As time has passed – it’s been 55 years since ‘the ‘60s’ ended – it’s become increasingly clear that Brian Wilson was a songwriting and musical talent equal to and even in some ways surpassing any others of his era. He was a giant and music lovers, even some who aren’t usually pop music fans, mourn his death this week.

One major reason for the staying power of his songs is that great melody never goes out of style. And the more I hear Brian’s melodies the more I appreciate their haunting beauty, and the more his stature rises in my book – and it’s always been high.

I watched a documentary recently that focused on his early songs for The Beach Boys. I was struck by Brian’s individuality, his harmonic and melodic daring, in even his earliest pieces, before he’d developed a songwriting voice that was completely his own (in later masterpieces like ’Surf’s Up’, ‘Heroes & Villains’, and ‘’Til I Die’ ).

I’m going to look at two fairly ‘typical’ early Brian songs – ‘Surf City’ (written and produced for Jan & Dean) and ‘Don’t Worry Baby’ (The Beach Boys). Both songs combine basic rock and roll chords (for most of the song) with some real curveballs that only Brian could’ve thrown.

A lot of ’Surf City’ (listen below)  is a simple blues in Ab. But it starts out with a signature hook; they sing “Two girls for every boy” (this was 1963, folks) over these chords:

| B | E F# | Eb | Eb |

An unusual (to put it mildly) and interesting way to get into the key of Ab! The Verse chords:

|| Ab | Fminor | Ab | Ab | Ab | F minor | Ab | Fminor |

| Db | Bbminor | Gb | Eb | Eb ||

Check out how he goes from 8 bars of straight-up ‘50s RnR into the brief harmonic journey in thirds (in bars 9-13) that takes him out of key to the Gb chord and then back in again (Eb). All done so smoothly you might not notice.

Nobody was writing rock and roll songs with chord changes like these! (We still aren’t.)

The Chorus starts out as a straight ahead 12 bar blues…

|| Ab | Ab | Ab | Ab | Db | Db | Ab | Ab | B | E F# | Eb | Eb ||

…but when he gets to the 9th bar, instead of hitting the V chord as expected Brian hits a ‘B’ chord (way out of key) and revisits the introduction described above.

I want to emphasize that, within a basically diatonic song, when big moves out of key work it’s almost always because the melody works. The listener follows the melody. If that makes sense you’ll follow the chords anywhere.

‘Don’t Worry Baby’ is known to any Brian Wilson/Beach Boys fan for its aching, soaring melody and the universal and heartfelt sentiment of the Chorus. Not to mention Brian’s poignant high vocal. (Listen below.) The song starts out in one key, changes key for the Chorus, and then returns to the first key for the Verse.

This in itself isn’t so unusual, but what is less common is the way it’s ‘baked in’ to the song. It’s not an imposed modulation. You couldn’t play the song without it (another one like this is The Beatles’ ’Penny Lane’).

‘Don’t Worry Baby’ starts out with a chord progression and melodic contour that’s very close to ‘Be My Baby’ by Phil Spector (a big influence on Brian, mainly as a producer – and he wrote this one with ‘Be My Baby’ in mind). But what Brian does is much more sophisticated (not taking anything away from the classic, but compositionally simpler, ‘Be My Baby’).

The chords of the first 8 bars are identical to ‘Be My Baby’ and the Pre-Chorus chords similar too. But Brian, switching the order of ‘Be My Baby’s’ Pre-Chorus chords, moves into a new key for the Chorus.

Verse || E | E | A | B | E | E | A | B |
Pre-Chorus || F#minor | B | G#minor | C# ||
Chorus || F# | F# | G#minor | C# | F# | F# | G#minor | C# | E/B B ||

The way he comes back to the home key in that ‘extra’ 9th bar of the Chorus always gets me.

Again, the reason this all works musically is because of the melody. Play or sing the melody of ‘Don’t Worry Baby’ without the chords. Note the winding, rising and falling drama of its musical story. Note the trademark Brian big leaps – twice jumping up a flat 6th in the Verse and twice up a flat 7th in the Pre-Chorus. Beautiful.

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