As the Beach Boys sang “house,” the song, “All Summer Long,” didn’t just change chords — in a luscious instant, it ascended to a higher place. Another wave of voices flooded in, but it was the revelation of that chord that was the hook, the spice, the thing that made me melt.

Brian Wilson was a troubled genius who made so many people happy but had far too much sadness in his life already.

"I loved him, and was privileged to be around his bright shining light for a little while," McCartney wrote on Thursday, a day after Wilson died at age 82.