by Brian Wilson
I wasn’t always tired then. For those records in the early ’70s, I was really up, with lots of energy. Part of the reason was that I was eating better. In 1969 I opened up a health food store in West Hollywood called the Radiant Radish. A Rolling Stone reporter came to write about it. I was at the store alone in my bathrobe. While we were doing the interview, a guy came by and wanted a bottle of B-12 vitamins. “I can’t give it to you without a script,” I said. I was joking, I think, but I wasn’t really much of a businessman in that way. The store closed about a year later, but I learned how to use a cash register.
And the store stayed open as an idea. One of the songs I did during that period that didn’t make it onto a record was called “H.E.L.P. Is on the Way.” It was all about the store. I wasn’t close to my high weight, but I was getting kind of soft.
Stark naked in front of my mirror
A pudgy person somehow did appear
Seems lately all I’ve eaten, sugar and fat
It’s getting obvious that’s not where it’s at
A big pot and triple chin
Oh, what condition my condition was in
Laughing at myself at what a crying shame
Whatever happened to my Greek godly frame
Cyclamates, juicy steaks, sweet things too
Aren’t always good as they seem
Doughy lumps, stomach pumps, enemas too
That’s what you get when you eat that way
At the end was a commercial for the store.
Radiant Radish is gonna be on Fairfax and 3rd . . .
Ooh, get yourself in for a snack
Yeah, but stop by the Radiant Radish
Years later, I drove by a little grocery store near my house called the Glen Market. There were two cars parked outside so it looked like it was doing good business. I went home and told Melinda that we should buy it. She didn’t think it was a good idea. She asked me who would run it. “You could,” I said. She looked at me like it was an even worse idea. “But there were two cars outside,” I said.
When the time came for a new Beach Boys record, I was working with Marilyn and her sister Diane on their American Spring record. That was a cool project because I got to work on songs that we all loved that came from other songwriters but were meant mostly for girls to sing. They did versions of Carole King’s “Now That Everything’s Been Said,” the Shirelles’ “Mama Said,” and the Carpenters’ “Superstar.” I didn’t do the whole record or anything close, but it was recorded at my home studio so I was around lots of the time. Steve Desper, our engineer from Sunflower, did whatever I didn’t do.
Because of that, Carl mostly was in charge of the next Beach Boys record, and he did a great job with it. Being in charge of the Beach Boys that year wasn’t easy. Dennis had hurt his hand when he punched through some glass at his house, and Bruce Johnston wasn’t getting along with Jack Rieley. Carl brought in some other guys from a South African band called the Flame: a drummer named Ricky Fataar and a guitarist named Blondie Chaplin. I wrote a few songs for the record, which ended up being called Carl and the Passions—So Tough. I wrote “Marcella” for that album, which is one of my favorites, and also “You Need a Mess of Help to Stand Alone.” That one I did with Jack Rieley. It was a love song from a man to a woman but also a song about how even though I was doing stuff away from the group I also wasn’t completely ever on my own.
I need the warmth of your smile
To heat my frostbitten sorrow
I need your hand on my shoulder
To lead todays to tomorrows
I need your strength to lock me to the track
I need your trust to bust the things I lack
And then I stopped, or at least slowed way down. I was having problems. I still had energy, but everything was starting to feel hollow. There wasn’t less health food, but there was more drinking and drugs to go along with it. Jack took us to Holland to record, but that didn’t solve things. Holland came out in January of 1973, and then in June I was home downstairs when I heard the phone ring. I heard Marilyn talking softly. She came into the room to find me. “Your dad died today, Brian,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” I started crying and we drove out to Whittier, where he lived at the end. I had a rough time with it for a while after that. It fucked me up big time. I didn’t go to his funeral. I went to New York with Diane, my sister-in-law. I wasn’t staying away out of anger or anything. It was just too many things all at once, and I was not in the mood to go to my dad’s funeral. But during the time of the funeral, the actual hours of it, I thought only about him. There were times that my dad was nothing but mean to me. I walked around afraid that I’d get cracked across the face. My dad brought out the belt like lots of dads brought out the belt, but my dad didn’t have any patience and when he brought out the belt, he used it. I don’t always blame him, but sometimes he went too far.
But I also thought about what a gifted guy he was and how much he meant to the group and to me. He was more than just talented. He was gifted. Sometimes it frustrated him. He could joke around. He could make people laugh. He was nice to my friends. But when you got in close to him, you saw all the parts of him that weren’t filled up with anything but doubt and anger. I think of the very last sentence of his letter: “Please try to understand that all I tried to do was make you all honest men, and instead of hating me for it, I ask that you all try to search your own hearts once in a while and try to be better.” If you pull that sentence away from the rest of it, everything makes perfect sense.
After my dad died, I used to go to Jimmy Guercio’s place, Caribou Ranch, in Colorado. He had a bunch of little bungalows there and a recording studio. I went there a few times—sometimes with my brothers, sometimes with the rest of the band—and cut a few things, including a song called “Just an Imitation,” which was a really beautiful ballad and kind of a tribute to my dad. We didn’t use any of the Caribou sessions for the album, though. I didn’t know what kind of album to do. I didn’t know the right direction. My dad was gone, and it wasn’t just my dad. It was everyone’s dad. He had been there since the start and had managed us and pushed us so hard in good and bad ways. Even when we had pushed him away, he was still close. He was fired as our manager, but he couldn’t break away for a minute.
And then he was gone. He was the first one to go. I shared my sadness with my brothers mostly. It was easier sharing it with them than with my mom. I spent a few hours with her every now and then, but that was hard, too. I felt uncomfortable calling her all the time, and then when I didn’t call I felt guilty as hell. I know she loved me. I know that she would have told me so. I just felt like I knew too much about what everyone had done, and what had undone everyone. I just think that things were so strange then.
With my grandfather in California in the mid-1940s. (BriMel Archives)
Outside the Hawthorne house with Dennis and Carl, 1953. (BriMel Archives)
I couldn’t hit the curve—Hawthorne in the 1950s. (BriMel Archives)
More ball with Dennis and Carl—Hawthorne in the 1950s. (BriMel Archives)
Being true to my school in 1959. (BriMel Archives)
A school concert from very early in the band’s career. (BriMel Archives)
My Philosophy—a paper I wrote in high school. (BriMel Archives)
An early live gig; my dad’s lurking in the background. (BriMel Archives)
Cutting the Surfin’ Safari album, with David Marks, in 1962. (Courtesy Capitol Records)
Rehearsal at the Hollywood Bowl in 1963. (BriMel Archives)
I started out onstage; this is the Beach Boys live in 1964. (BriMel Archives)
In 1964 we went everywhere, including Paris. (Courtesy Capitol Records)
The great Murry Wilson. (BriMel Archives)
The photo shoot for Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) in 1965. (Courtesy Capitol Records)
Up on a motorcycle in the mid-1960s. (Guy Webster)
Animal magnetism: the Pet Sounds photo shoot in 1966. (Courte
sy Capitol Records)
Teaching the Boys their parts during the Smile sessions in 1966. (Guy Webster)
A Smile photo shoot from 1966. (Guy Webster)
At the board in 1967. (Courtesy Capitol Records)
A photo shoot for Smile in 1967. (Guy Webster)
In the pool at Laurel Way, 1967. (Guy Webster)
Beached boy: Getting ready for 15 Big Ones in 1976. (BriMel Archives)
Back on tour in 1977. (Brother Records Archives)
Melinda and I getting married in 1995. (BriMel Archives)
Getting the Kennedy Center Honors in 2008 was one of the thrills of my life. (BriMel Archives)
Out on the town with Melinda. (BriMel Archives)
With Melinda and the family in 2009. (BriMel Archives)
Zoo Sounds: With a giraffe, getting ready for Pet Sounds 50. (Jerry Weiss)
The Pet Sounds 50th tour, with the band and a giant giraffe, 2016. (Jerry Weiss)
CHAPTER 6
Echoes and Voices
They say I got brains
But they ain’t doing me no good
I wish they could
Each time things start to happen again
I think I got something good goin’ for myself
But what goes wrong
—“I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times”
My sixtieth birthday was normal most of the day, which was the best present I could have asked for. It was rainy, which was a surprise for Los Angeles, but otherwise it was an ordinary warm summer day. In the afternoon, Melinda reminded me that she was taking me to dinner. “I know,” I said, even though I had forgotten. We got in the car and drove to the Mulholland Grill in Bel Air. While I was going into the restaurant, I saw a guy who looked like my friend Danny Hutton. Then I saw the rest of them—Van Dyke Parks; the guys in my band; Melinda’s mom, Rose; Tony Asher; David and Eva Leaf; Jerry and Lois Weiss; Ray Lawlor; Steve Desper—and I realized that it was a party for me. “I told you I didn’t want a big party,” I said to Melinda, because I had, and everyone laughed.
It was a really great time. I didn’t think there would be so many people, and I didn’t realize that each of the people would bring up so many memories. When I looked at Steve, I heard an echo of “Add Some Music to Your Day” from Sunflower, and that got me thinking about that record, and that cover photo. When I looked at Van Dyke, I heard an echo of “Surf’s Up,” and that got me thinking about SMiLE and how it would have been such an amazing record, and how I still hoped that it could come out. Some of the echoes I was hearing were on delay, like they were coming in from far away. Other echoes were closer. When I looked at Melinda, I heard an echo of “You Still Believe in Me,” which had come out on Pet Sounds. It was a love song from a guy to a girl, thanking her for not giving up on him.
I know perfectly well
I’m not where I should be
I’ve been very aware
You’ve been patient with me
Every time we break up
You bring back your love to me
And after all I’ve done to you
How can it be
I try hard to be more
What you want me to be
But I can’t help how I act
When you’re not here with me
I try hard to be strong
But sometimes I fail myself
And after all I’ve promised you
So faithfully
When I originally wrote the song with Tony, it wasn’t about Melinda. It would be another twenty years before I sat in the car at the dealership on Pico and Bundy. But I wasn’t hearing an echo of that original version. I was hearing an echo of the newer version that had just come out on Brian Wilson Presents Pet Sounds Live, a concert performance of the entire record that I did with Darian and the band at Royal Festival Hall in London at the beginning of the year. I had to sing songs that were originally sung by Mike, like “That’s Not Me” and “Here Today.” I had to sing “God Only Knows,” and God knows I couldn’t do as good a job as Carl had.
But I also had to sing songs that I had been singing my whole life, and that wasn’t necessarily easier. When you have hits and you have to perform them again and again over the years, it’s a strange process. You have to give the audience a version that they recognize, but you also have to give yourself a version that makes sense. Singing a song I made when I was twenty-five and believing in what it meant when I was almost sixty wasn’t easy. Melinda made it easier. She made all the love songs easier. But it was still weird to hear the original spirit of those songs across the years and then make them work in front of a crowd. I was a little nervous—more than a little nervous—but we did it. Hooray for us, and hooray for the audience. One review said that the harmonies were even better than the ones on the original album. I appreciated the compliment. I tried hard to make them work.
The year of my sixtieth birthday, I also went to a half-century celebration for someone else. And not just anyone: it was Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee, which was an extended celebration of her fifty years on the throne. I was one of two American artists chosen to represent the United States at the queen’s Golden Jubilee. Tony Bennett was the other. It was such an honor. There was a huge concert scheduled for London just a few months after we did Pet Sounds at the Royal Festival Hall. We flew over about a week before to rehearse and stayed at a hotel on the Thames, right across the bridge from Westminster Abbey. London always has a really cool vibe, but this time was even more special because of the buzz over the Jubilee.
In our rehearsal hall, other rock stars would drop by to pitch in. My band and I would play “California Girls,” and then Eric Clapton would come out and sing a duet with me on “The Warmth of the Sun.” He said it was his favorite song, which was as amazing as hearing that “God Only Knows” was Paul McCartney’s favorite song. When Eric sang with me that time, he added a little inflection to the vocal that I now use myself whenever we do the song. And in the harmony-stack fade, he played a guitar part that was so great it’s indescribable. I will never forget the look on Paul Von Mertens’s face as he was watching Eric. It was like he was stoned! We also sang “God Only Knows” with the Corrs and “Good Vibrations” with everyone.
One of the nights in London, Melinda and I went out to dinner with Jerry and Lois Weiss at this steak place called Christopher’s. It was so good that we went back there three or four nights in a row. The first night, we exited the place onto streets so crowded with the celebration that it was hard to believe. You couldn’t get a cab—and even if you could, it couldn’t have moved a foot down the street. So the four of us took the London Underground. We got off by Westminster and walked across the bridge to the hotel. I tried to think about the last time I rode on a subway. Maybe it was New York City in 1964. Public places are always strange. Sometimes people recognize me and I get a little paranoid. No one did on the Tube, but the next day I was having lunch in a pub and a woman at the next table kept staring at me. I wondered if she recognized me from the Underground. Finally she came over. “Excuse me, sir,” she said, “but do you know you look exactly like the American musician Brian Wilson?” “I know,” I said. I didn’t want to tell her it was me. It seemed too egotistical.
The day of the concert, Paul McCartney was running through a rehearsal of “All You Need Is Love,” which was scheduled as the night’s closing song. Almost everyone was onstage, and Paul turned it into a group song. He had Joe Cocker doing one verse, Rod Stewart doing another, Eric contributing guitar. I stood in the back just singing the “love, love, love” background part when Pablo stopped the take. “Hey,” he said, “we’ve got something here. Brian, you come up front and sing that part.” They moved my mic up front and I ended up on the front line along with Joe, Rod, Eric, and Paul. It was a hell of a band! It worked great in the show. The place went wild. I heard there were over a million people watching it live in the streets on huge screens. What a trip. What a great song to close on. What a great celebration for the
queen.
At my sixtieth, we didn’t close on that. But there was a closing song. Someone brought out a cake from the kitchen, and everyone sang “Happy Birthday.” Those harmonies were pretty good also, and the cake was great.
I tried to eat the cake slowly. People say I’m the fastest eater in the world, but I don’t know about that. I haven’t seen who is the champion. But I am a fast eater. That’s one of the reasons I have always had trouble with weight. Also, I love sweets. My daughter Carnie cooks. She’s a great cook. She makes pudding. She makes fish. Once on Father’s Day she called and asked me what I wanted. I really wanted cheesecake, but I told her she couldn’t make it because of my diet. I asked her to make macaroni and cheese instead. But for that same celebration Wendy brought an apple pie. I wasn’t supposed to eat sugar, but I kept asking her for the pie. They didn’t want me to get it, so I started to pretend it was like Christmas or a birthday. I started singing, “Happy Father’s Day to me.” Just like at Mulholland Grill, I figured that was a good way to get the apple pie.
But all that cake and pie adds up. Sometimes when I go to the doctor and get weighed in, the numbers stop me in my tracks. When the Father’s Day party ended, I did what I did when I got back from Mulholland Grill. I walked. As I have gotten older, walking has saved my life. I have always used it to lose weight but also to get out and think. There’s a kind of spirituality in making music but also in moving under your own power through the world. When I was in high school there was a song by Jimmy Charles called “A Million to One.” I remember hearing that in the car when I was driving with my friend Keith. We went to the beach and ran along the shore for almost an hour. I can’t run so much anymore now that I’m older, but I try to walk whenever I can. When I’m home I go to one specific park, a little triangular place off Bel Air. There’s a path around the edge that’s five-eighths of a mile. When I was doing my best I might be able to go around it seven or eight times. Now it’s less than that, but I still try. It’s both meditation and health. The vendors there know me. I sometimes stop and talk to them. If I’m getting a bottle of water, they’ll ask me if I’m thirsty or they’ll say, “How you doing, buddy?” Someone told me once that Frank Sinatra used to go to the same park.