these songs are downloadable with a right click
You have to see this as the twin to Mike Love’s autobio, Good Vibrations: I wrote earlier that you were constantly reading between the lines in that book. Brian’s book is exactly the opposite: if anything there is just too much information, Brian is way in touch with his feelings and ready to share. He writes repeatedly about his lifelong struggle with mental illness and is frank about his drug use. I’d had the idea that he was an acid casualty, but he only tripped twice and wrote a lot of California Girls during one of those. He began smoking pot beginning in 1964 (a year he repeatedly refers to as “the year everything happened,” the year the Beach Boys became international stars, had their first number one record, (the year the Beatles broke in America), and the year he had a mental breakdown on a flight from Houston and retired from performing). In the seventies he was fed semi-pro cocktails of psychoactive drugs by his therapist, Eugene Landy while he continued to self-medicate when he could with whatever he could get his hands on, from a four pack a day smoking habit and lots of bevvies to downs, coke and even heroin.
Brian Wilson is not one to push himself forward. “I wasn’t usually the kind of guy who would make a big deal about correcting a misunderstanding. If someone got the wrong idea about me, I might agree with a wrong story just to get out of the conversation.” Shy and sensitive (“The guy in the song sounds like he hasn’t even talked to the surfer girl. He just watches her and thinks about her. That was me. I was kind of shy, and whenever I started talking to a girl she would end up talking to Dennis or Mike instead. They were slicker and more aggressive, and I sort of got moved off to the side to wonder if the girl ever liked me or was interested at all”), but immensely creative (same quote continued: “I felt a little lonely at times, but I also knew that it made for good songs. Loneliness was something that everyone felt but that people were afraid to talk about”), people tried to control him through most of his life: his father, his band, his therapist, his band again, “One of the things I did back then was think about Don’t Hurt My Little Sister all the time. Maybe it’s because it was a song about protection and I felt scared that no one was protecting me.” But the main theme here is his second marriage to Melinda Wilson, better (professional) doctors, a more effective drug regimen and a healthy environment that put him back on his feet. He is relentlessly positive, happy to be writing and performing and seems surprised that people hold him and his work in such high regard. This is nice to see in a superstar.
There are heroes and there are villains: Brian’s abusive and controlling therapist of the seventies and early eighties Eugene Landy comes off really really badly, (only a step above cameo band contact Charles Manson), finally loses his license to practice and fades into a notable obscurity. Dad Murry Wilson terrorizes his sons but also, in Brian’s telling, loves them (unlike Landy), gives them music and, a child of the depression, constantly urges them (often violently) to work harder: ”You have to sing harder,” he said, ”like you care.” ”I’m a genius, too, Brian,” and then not too much later, ““I cannot believe that such a beautiful young boy, who was kind, loving, received good grades in school and had so many versatile talents, could become so obsessed to prove that he was better than his father.” Mike Love….Mike Love. Brian writes, “This Mike, Mike Love, was very friendly and very funny and he made me laugh. I really liked him. We hit it off real well, and soon enough he was almost a fourth brother,” and then “Other guys in the group didn’t like the idea. Mike couldn’t believe it. When he heard the demos he just shook his head and stared at me. The record label wasn’t sure about the album either. Often the record labels agreed with the other guys in the group. The album never came out….” Complicated. The long string of abusive relationships crippled his creative work and raises questions that many many many people on the internet have felt they could answer. I can’t. I’m glad he’s happy, that he’s recording and performing and that people can again enjoy his music.
