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.

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.

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