remembers most from that fateful first listen. He champions \u2018Michelle\u2019 as a lyrical classic, but there is one verse that stands out from the crowd for Wilson. \u201c\u2019Norwegian Wood\u2019 is my favourite,\u201d Wilson told TLS. <\/p>\n

Adding, \u201cThe lyrics are so good and so creative, right from the first line: \u2018I once had a girl\/ Or should I say, she once had me.\u2019 It\u2019s so mysterious. Is he into her, or she into him? It just blew my mind. And in the end, when he wakes up and she\u2019s gone, so he lights a fire. \u2018Isn\u2019t it good? Norwegian wood.\u2019 Is he setting her house on fire? I didn\u2019t know. I still don\u2019t know. I thought that was fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether Wilson would like a spoiler or not, there is an answer to this mystery, and it doesn\u2019t involve maiming someone with flames, thankfully. As Lennon explained: \u201cI was trying to write about an affair without letting my wife know I was having one.\u201d <\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cI was sort of writing from my experiences \u2013 girl\u2019s flats, things like that. I was very careful and paranoid because I didn\u2019t want my wife, Cyn, to know that there really was something going on outside of the household.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lennon earnestly concluded: \u201cI\u2019d always had some kind of affairs going on, so I was trying to be sophisticated in writing about an affair, but in such a smoke-screen way that you couldn\u2019t tell. But I can\u2019t remember any specific woman it had to do with.\u201d That enigmatic smoke-screen is something that Wilson adored, pining for equal ambiguity in his own key-less pop classics. <\/p>\n

Another domino of influence had tumbled, and pop songwriting changed with that lyric. Such feats seemed to be occurring weekly during that prolific period of poetry that now stacks up as something like a modern renaissance period.<\/p>\n

Honouring a Beach Boys icon<\/p>\n

When Wilson passed away in June 11th 2025, Paul McCartney came forward with a fitting tribute to the man who helped to inspire his greatest works, and a certain word pops up again. \u201cBrian had that mysterious sense of musical genius that made his songs so achingly special,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n

Adding, \u201cThe notes he heard in his head and passed to us were simple and brilliant at the same time. I loved him, and was privileged to be around his bright shining light for a little while. How we will continue without Brian Wilson, \u2018God Only Knows\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n

The Far Out Beatles Newsletter<\/p>\n

All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Caribou Records \/ Public Domain) Thu 4 December 2025 17:31, UK Strawberries and cream,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[29764,96,128,15745,10447,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-299218","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-brian-wilson","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-the-beach-boys","12":"tag-the-beatles","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}