The word genius gets bandied around rather too much when it comes to musicians. But few would dispute that Brian Wilson was a genius.

I say that as no great fan of The Beach Boys, whom I only really associate with cheery songs about surfing that sound great when the sun comes out. As my friend Nick Coleman put it yesterday: songs such as Good Vibrations and God Only Knows are “breathtaking firework displays in a distant neighbourhood – but not mine.”

Yet I could appreciate the genius of Brian Wilson because it superseded everything; in the same way that I appreciate the efforts of a chef who creates elaborate dishes of food containing multiple methods and ingredients. I admire the effort and appreciate the beauty but wouldn’t want to eat it.

Wilson took a similar approach to music.

He was often likened to Phil Spector but really he was in a different league because Wilson was a visionary creator – a singer, and songwriter, and arranger, and producer – while Spector was more of a svengali figure, bringing out the best in others.

He seemed to approach the creation of a pop song in the same sort of way a classical composer like Bach approached composition: hearing all the different instruments, all the different notes, all the voices, all the arrangements in his head – then going one step beyond by translating those ideas into gold in a recording studio.

He was composer, conductor, musician, singer, arranger, producer… the lot.

Strangely, it only features half the Beach Boys – Carl Wilson sang the lead vocal (after Brian recorded his own vocal, only to change his mind), with harmonies by Brian and Bruce Johnston, but I don’t think there’s any contribution from Al Jardine, Mike Love or Dennis Wilson.

Brian then recruited 20 musicians to record the song – a process that took 22 takes.

They played a virtual orchestra of instruments – drums, guitars, double bass, French horn, flutes, clarinets, harpsichord, accordion, a tack piano with its strings taped, and plastic orange juice cups, with Carl playing 12-string electric guitar, and a string section overdubbed afterwards.

Remarkably, I now find out it was only released as the B-side of Wouldn’t It Be Nice in 1966, and peaked at a lowly no.39 in the US charts. Which is mad for a song that’s widely regarded as one of the greatest of all time – though other countries mostly reversed the A and B-sides, and it reached No.2 in the UK.

I know music appreciation is necessarily a subjective affair, but if there is anyone on the planet who doesn’t like that song then, well, god only knows what’s wrong with them.

This one’s not bad either: