"In My Room" ... Brian Wilson & the Boys of Beach

As a non-adult I thought "In My Room" was so strange, a combo of eerie, skeevie and over-share. But I also sensed that the absence of a filter, the soul on-the-page, on the musical staff-edness was an astonishment. In the airwaves, Beach Boy Brian Wilson's song, co-written with Gary Usher, overshadowed my kneejerk desire to dismiss it as so intimate as to be artless.

So, okay. I knew very little about myself back then.  Some little nub poked my psyche.  Not that I thought about it.  I was in junior high.  I was in my room and my room was still a retreat much needed.

Sometime in the early seventies, my musician sister told me Wilson's composition compared with Bach's. I believed her but still can't say I had any place inside me, any room in which to consider that statement in depth. I experienced songs, felt them, didn't necessarily analyze.

While I didn't, then, disapprove of "In My Room," I sure didn't get the striped shirt-look of the The Beach Boys.  It is good that they reformed and got sloppy.

Thank you, Sarah Sarai's parents,* for never ever objecting to rock, pop, r&b or soul, even though you were Bach, Beethoven, Brahms (and Rodgers and Hart)-happy.

By the way, I've wanted to read Wilson's autobiography, Wouldn't It Be Nice since it was published, but there were layers of glass between me and the book.  The layers dissolved like sin in the grace of the Noon-day sun, a month ago. Yeah, it was a great read, and yeah, for me, a necessary read, if only to hear about art and rawness, transparency, filters.

Though not a great poem, it is a great song.  Lyrics to "In My Room":

There's a world where I can go and tell my secrets to
In my room, in my room
In this world I lock out all my worries and my fears
In my room, in my room

Do my dreaming and my scheming
Lie awake and pray
Do my crying and my sighing
Laugh at yesterday

Now it's dark and I'm alone
But I won't be afraid
In my room, in my room
In my room, in my room
In my room, in my room

_______
Brian Wilson and Gary Usher

***back then I was Sarah Gancher...