The song that Brian Wilson wrote while drunk: “A real positive vibe”
There’s no telling when inspiration will strike for a musician. Perhaps in a car, while staring wistfully out of the window, or maybe over coffee with a friend, prompting a desperate run home to scribble down that interesting phrase they said. Maybe at a party or a wedding, surrounded by people, or alone in the comfort of a bedroom. Or, perhaps inspiration will strike when you’re half a bottle of champagne in. That was the case for Brian Wilson when he penned his 1988 solo track, ‘Love and Mercy’.
The opener to his self-titled album, ‘Love and Mercy’ contains all of Wilson’s characteristic songwriting and production elements, carried on from his days in The Beach Boys. There are glorious harmonies and lush instrumentation surrounding his declarations of love and mercy. The song would even give its name to a 2015 biopic about the Beach Boy.
As Wilson recalled during an appearance at the Grammy Museum in the late 2000s, he felt compelled to pen the track after drinking half a bottle of sparkling wine. “I had just drunk half a bottle of champagne,” he remembered, “and I said, ‘Hey, I feel like writing a song,’ so I wrote ‘Love and Mercy’ half-drunk.”
The result was a gorgeous work of pop songwriting written on a whim, which finds Wilson longing for the titular virtues amidst crummy movies and loneliness. “Love and mercy, that’s what we need tonight,” he sings, as those familiar, layered harmonies uphold his words. The instrumentation twinkles around him as he escapes the hurt and violence of the world through those more spiritual ideas.
Wilson may have been spurred on to write the song in that moment, but he would hone it over time and in collaboration with his psychologist, Dr. Landy, who assisted him with the lyrics. As he recalled once, he was going for a “spiritual, semi-Beach Boy” background sound with his lyrics at the forefront, deeming the song a “real positive vibe.”
The lyrics they conjured together weren’t entirely positive – the verses find him contemplating the violence and hurt that we see on our television screens, the loneliness that can be found in even the busiest of bars – but the choruses long for something beyond this sadness and pain. He longs for love and mercy for you and for him, and even bestows it upon listeners.
“So, love and mercy to you and your friends tonight,” he declares against the fearful verses, “Love and mercy, that’s what you need tonight.” As the instrumentation is just as spiritual and intentional as his words, his voice and harmonies feeling as familiar as ever, it’s easy to believe that his words will bring those things.
Wilson is one of the most accomplished pop songwriters of all time, and with just one listen to ‘Love and Mercy’, it’s easy to see why. Even out on his own, he continued to pen impossibly lush soundscapes, melodic and magical, that serve as a sonic kind of comfort. There’s a certain energy to his writing that can always be felt beneath those layers of instruments and voices – a “real positive vibe” if we’re to use the songwriter’s own words.
Listen to ‘Love and Mercy’, the song that Brian Wilson wrote while drunk, below.