You can’t reduce a genius like Brian Wilson down to a singular accomplishment. But it is worth noting how many of us, immediately after learning of his passing Wednesday at age 82, went to YouTube, Spotify,

I'll never forget the first time Brian Wilson made me see God. It was 1973, and I was sitting in the mostly empty balcony of a second-run movie theater finally watching “American Graffiti,” the movie everyone in my high school was talking about.

The simple purity of God Only Knows, and the glorious harmonies of its recorded version have become a touchstone of modern music, and a shared password of musical passion.