A Beach Boy’s high sand lows
Brian Wilson memoir a choppy but honest account
For most of his life, Brian Wilson has heard voices in his head.
They might be the sweet harmonies of his bandmates in the Beach Boys as they sang “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” “California Girls,” “Good Vibrations” or any of their other many hits. It might be the voice of his frustrated, mercurial father Murry, the controversial and abusive Dr. Eugene Landy, the competitive Phil Spector, the mystical Van Dyke Parks, or either of Wilson’s two wives.
Or voices that are more disturbing
Those voices “are worse,” Wilson says in his new memoir, “I Am Brian Wilson,” written with Ben Greenman. “They’re saying horrible things about my music … sometimes they go right for me. We’re coming for you, Brian. This is the end, Brian. We are going to kill you, Brian … Do you know what it’s like, to struggle with that every single day of your life? I hope not.”
The fine line between genius and madness is often cited, but in this honest and nonlinear memoir, one of rock ’n’ roll’s greatest composers talks honestly about both his musical triumphs and his struggles with mental illness and substance abuse. And he gets a chance to rewrite his life story, disavowing his previous autobiography, 1991’s “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.”
In terms of narrative structure, the book — like Wilson’s mind — makes abrupt and sudden jumps forward and backward in time. Credit goes to Greenman for putting it all together. The typed prose that actually flew from his fingertips stays true to Wilson’s speaking style of choppy, short, declarative sentences, its childlike tone and lack of depth always disarming.
Houston appears in the narrative, part of a famous incident in Wilson’s life. In December 1964, on a plane to the city for a concert at the Music Hall, he suffered a panic attack. Wilson played the gig but flew back home the next day, and soon he stopped performing live to concentrate on studio work for the group. It was clearly a turning point for Wilson and the band’s direction; he references it at least a dozen times.
Many of the famous incidents in Brian Wilson lore are covered here: Wilson having his piano placed in a sandbox to better feel the beach while writing. Wilson manically conducting sessions for “Pet Sounds” and the aborted “SMiLe,” even burning wood in a bucket to give the orchestra a nasal inspiration for a song about flames while making them wear firemen’s helmets. And how Murry Wilson sold the publishing rights to the entire Beach Boys catalog for $700,000, without bothering to inform the group or his oldest son — a catalog that, by some estimates, would have earned $100 million since then.
Then there are the years Wilson spent wandering his home, clad only in a bathrobe and pushing 300 pounds, adrift in a haze of coke, acid, pot, pills, booze and stays in mental hospitals. Let’s just say he didn’t make many PTA meetings for daughters Carnie and Wendy, who would later go on to have a singing group of their own, Wilson Phillips (“Hold On”). This low period also inspired the Barenaked Ladies’ tune “Brian Wilson.”
Wilson voluntarily would go under the care of Eugene Landy twice, though it proved to be harrowing: The dictatorial psychologist essentially kept Wilson a prisoner in his own home, pumped full of prescription drugs, and he alternately berated his patient to write songs or collaborate with him.
“Dr. Landy was a tyrant who controlled one person,” Wilson says. “And that person was me.” He finallyy broke free with the help of then girlfriend (now wife) Melinda, a story that was told in the 2014 biopic " Love & Mercy." Landy eventually lost his medical license; he died in 2006. For fans of the music, Wilson does dig deep into the inspirations and recording of albums both with the Beach Boys and solo, though, oddly, he dissects mostly lesserknown material. And there’s almost as much space spent contemplating his recent albums — covers of Gershwin and Disney tunes — than “Pet Sounds” or legendary “lost” album “SMiLE.” Today, at 74, a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and Kennedy Center honoree, Wilson finally seems at peace with himself. He writes of happily spending his days like a California Buddha, nestled in an armchair as the chaos of family life with Melinda and five adopted children swirls around him. And he always makes time to catch “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy,” even while on tour Wilson is not with the current lineup of the Beach Boys; the band is led by his cousin, singer/colyricist, and occasional courtroom sparring partner Mike Love. (Love tells an alternate version of the group’s story and his own contributions to it in his own recent book, “Good Vibrations.”) But Wilson’s got something in common with the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb as the Last Brother Standing in a musical family act: His brother Dennis drowned in 1983 after drinking all day and then going for an ocean swim off his boat. His brother Carl — whose pristine voice made “God Only Knows” a transcendental moment in pop — died in 1998 from lung cancer after a lifetime of smoking. Not to demean the rest of the Boys, but Brian Wilson is still the acknowledged musical mastermind of the group and the main composer of more hit songs this side of a Beatle or Stone — tunes that are richly evocative of the essence of California fantasy life, wrapped in those unmistakable harmonies. Not bad for the Beach Boy who didn’t care for the ocean, or even know how to hold a surfboard.