Rather than an attempt a generic career summary + verdict about the heavenly genius of Brian Wilson, whom I briefly encountered in ’74 and then formally interviewed in January ’95 at the Sundance Film Festival, here’s a re-posting of my two best Brian Wilson stories.
But before you read the following, listen to this.
1974: I was living in an upstairs one-bedroom apartment at 948 14th Street in Santa Monica**, doing nothing, working as a tree surgeon…my lost period. (I began my adventure in movie journalism the following year.) Right below me lived a guy named Eddie Roach and his wife Tricia. At the time Eddie was working with the Beach Boys as a kind of staff or “touring” photographer. Dennis Wilson fell by two or three times and hung out a bit, and one time I was part of a small group that played touch football with him at a local high-school field. Dennis mocked me that day for being a bad hiker, which I was.
Anyway it was a cloudy Saturday or Sunday afternoon and I was lounging in my living room when I began to hear someone tooling around on Eddie’s piano. It sounded like the beginnings of a song. It began with a thumping, rolling boogie lead-in, complex and grabby, and then the spirited vocal: “Back home boogie, bong-dee-bong boogie…yay-ee-yahh…back home boogie, bong-dee-bong”…and then he stopped. One of the chords wasn’t quite right so he played a couple of variations over and over, and then began again: “”Back home boogie, bong-dee-bong boogie yay-ee-yahh!” and so on. Then another mistake and another correction.
Then he stopped again and started laughing like a ten year-old drunk on beer: “Hah-hah, heh-heh, heh-hay!” and then right back into the song without losing a beat. It was great stuff. Who is this guy?
I grabbed my cassette recorder and went outside and walked down the steps leading to Eddie’s place, and I laid it down on one of the steps and started recording. I must have captured two or three minutes worth.
Then I decided to knock on Eddie’s door and pretend I needed to borrow a cup of milk or something. I had to know who the piano guy was. Eddie opened the door and I said “hey, man,” and lo and behold in the rear of the living room stood a tall and overweight Brian Wilson.
He was dressed in a red shirt and jeans and white sneakers, and was cranked and excited and talking about how great some idea might be, gesturing with his arms up high. Then he saw me and almost ran over to the doorway. I suddenly knew who it was and it was a huge internal “whoa!” Wilson looked like a wreck. His hair was longish and sort of ratty looking. His unshaven face was the color of Elmer’s Glue-All and his eyes were beet red.
I didn’t mean to disturb the vibe but a look of faint surprise or shock must have crossed my face because Wilson’s expression turned glum. It was like he suddenly said to himself, “Wow, this guy’s some kind of downhead. Everything was cool until he showed up.” Eddie spotted it too and said, “Sorry to disappoint you.” I said everything was cool and retreated back upstairs.
I must have played that cassette tape of Wilson’s song for at least 15 or 20 friends over the next couple of years, and then it was gone. Lost. A shame.
20 years later I interviewed Wilson at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival. The chat happened in a restaurant on Main Street. His fiance Melinda Ledbetter sat beside him. He was there to promote the Don Was documentary I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times, which was all about Brian’s brilliant, tortured journey.
So I mentioned the piano-playing episode and tried to describe the sound of that song, and for whatever reason this injected a look of tension in his eyes. I thought he was just intrigued or concentrating but he was getting upset. I repeated that I loved that half-baked boogie riff and Wilson blurted out “I can’t talk about this or I’ll freak out.” Uhm, you can’t…? “I’ll freak out!” he repeated.
So I told Wilson that I always loved the reverb guitar-and-keyboard intro for ““The Little Girl I Once Once Knew,” and he quickly agreed. (That same year he told a British interviewer that “the intro is the only good part of it.”) I then told Wilson how I once tried to learn to play the intro on keyboard but I couldn’t “hear” the separate harmonized notes in my head.
Wilson responded with disappointment and even a lack of patience — “You couldn’t figure that out?” That’s how geniuses are. When the stars are aligned they can swoop right in and solve any riddle, and if they’re in any kind of mood people who lack their gift can seem…I don’t know, tedious?
After seeing Love & Mercy I decided to buy a few songs from The Beach Boys Today!, which was recorded a little more than a year before Pet Sounds.
Today! is occasionally experimental and in some ways a kind of Pet Sounds forerunner. It contains similar elements — sophisticated off-rhythms and swirling harmonies, a feeling of sadness and vulnerability in the lyrics, that symphonic white soul thing — that Wilson built upon and made into something extra with Pet Sounds.
The track that knocked me out was “Kiss Me Baby.” It’s not so much a love song as a “we almost broke up last night so let’s not get that close to Armageddon again!” song.
The melody is a bit on the plain and familiar side, but the lyrics are so child-like and emotionally arrested…an immature boy-lover recovering from nearly losing his mommy-lover: “Please don’t let me argue any more…I won’t make you worried like before…can’t remember what we fought about…late, late last night we said it was over,” etc.
But when the chorus kicks in the harmonies and the general meltdown sound of this song are just amazing. This was Wilson’s unique realm — he made it sound just so, and with such exquisite balance and texture.
This instrumental track for “Let Him Run Wild” is also interesting for its resemblance to the instrumental Pet Sounds Sessions tracks.
** This was the building I was living in during my one-week, ill-fated affair with Carol, the buxom blonde who lived two buildings away.