Every album title feels a bit more horrible for Brian Wilson. His scrapped Sweet Insanity album is as on the nose as you’d expect from an album produced by his therapist. The album was rejected, but the leak is worth a listen, mainly for the so-bad-it’s-brilliant track Smart Girls. It wouldn’t be long before Wilson was back in the studio, anyway, to create I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times. Another morbid title but one which rings true for those who know just how ahead Pet Sounds was of everything else, and just how unconvinced some of The Beach Boys were about such an album. A few familiar names to Bob Dylan fans, namely Jim Keltner, will provide some hopes of confident, quality material from I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times. That hope is warranted, because Wilson sounds fantastic across this album, though well off the mark of a very high standard set fifteen years before this.
You can project what you like about the tragic moments of Wilson onto these solo works, but at the end of it all, you have to separate it from the sadness which comes from his death. Listening back to I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times is eleven gut punches, all lined up as Wilson tries to piece himself together. Even the opener, a fifty-second song titled Meant for You, is a staggering listen. A lot of that is dependent on the feeling Wilson can naturally conjure with that fragile-sounding but still brilliant voice. There’s an inherently honest look at the world which has lasted through Wilson’s work. Even the more middling songs, Caroline, No, for instance, is just filled with openness and in turn becomes a little treat of a listen. Let the Wind Blow is where the better work comes through as Wilson mourns not the loss of someone, but the act of losing someone. He’d trade it all for them and that, backed by the lighter instrumental style, is a career highlight, let alone the best part of I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times.
Granted these are primarily re-recorded, older songs, but Wilson finds some new desires and instrumental success in these reworkings. Such is the point of a re-release or return to material. U2 tried and failed to do it, few can find a freshness to their work until time has passed. Pulp did so with Help the Aged on their More tour and Bob Dylan is a natural when it comes to reinterpreting his work and that of others with Shadows in the Night and Shadow Kingdom. Wilson is in that field too with I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times hearing him try and find new reason and value in old experiences. His reflections are our comfort, as is the case for so many other artists trying to pull at their shortcomings and how everything turned out.
Love and Mercy is featured yet again, but it’s always a treat to hear that song, irrespective of where or why. These slowed tones and baroque-like, swaying fixtures are a delight, though. They may have just been for a documentary of the same name but they serve a purpose beyond soundtracking Wilson’s on-screen appearance. This is the soundtrack to Wilson’s life and what he felt at the time. Artists are rarely given a chance to pick and choose what will represent them for the years to come, but there are a few songs on here, Love and Mercy especially, that will define Wilson for as long as his work is remembered, which, in the case of I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times, is hopefully longer than anticipated. The Warmth of the Heart features some beautifully mellow work while Still I Dream of It is a fantastic demo which, unfortunately, never was given the finishing touches it needed.
