Paul McCartney is paying tribute to music icon Brian Wilson following the death Wednesday of the Beach Boys co-founder. “Brian had that mysterious sense of musical genius that made his songs so achingly special.

"I loved him, and was privileged to be around his bright shining light for a little while," McCartney wrote Thursday, a day after Wilson died at age 82.

As the Beach Boys sang “house,” the song, “All Summer Long,” didn’t just change chords — in a luscious instant, it ascended to a higher place. Another wave of voices flooded in, but it was the revelation of that chord that was the hook, the spice, the thing that made me melt.