Yes, I know. Pet Sounds is the masterpiece—the album that goaded the Beatles into recording Sgt. Pepper—but this 1973 album remains one of my Beach Boys favorites. It cites Morro Bay, borrows from the Carmel naturalist poet Robinson Jeffers, and begins with this elegant song. What makes it unique is that the lead singer isn’t Brian Wilson, nor Carl, nor Al Jardine, nor is it Mike love. The singer on the album and in the video was South African Blondie Chaplin, a temporary Beach Boy who belongs in the Beach Boy Pantheon for All Time and Then Some.

This guy belongs, too.

And then there’s this band, one of my all-time favorites. This is the studio cut rom the album Native Sons–Los Lobos are, of course from L.A.

Oh, and why do I love Los Lobos so much? A brief aside, with a different song. Watsonville High School, 1989. I know this has nothing to do with Holland. I don’t mind that if you don’t.

This version of “Sailor” is sublime. Darius Rucker (Hootie and the Blowfish) has a gravelly, immensely soulful voice that fits the song exactly. Ray Charles and Darius Rucker. Oh, my.

Foxes and Fossils, a cover band that features old farts like me and, as a complement, young women, do the song justice, too. The lead singer is fine, but what gives this live version its Beach Boys lift are the not the Fossils, but the background harmonies from the Foxes.

And I wish we had Jimmy Buffett’s sweet face for this video, but we do have his voice, and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t mind the visual images.

And, of course, Brian Wilson was the song’s co-writer, and he’s been on my mind a lot lately. Here are the lyrics, and they fit him exactly in this fearful stage of his life—one I’ll face soon—and these words, and that life, even now, remain beautiful to me.

I sailed an ocean, unsettled ocean
Through restful waters and deep commotion
Often frightened, unenlightened
Sail on, sail on sailor

I wrest the waters, fight Neptune’s waters
Sail through the sorrows of life’s marauders
Unrepenting, often empty
Sail on, sail on sailor

Caught like a sewer rat alone but I sail
Bought like a crust of bread, but oh do I wail

Seldom stumble, never crumble
Try to tumble, life’s a rumble
Feel the stinging I’ve been given
Never ending, unrelenting
Heartbreak searing, always fearing
Never caring, persevering
Sail on, sail on, sailor

I work the seaways, the gale-swept seaways
Past shipwrecked daughters of wicked waters
Uninspired, drenched and tired
Wail on, wail on, sailor

Always needing, even bleeding
Never feeding all my feelings
Damn the thunder, must I blunder
There’s no wonder all I’m under
Stop the crying and the lying
And the sighing and my dying

Sail on, sail on sailor
Sail on, sail on sailor
Sail on, sail on sailor
Sail on, sail on sailor
Sail on, sail on sailor
Sail on, sail on sailor
Sail on, sail on sailor