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Nov 20, 2013 By Ryan E.C. Hamm

Forgotten Songs is our recurring series where a musician or one of our writers examines a song they love that they feel has been overlooked. It could be a song by an artist who never made it big, or it could be a B-side/rarity or unheralded album track by a more well-known artist. For this edition of Forgotten Songs, Under the Radar’s own Ryan E.C. Hamm writes about The Beach Boys’ “Pacific Coast Highway” and “Summer’s Gone.”

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The first thing you need to know is that the album that “Pacific Coast Highway” and “Summer’s Gone” appear on, That’s Why God Made the Radio, is pretty awful. It was a byproduct of The Beach Boys’ 50th anniversary tour that reunited Brian Wilson with the rest of the Boys, which was meant to remind everyone that America had once had a great melodic hope that would compete with The Beatles. Instead, the tour mainly served to show everyone that Brian Wilson is getting older—he couldn’t quite hit those perfect, Smile high-notes anymore—and that Mike Love remains hellbent on Jimmy Buffet-ing the Beach Boys into margaritaville oblivion.

That’s Why God Made the Radio serves much the same intended purpose—touted as a return to the glory days of Pet Sounds through Sunflower (Brian Wilson wrote songs again!), instead it was marked by dreck like “Beaches in Mind.” If the 2012 album barely made a blip on your radar, don’t worry about it. Most people who would list Pet Sounds in their top five albums of all time (present writer included) did their best to brush That’s Why… under the rug as quickly as possible.

And yet. If you’re brave enough to last through to the final four songs of the album (or, smart enough to only download those four), you’ll be rewarded with a small slice of what it sounds like when someone with a perfect ear for pop music gets old.

Wilson has always had a gift for finding the poignant melancholy in his sunniest songs—even a song as wedding-ready as “God Only Knows” starts with “I may not always love you.” And have you listened to “Surf’s Up” lately?

It’s this gift that comes to the front of “Pacific Coast Highway” and “Summer’s Gone.” Immediately, you’ll notice that both are lovely, in ways only Beach Boys songs can be. The reverb and harmonies in both songs are perfect and the music straddles the line between schmaltzy and heartfelt in just the right way. But more important are the lyrics.

Wilson’s lyrics (for the most part) have always been fairly straightforward—there was the Van Dykes Park/drug era of his career that played with more imagist and playful lyrics, but deep down, Wilson has always been the guy who just wasn’t made for these times. And these songs are his (and by extension, The Beach Boys’) way of saying goodbye.

“Some days I realize my day’s are gettin’ on,” Wilson sings in “Pacific Coast Highway.” “Sunlight’s fading and there’s not much left to say,” he laments, but not sadly—more with a sort of beautiful acceptance. It’s some of the most affecting music about aging you can hear. “Summer’s Gone” strolls along with the same sentiment—if you view the Boys’ initial output as summer-drenched, this metaphor, heavy-handed though it may be, couldn’t be more perfect. “I’m gonna sit and watch the waves,” sings Wilson, the man who once wrote lyrics like “We’re on safari to stay/Tell the teacher we’re surfin’ U.S.A.” Sunny days have faded to sunset, and summer has faded into an autumn.

Most pop songs try to capture the dizzy highs and lows of life—the thrill of first love, the lunatic joy of being young, the heartbreak of a break-up, the devastation of unrequited life. But there aren’t many that so ably capture the quiet, in-between moments like Brian Wilson’s have for decades. And now, he’s done us a great service by reflecting what it’s really like to age and come to the end of your career and ponder what your legacy will be. If The Beach Boys, at their best, reminded us how great and painful and confusing it was to be young, it’s a gift that they can do provide the same soundtrack for getting old.

Ryan E.C. Hamm is a writer living in Ohio. Follow him on Twitter @RyanECHamm or find him at RyanECHamm.com.