"When I Grow Up," The Beach Boys (1964)

An aching song pretending to be surf rock

Peak: #9 on the Hot 100
Streams: 4.7 million

A few days after Brian Wilson died on June 11, I treated myself to dozens of Beach Boys songs. I was wowed yet again by Wilson’s titanic gifts — how his tunes are both accessible and complex. You can mindlessly dance to a record like “Barbara Ann,” or you can spend hours parsing the harmonies, handclaps, and ta…