The Night Was So Young

"The Night Was So Young" is a song by American rock band the Beach Boys from their 1977 album The Beach Boys Love You. Written by Brian Wilson, it is a ballad that was inspired by his mistress at the time.

Music and lyrics
"The Night Was So Young" was written by Brian Wilson and sung by his brother Carl. It was written about the band's former fanmail sorter, Debbie Keil, who would often visit Brian at his home and at his behest, much to his wife's chagrin. Wilson would refer to her as a "golden-haired angel coming in at night".

The lyrics discuss the singer's romantic fixation on a woman who "has to hide" and "won't even try" to steer their relationship where he desires. The narrator expresses befuddlement with their dynamic ("is somebody going to tell me why she has to lie"), and, at the end, implores her to "let me come over to you".

Biographers Andrew Doe and John Tobler refer to it as a "yearning ballad" that "documents one of Brian's more tangled relationships of the late Seventies." Jon Stebbins describes the song as "a direct descendent of Pet Sounds in both sound and attitude", while Peter Ames Carlin says that the lyrical content revels in "traditional shades of self-pity, jealousy, and loneliness".

Critical reception
Rob Hughes of Uncut rated "The Night Was So Young" among Wilson's finest songs. Musician Dennis Diken, writing in the album's 2000 reissue liner notes, called it perhaps his favorite song on Love You, as well as the album's "most fully realized" track in terms of instrumental arrangement. In his review of the album, Pitchfork contributor D. Erik Kempke highlighted the track for its "beautiful harmonies", adding that the song "sounds like it could have been a Pet Sounds outtake, were it not for the bleating synths."

Legacy
Asked for his favorite songs he ever wrote, as well as the songs he felt were most underrated, Wilson included "The Night Was So Young" in both answers. In the 2016 memoir I Am Brian Wilson, the song is praised as "a beautiful ballad [...] with great harmonies". He rerecorded the song for the soundtrack to the 2021 documentary Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road.

Al Jardine called it one of his favorite songs, commenting, "Oh God, isn't that a remarkable bridge? With that little tempo change, it's beautiful. It is Brian and Carl at their best."