Editing Brian Wilson (section)

===Lyrics===
{{quote box|align=|width=25%|quote=I don't carry a notebook or use a tape player. I like to tell a story in the songs with as few words as possible. I sort of tend to write what I've been through and look inside myself. Some of the songs are messages.
|source=—Brian Wilson, 1977<ref name="Kub07"/>}}

Wilson generally collaborated with another lyricist,{{sfn|Carlin|2006|p=73}} although he occasionally composed both words and music alone.<ref name="Kub07"/> Most of his songs explore introspective themes,{{sfn|Granata|2003|p=61}} and several portray the male object or narrator as a "loser", evident on "[[She Knows Me Too Well]]", "[[Don't Hurt My Little Sister]]", "[[Merry Christmas, Baby]]", and "[[All Dressed Up for School]]".{{sfn|Lambert|2007|pp=176–177}} Other recurring themes in Wilson's songs include feminine objectification,{{sfn|Lambert|2007|p=176}}{{refn|group=nb|Songs centered on feminine objectification include "[[Surfin' Safari|The Shift]]", "[[Pom, Pom Play Girl]]", "[[Girls on the Beach]]", "All Dressed Up for School".{{sfn|Lambert|2007|p=176}}}} youthful innocence,{{sfn|Lambert|2007|pp=235, 268, 272, 277, 321}}{{refn|group=nb|Songs centered on youthful innocence include "[[The Little Girl I Once Knew]]", "[[Caroline, No]]", "[[Wonderful (The Beach Boys song)|Wonderful]]", "[[Look (Song for Children)|Song for Children]]", "[[Surf's Up (song)|Surf's Up]]", "[[Little Children (Brian Wilson song)|Little Children]]".{{sfn|Lambert|2007|pp=235, 268, 272, 277, 321}}}} [[slice of life]] stories,{{sfn|Lambert|2007|p=299}}{{sfn|Matijas-Mecca|2017|pp=xxii, 84, 86, 90}}{{Refn|group=nb|His slice of life songs include "[[Time to Get Alone]]", "[[I'd Love Just Once to See You]]", "[[Wake the World]]",  "[[Busy Doin' Nothin']]", and "[[I Went to Sleep]]".{{sfn|Matijas-Mecca|2017|pp=xxii, 84, 86, 90}}}} and health and fitness.<ref name="LeafBW00"/>{{refn|group=nb|Songs centered on health and fitness include "[[Vegetables (song)|Vegetables]]", "[[H.E.L.P. Is On the Way]]", "[[Life Is for the Living]]", "[[He Couldn't Get His Poor Old Body to Move]]", and "[[Too Much Sugar]]".<ref name="LeafBW00">{{cite AV media notes| title = Brian Wilson | others= Brian Wilson| year = 2000| first = David| last = Leaf | author-link=David Leaf|type=Liner notes|url=http://albumlinernotes.com/Brian_Wilson__Reissue_.html|publisher=[[Rhino Records|Rhino]]/Atlantic}}</ref>}}

Although the Beach Boys became known for surfing imagery, his compositions with collaborators outside the band typically avoided this subject matter.{{sfn|Sanchez|2014|p=27}} Unlike his contemporaries, social issues were never referenced in his lyrics.{{sfn|Granata|2003|p=61}}{{refn|group=nb|Wilson acknowledged that he had "never been the type" to preach social messages in his songs.<ref name=Sheridan2015>{{cite news|last1=Sheridan|first1=Peter|title=Beach Boys frontman Brian Wilson opens up about drugs, film about his life and new album|url=http://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/569981/Beach-Boys-Brian-Wilson-drugs-Love-Mercy-film-new-album|work=[[Sunday Express]]|date=April 13, 2015}}</ref>}} In his 2008 book ''Dark Mirror: The Pathology of the Singer-Songwriter'', Donald Brackett identifies Wilson as "the [[Carl Sandburg]] and [[Robert Frost]] of popular music—deceptively simple, colloquial in phrasing, with a spare and evocative lyrical style embedded in the culture that created it."{{sfn|Brackett|2008|p=28}} Brackett opined that Wilson expressed "intense fragility" and "emotional vulnerability" to degrees that few other singer-songwriters had.{{sfn|Brackett|2008|p=31}}