In 2004, my friend Elliott and I drove to Austin to see Brian Wilson and his band perform live. They started with a full set of hits by the Beach Boys, and then after an intermission, they played all of SMiLE (which had been the most famous unreleased album in history until Brian finally finished it in 2003). Anyway, I don’t get starstruck very easily, but our seats were in the third row, and I remember sitting there thinking, “Holy crap, I’m like 50 feet away from Brian Wilson!” It remains one of the greatest concerts I’ve ever seen, although I was lucky enough to see him perform again in 2012 on the Beach Boys’ 50th anniversary reunion tour. Brian died yesterday at the age of 82, after decades timeless music and creative genius, despite his well-known struggles with mental illness. And now that he’s gone, I thought I’d share a beautiful song he wrote in 1971 about death and our place in the universe.