The first part of this comment on “formula” traced an outline of the Beach Boys’ path to nationwide stardom, beginning with the local hit “Surfin’” in late 1961 through to the breakthrough, “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” in spring 1963, and then to their car-song phase in the latter months of that same year. Something like a formula—a specific way of making and marketing records—developed during that time. For a moment, the formula required the band to write and sing specifically about the beach, but by the end of 1963, it amounted to something different. The first part left off with the idea that surf songs and car songs could be grouped together within the single category of fad music.

Go back to first part: “Their Solution”

Second part:

1963 was the year the Beach Boys broke through as surfing stars; a group with brand-new songs about surfing and the Southern California beach scene. Looking at it another way, the songs were only the tangible, musical manifestation of a certain underlying approach to business. Whatever might be said about the Beach Boys’ music in 1963—harmonies, arrangements, instrumentation, production quality—it was all done within the context of a fad model of pop music. First with their beach-surf songs, and then with the car songs, the Beach Boys purposefully wrote and performed whole batches of tunes on one circumscribed subject of broad but transient appeal.

Nobody could seriously fault the group for doing this kind of work at this point. Was there a more “serious” or “honest” band on the scene (with vocals and lyrics) doing something that would have made the Beach Boys seem chintzy by comparison? No. In fact, through 1963 it was the Beach Boys who sounded real. To the record-buying fans across America, the Beach Boys were authentic (Southern) Californians singing about their own culture and experiences; singing honestly about surfing, surfer girls, and surfboards not because it got them on the charts, but because it was how they lived and what they knew.1

Meanwhile, within the business, honesty and authenticity mattered only to the extent they affected sales. This was the music business—who cared if the Beach Boys (save Dennis) didn’t surf, or if surf songs were a fad? In any case, the entire genre of rock ‘n’ roll itself wasn’t necessarily expected to survive. It could have easily been assumed (and it was) that rock ‘n’ roll was moribund, having peaked in the 1950s. From the music-business p.o.v., the viability of surfing and car songs could have been understood to be even more short-lived—likeable but trendy fad songs within an already transitory genre of music. (i.e., “surf music” as a sub-genre of “rock ‘n’ roll.”)

This helps explain the Beach Boys’ quick jump into car songs, and why they did their beach and car songs in bunches, maximizing the return on the fad while they had the window of opportunity. Records like “Little Deuce Coupe,” “Shut Down” and “Surfin’ U.S.A.” were just as good business as they were music. Notwithstanding the “Beach Boys” name and the band’s association with surfing, by the end of 1963 the formula was fad, not strictly surf or beach. More specifically, it was probably fad + Southern California lifestyle.

Or maybe it wasn’t? Is it possible the Beach Boys never made fad music?

Derek Taylor, the Beach Boys’ publicist of the Pet Sounds and Smile era, said that during those later mid-’60s days, Brian (and Dennis) Wilson steadfastly maintained that the Beach Boys, in Taylor’s words, “had never been involved in any way with the surf and drag fads.”2 Taylor remembered being baffled and frustrated by their obstinacy:

I was told this [by Brian and Dennis] one afternoon and I kept saying, ‘Listen, how can. . . I mean, how dare you give me this nonsense about you never having been involved in this? I have the proof right here. But no, they would not concede. I just felt it sad that they should be so determined to disown their past.

It’s possible Brian secretly agreed with Taylor and was just yanking his chain. But Taylor seemed to think Brian was serious, which was what made the whole thing, in Taylor’s opinion, so sad: two brothers in serious denial of something embarrassing about their musical past.

Taylor was a nice guy and a friend; he wouldn’t have used the term “fad” as an accusation or put-down. It was only a simple description of how his client Brian Wilson used to make records. It certainly had nothing to do with the music Brian was making in the midst of Pet Sounds and Smile, which Taylor had been hired to help promote. And Taylor was right. Of course the Beach Boys had done fad music, because surfing and car songs had absolutely been a fad. The proof Taylor claimed to have would have included stuff like the Little Deuce Coupe and Surfer Girl albums.

But what if Brian was right too? What if it was true that his group, the Beach Boys, had never participated in the surfing and car fads? Could those two contradictory positions be reconciled?

Yes, possibly—as long as it is understood that Taylor and Brian were speaking two separate languages: one of business, and the other of music (or art). As a public-relations specialist (a music-business salesman, effectively), Taylor invoked the concept of the fad merely as a way of describing how Brian, the Beach Boys, and Capitol had conducted business at one time. It was an innocuous statement of fact, a plain business reality.

Yet Brian and Dennis took issue. Leaving Dennis’s views aside, “fad” would have offended Brian, insofar as the term connotes shoddiness, mendacity, anything-for-a-buck ethics, and worst of all, inability to do anything better. If Brian was to concede that he made fad music—even in his past—it would amount to a confession that all these things had applied to him; that he had once been that kind of record-biz hustler. It might also constitute an admission that his records were popular because of the fad topics instead of the music, production, and vocal quality. It would also imply an equivalence amongst all “fad groups”—the Beach Boys, Jan & Dean, the Rip Chords, and other imitators of even lesser quality. Brian would have disagreed with that. While he was friendly with guys like Jan Berry (Jan & Dean producer), Terry Melcher (Rip Chords mastermind), and Gary Usher (producer of the Hondells and various other car-concept efforts), Brian had to have known the Beach Boys were a cut above, and taken pride in that fact.

Maybe the brothers said something like: You’re wrong, Derek, the Beach Boys were never involved in the surf-fad. Or, even better: Fad? Beach Boys? I haven’t the slightest idea of what you’re talking about. Or: Sorry, I don’t understand you (which is what you say to someone speaking a different language). At that point, Brian was neither speaking nor thinking as a businessman, but as an artist who put music first. It was the businessmen, not the musicians, who conceived, promoted, and followed fads. Who liked them. It certainly wasn’t how a musician went about things, at least not one who approached his work as an artist. (Though Brian was unlikely to use that term to describe himself.)

This is just one way to interpret Brian’s seemingly bizarre “disowning” of the Beach Boys’ formulaic surf-and-car era. (Who except Brian could say what he was really thinking at the time?) In the end, the most interesting thing is that the conversation occurred in the first place; that Brian and Derek Taylor once had a disagreement over “fad.” (And also that it was memorable enough for Taylor to mention in an interview close to a decade later.) Even if Brian protested a little too much, it at the very least shows how touchy he was about the assumption that he had ever been a fad songwriter; one who had adhered to fads as a kind of formula.3

In strict terms, the disagreement with Taylor only shows what Brian Wilson felt about the Beach Boys’ fad-era when he looked back at it from a distance of two or three years. Although there is no clear, direct evidence that he chafed at the fad-formula when it was at its height in 1963, there are a couple of hints: (1) the Surfer Girl album track “Catch a Wave,” and (2) the “Be True to Your School” single in late October of that year.

The music on the Surfer Girl album improved on Surfin’ U.S.A., while it also being more faddish and commercially-motivated in its presentation. With Surfer Girl, Brian and the group returned, with vigor, to what had just recently (with “Surfin’ U.S.A.”) been confirmed as a winning formula. Eight or nine of the new album’s 12 tracks traded in surf or beach-centered themes. The sensitive ballad “Surfer Girl” was the single and lead-off track for the album, while “Catch a Wave”—an early Beach Boys classic and one their best surf songs—was left aside, to be an album track only.

“Catch a Wave” obviously could have been a single. It was on-the-money in every way—melody, lead and harmony vocals, arrangement, and lyrics. However, those lyrics delivered a very tired message. Had “Catch a Wave” been a single, it would have marked the fourth straight time—after “Surfin’,” “Surfin’ Safari,” and “Surfin’ U.S.A.”—the Beach Boys put out an up-tempo number saying: surfing is fun, let’s go out and surf. Fans may not have noticed or cared, but a certain kind of songwriter would. (The song is credited to Brian Wilson and Mike Love.) Conceptually, “Catch a Wave” distinguished itself from its predecessors by not having a title and tag-line with the word “surf” in it, but beyond that, it was stale product, reheated.

It’s possible Brian or Mike recognized “Catch a Wave” to be a fad-song, for here was a song whose lyrics betrayed a defensiveness about surfing, as if the surfer-narrator has already been denigrated, or “put-down” for being a surfer and partaking in a fad. “They said [surfing] wouldn’t last too long,” he says, before claiming, “they’ll eat their words with a fork and spoon.” For no apparent reason, the lyric goes out of its way to clarify that surfing is “not just a fad ‘cause it’s been going on so long.” Specifically, this refers to the actual sport of surfing itself, not the making of surf-records. But if the sport wasn’t a just a fad, then maybe the music wasn’t either?

It’s admittedly speculative, but maybe Brian Wilson (or Mike Love, or both) was not only aware he was making fad songs, but had a little chip on his shoulder about it. The defiant lyrical posture of “Catch a Wave” could have been a way for Brian to subtly resist the fad-formula at a time when he was unavoidably beholden to it: just include some lyrics telling everybody that the fad song they’re listening to isn’t really part of a fad. And then, sideline that tune and push for a less faddish ballad to be the single.4

A more efficient strategy, in the longer term, would be to just stop writing about surfing and try something else. As the popular B-side to the “Surfer Girl” single, “Little Deuce Coupe” helped the Beach Boys transition (seemingly overnight) to cars, but that material assumed its fad-character immediately, even faster than the surf songs did. Were there any other topics?

It so happens that this was the time—while the drag race/custom-car concept was speeding along in the second part of 1963—when Brian came up with “Be True to Your School” and wedged it into the Beach Boys’ release schedule. As thematically tone-deaf as it was, “Be True to Your School” (the subject of this post) still yielded a positive benefit for Brian as a songwriter: the Beach Boys now proved they could make some noise by singing about school, or more broadly, the teenage life.

Whatever Beach Boys formula existed was now evolving into something more flexible. As a non-beach, non-car hit, “Be True to Your School” nudged the group away from the restrictive fad-driven mode in the last days of 1963, peaking at No. 6 the week of December 21.5

It was only a couple of weeks later, in January 1964, when local record producer and scenester Kim Fowley ran into Brian at Gold Star Studios. With admiration, Fowley asked Brian if he could explain his songwriting method. As Fowley remembered it, Brian replied, “well, school is nine months a year and the summer holidays are three months, and you write about that and getting into trouble with your parents.”6

Brian wasn’t obliged to be forthcoming or engage meaningfully with Kim Fowley about music. Fowley buttonholed Brian one day at the studios, and Brian’s glib response could have translated to little more than I’m busy, leave me alone. That said, there’s a good chance Brian was speaking honestly and directly not only about “Be True to Your School,” but the new music he was working on at that very moment: “Fun, Fun, Fun” and other music for Shut Down Volume 2 like “Keep an Eye on Summer” and “In the Parkin’ Lot.”

Those songs lined up perfectly with Brian’s (casual, even dismissive) description of Beach Boys music, which amounted to an outline of a typical teenage American life. Obviously, something like “Fun, Fun, Fun” was well-suited for the teenage sensibility. At the time, you probably had to be a teenager to really “get” and enjoy it. The same of course could be said of “I Get Around,” and most of the All Summer Long album in July—”Wendy,” “Little Honda,” “All Summer Long,” “Drive-In,” and “We’ll Run Away” (which returned to the parent-problems theme).

It could be that Brian gave Kim Fowley as clear and honest a statement of a Beach Boys formula as could be, straight from the horse’s mouth. Brian and the Beach Boys made teenage music, and if anything like a formula existed in 1964, that’s what it boiled down to.

It was entirely appropriate for the Beach Boys to be a teenage group (i.e., one with an exclusively teen audience), first because that’s what it meant to play rock ‘n’ roll at the time, and second because it allowed the band flexibility. While always remaining Southern California’s ambassadors to the world of music and entertainment, by mid-1964 the Beach Boys had successfully incorporated a variety of material into their repertoire—not just surfing and cars, but high school and teen lifestyle songs, ‘50s covers, boy-girl relationship songs, and various hybrids. Brian had taken the lead on romantic ballads (which often referenced the beach and summer) and there was also that curious outlier, the solitary (but acceptably teenage) “In My Room.”

Being able to execute this varied material—and have it be accepted by the public—was progress for the Beach Boys, a group that broke through by agreeing to be typecast (and typecasting themselves) as boys-from-the-beach-who-sing-about-surfing. It had to be progress. What better alternative existed? The Beatles? Maybe so, as the Beatles made it in both the U.K. and U.S. as a band—as themselves—not fadsters. Still, in 1964 the Beatles too were makers of teenage music; they would not begin to reach an older audience until, at the earliest, the following year.

Teenage would remain Brian Wilson’s conceptual touchstone for the remainder of 1964. But would it be “teenage” as just another formula, or “teenage” as a concept broad enough to allow Brian to distance the Beach Boys from formula and labels?

In August, Brian said in the press that he wanted the Beach Boys to just keep identifying with “the young people.” He meant it. For Brian, this was a good place to be, giving him both the flexibility and justification to move forward with “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man).” Surely, identifying with your natural audience—observing what they do and imagining their thoughts—was better than getting pigeonholed as a silly fad-group. And surely, doing this would allow Brian plenty of freedom to do what he wanted to do as a composer, while also selling lots of records.

Wouldn’t it?

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Selected References

Grevatt, Ren. “The Beach Boys Ride the Trends.” Music Business, August 15, 1964.

Kent, Nick. “The Last Beach Movie, Part 2: Smile…” In Domenic Priore, Look! Listen! Vibrate! SMILE! San Francisco: Last Gasp, 1994. 

Kubernik, Harvey. “John Lennon Escapes the Beatles’ Shadow.” Goldmine, August 28, 2009).

^__________ .  Turn Up the Radio! Rock, Pop, and Roll in Los Angeles 1956-1972. Solana Beach, CA: Santa Monica Press, 2014.

Share A Book of Brian Wilson

Several chapters in the History of Brian Wilson posting-series have concerned the Beach Boys’ “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” 45-rpm single, released in August 1964. (See Parts 23-26, and also here). Part 26 suggested that Capitol Records released “Little Honda” as a single in September (via Four by the Beach Boys) as a subtle corrective to Brian Wilson’s choice of “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man).”

Even if it wasn’t, Four by the Beach Boys at a minimum signified Capitol’s belief that “Little Honda” was singles chart material—and should be promoted as such. This little rift—Brian and “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” on one side; Capitol and “Little Honda” on the other—can be seen as an early manifestation of the famous “art vs. commerce” issue in Beach Boys history.1

Upon review, Part 26 was pretty cavalier with respect to various terms: “fad,” “formula” (or “formulaic”), “salesmanship,” “commerciality,” etc. The post says that the Beach Boys established an identity as a “surf/teen/fad band”—as if all those things were basically equivalent. But they’re not. As will hopefully become clearer by the end of this (two-part) post, Brian Wilson didn’t think they were the same.

Before moving forward with the next post in the History of Brian series, it probably would be a good idea to insert an Appendix post on the subject of “fad,” “formula,” and “teenage music.” The goal isn’t to provide a textbook definition of these concepts, but only to better clarify what the words mean when applied to Brian Wilson’s music and career with the Beach Boys.

Today, it is commonly accepted that a “Beach Boys formula” existed, which—at least among critics and a subset of fans—has come to be deplored. What the critics object to isn’t the musical part of the formula, for example the multi-part harmony vocals that often gave the records a distinctive and appealing sound. It is the group’s overall presentation—its stance, themes, and song concepts—that embodies “formula” in the negative sense.

As specifically applied to Brian Wilson as an individual distinct from the Beach Boys organization, the word formula has become an outright pejorative, owing to the commonly-held opinion that (1) Brian’s best and most sophisticated music deviated from formula; (2) in trying to make this kind of music, Brian faced opposition from his family, the other Beach Boys, and Capitol Records—which in turn means; (3) those parties obstructed and ultimately thwarted Brian’s effort to make great music. While this controversial issue does not come to the fore until sometime in 1966, it is already detectable in the opaque maneuvering surrounding “Little Honda” and the more unconventional “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man).”2

Figuring a way into the music business is not easy, and there shouldn’t be anything wrong with using a predetermined procedure—working like a set of instructions—to do it. (Just as there’s nothing inherently wrong with using a cooking recipe, medical prescription, mathematical theorem, statistical analysis, or computer programming algorithm to solve a difficult problem.) In the pre-Beatles world of 1961-63, it was very difficult to break in just by playing rock ‘n’ roll, in a band format with vocals and lyrics. (Rock instrumental groups were more in vogue.) Everybody, even Bob Dylan, needed some kind of hook.3 The Beach Boys found an effective and original formula (and it found them) that was theirs alone. They achieved success in the business as originals, not copycats following a template laid down by a preceding band.

If there’s a problem with the Beach Boys’ relationship to formula, it shouldn’t be formula per se—the original discovery of a “secret sauce” and its practical application. It is more likely the group’s failure or unwillingness to sufficiently separate itself from the original formula that puts people off. By the mid-1960s, the Beach Boys formula had arguably exhausted its usefulness, while Brian Wilson was—allegedly, and controversially—providing the group with better options.

Whatever it was that occurred between Brian and the Beach Boys at mid-decade (around the time of Pet Sounds, “Good Vibrations,” Smile, Smiley Smile, etc.) is one of the central issues of the entire Beach Boys Saga. For now, a different question: what, exactly, was the Beach Boys formula?

Although Dennis Wilson’s initial idea for a “song about surfing” was honestly rooted in his real-life experience as a teenage surfer, it had inherent commercial potential. Still, it wasn’t formulaic. Nor was Hite & Dorinda Morgan’s decision to publish the song “Surfin’” and find a label to put it out. That was just business. But when some record-biz guys refashioned the “Pendletones” as “Beach Boys,” a formula—a special combination of elements—was in the making: if a group is singing about going surfing, they should be called “Beach Boys.”

The boys didn’t like their new name, not necessarily because it was formulaic, but because it was goofy. But they came to accept it once they discovered that “Surfin’” was getting played on the radio. In their “Pendletones” guise, the group already had impressive musical (vocal harmony) talent, but that didn’t count for much. Being “beach boys” who sang about surfing was what got them into the business.

After “Surfin’” became a local hit, Brian Wilson and Mike Love took another step toward formula by “doing it again” and writing “Surfin’ Safari,” a vastly improved version of “Surfin’.” Brian then took up with Gary Usher, with whom he wrote a set of more generic teenage pop songs. Given what had recently transpired with “Surfin’,” Brian and Gary would have been justified in writing some zippy surf songs (besides the beach-ballad “Lonely Sea”). They didn’t. In retrospect, this indicates Brian’s ambivalence toward the idea that surfing or beach culture should be his primary, if not exclusive, subject matter.4

However, the Wilson-Usher tunes didn’t make it, while “Surfin’ Safari” stood out as the Beach Boys’ best and most commercially successful recording of 1962. Next, Brian went back and did it again once more with “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” the song through which the Beach Boys broke through nationwide. By embracing their identities as “beach boys” and singing three increasingly successful songs about going surfing, the Beach Boys became stars. The group’s name, combined with that initial sequence of surfing songs established a marketing concept, and in in the mind of the public, the Beach Boys’ raison d’être.

Perhaps that explains why, to this day, it’s commonly assumed that the Beach Boys formula required Brian to write songs “about the beach.” That was literally true only during a brief window of time, starting after Surfin’ Safari and the Gary Usher era, and extending through the first half of 1963, the period covering “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” the album of the same name, and the Surfer Girl album at mid-year. After Surfer Girl (released September 1963), the Beach Boys were basically done with the beach and surfing (though “summer” would remain a recurring theme).

In fact (as mentioned in Part 14), even before then, during the Surfin’ U.S.A. period of early 1963, Brian and the Beach Boys were already turning toward car songs, with Capitol’s blessing. It was late 1962 or early 1963 when Brian commenced a partnership with lyricist Roger Christian for the express purpose of writing car songs. As the successful B-side of “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” their early collaboration “Shut Down” pointed the way toward “Little Deuce Coupe” (successful as the B-side of “Surfer Girl”), Little Deuce Coupe (the album on which the Beach Boys firmly recast themselves as a car band), and ultimately, Shut Down Volume 2 at the beginning of 1964.

History now views “car songs” and “surf songs” to be fundamentally indistinguishable within the Beach Boys’ discography. While there was a distinction at the surface level—a beach song was about the beach and a car song was about a car—few would bother to delineate the surfing Beach Boys from the car-club Beach Boys. From a musical or stylistic perspective, there was no meaningful difference. Underneath, all these songs were alike, easily grouped together under one unifying principle: fad.

Click here to continue on the subject of fad (and “The Formula”), as the Beach Boys move from 1963 to 1964.

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Before returning to the goings-on of 1964, here is the second part of this comment on “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” and other songs on growing up and the passage of time.

Part 1 of this comment listed several songs that are about the transition from adolescence to adulthood and the passing of time. It was a loose compare-contrast exercise; a means to think about what, if any, other songs contain the same unique combination of characteristics as the Beach Boys’ “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man).” Most of the songs dated from the mid-1960s, and were written by major artists of the rock ‘n’ roll/singer-songwriter era.

Part 2 touches on the distinction between Brian Wilson and some of these other musicians, with a focus on how Brian and the Beach Boys were perceived within the mainstream rock ‘n’ roll culture of the late-1960s through the 1990s. The post concludes with some thoughts about a possible connection between the Beach Boys’ image problem and Brian Wilson’s style of songwriting and production—an approach that happens to be demonstrated quite well in a recording like “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man).”

Back to first part of “Child/Adult”

Second Part:

The previous post featured a gallery of six photos in which a young Brian Wilson was grouped alongside other well-known musicians:

The image was meant to convey a basic equivalence between Brian (pictured at around 21-years-old, in his parents’ house and probably several months before making “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)”) and other famous songwriters, with the main point of similarity being how, during the 1960s, they all wrote or released songs about growing up and/or the adult-child divide.

However, at a more specific historic or cultural level, this collage is not entirely accurate. As either an individual musician or stand-in for the Beach Boys group, Brian Wilson doesn’t quite fit with the others. As readers probably know, Brian and the Beach Boys have, for the better part of a half-century, not been viewed in quite the same way as Dylan, Townshend, the Beatles, Byrds, Neil Young, et al.

This is not to say Brian’s music with and for the Beach Boys hasn’t always had a place in the rock ‘n’ roll culture.1 It has. However, that culture (as something distinct from rock ‘n’ roll music itself) came into being only in the late 1960s, the point when rock ‘n’ roll first became recognized as an established form of popular music instead of a transient teenage fad that listeners were expected to grow out of. This occurred while the Beach Boys were in the throes of reputational and commercial decline. By the time rock ‘n’ roll “grew up,” the Beach Boys were off the scene, relegated to, at best, a historical position in the culture.

For at least 30 years (approximately the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s if not later) the band remained known for what it had done in the first half of the 1960s, not for what it did (or didn’t do) in the latter decade, or in the Seventies, Eighties and beyond. The Beach Boys had been good enough, and popular enough, to be enjoyed retrospectively: from time to time, they would experience a resurgence when, for whatever reason, a nostalgia-craze kicked in and the public wanted to go “back to the beach”—as it did in the mid-1970s, and for a moment the late 1980s when “Kokomo” became a No. 1 hit. With a handful of exceptions (like “Good Vibrations”), these periodic revivals never concerned any music Brian Wilson or the Beach Boys did after 1965. It took a long time for even Pet Sounds to find a mass audience and become widely recognized as one the best albums of the entire rock ‘n’ roll era.

Even in their recognized position as beloved historical figures of rock ‘n’ roll, neither the Beach Boys nor Brian Wilson were viewed, in the main, as being terribly important. As evidence, here is a book I stumbled on (in July 2024) at a used record store:

This book was published in 1981. Here is its list of interviews:

If this was intended as a representation of the most significant musicians and songwriters of rock ‘n’ roll (as of 1981), we can now say that Brian and the Beach Boys are conspicuously absent. (As is Ray Davies of the Kinks, another group that (for different reasons) failed to remain in step with the musical and cultural changes of the late 1960s.) By itself, the omission of a Brian Wilson/Beach Boys entry doesn’t prove that their music had been downgraded, but nevertheless indicates that neither Brian individually nor the group as a unit rated inclusion among this class of artists.2

Conventional wisdom locates the origin of the problem in mid-1967, when Brian failed to deliver a completed Smile album and the Beach Boys backed out of the Monterey Pop Festival, the event that effectively served as the coming-out party for Sixties rock culture. All that is true, but the sunny, Southern California image that had worked so well for the Beach Boys between 1962 and 1964 (and extending, improbably, into 1965 with “California Girls”) had already begun to exhaust itself before Monterey.

On March 17, 1966, the Beach Boys (whose most recent single, the regressive “Barbara Ann,” had peaked at No. 2 at the end of January) headlined at the University of Dayton (Ohio), during their first collegiate tour. John Sebastian and his band the Lovin’ Spoonful was the opener, and received a better audience response.3 Occurring at a time when Brian was in Los Angeles working on Pet Sounds, and before “Good Vibrations” or the Smile drama, this is one of the earliest indications that the Beach Boys would fall from the public’s good graces in the second half of the 1960s. According to Smile lyricist Van Dyke Parks, later that year (around the time “Surf’s Up” was written), Dennis Wilson reported that the group had been jeered during a performance. It’s possible that the Beach Boys’ absence from Monterey in 1967 only confirmed something that was already in motion, if not predestined.

But why? There are many, many reasons (far too many to explore here) for the Beach Boys’ exclusion from rock’s upper echelon. Suffice to say it has something to do with the musical, aesthetic and cultural preferences of a couple of generations of rock ‘n’ roll fans who, for reasons both good and bad, rejected the Beach Boys and what they had to offer. There’s plenty of evidence too, that the Beach Boys in fact preferred to be associated with the past: a year after the Monterey festival, they released their beach song “Do It Again,” which wasn’t really about surfing or going to the beach, but returning to the beach from which the group supposedly originated. That tune nicely encapsulated the idea that the Beach Boys’ present identity was to be found in their past. And the public agreed—the mediocre “Do It Again” did tolerably well as a stand-alone single (No. 20) while at that very same moment, the group’s outstanding and properly up-to-date album Friends bombed miserably.4

It wasn’t only a matter of musical and lyrical substance, but form too—the way the Beach Boys presented and performed their music. Even at their best and most popular, the Beach Boys always stood apart from whatever could be safely categorized as “rock ‘n’ roll,” a genre which by the late ‘60s was defined by two main reference points: (1) the rock-band prototype of the Beatles and (2) the singer-songwriter model of Bob Dylan. Neither the Beach Boys nor Brian Wilson ever fit comfortably within either category.5 In the early 1970s, at a time when the Beach Boys seem to have had no other options, they tried to reconstitute their ungainly organization as a “rock band,” but it didn’t work. The Beach Boys had never been, and never could be, that kind of group.

Finally, there’s the issue of maturity. Brian and the Beach Boys built their name not just by writing and performing for a teenage audience, but by playing to them as teenagers, pandering to them, purposefully crafting songs that reflected a presumed “teenage lifestyle.” It was a double-edged sword. It was great when it worked, but even during their successful years, the Beach Boys were like Woody, Buzz Lightyear and the other toys in Toy Story, always on the precipice of rejection and obsolescence once their “owners” (fans) grew up, found a new toy (fad, craze, new band) or otherwise got sick of playing with them.

Because the Beach Boys made great teenage records so convincingly, it was inconceivable that they could ever do anything else. The fans may have loved the Beach Boys, but didn’t respect them or trust them to make music that could communicate an evolving, young-adult sensibility. (Pet Sounds was far too sophisticated and made no sense to the fans as an album; Smile would have been even further beyond; Smiley Smile signaled failure to keep up with the times.) In the late 1960s, the kids grew up and took their new rock music along with them. Rock ‘n’ roll would survive, but the Beach Boys didn’t quite make it. They got left behind, in childhood.

From a Brian Wilson perspective, the irony is especially wicked. Brian, after all, was the one who first tried to direct the kids toward adulthood, way back in August of 1964, on “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man).”

At that point, Brian was looking to break out from the restrictive teen genre, but it was tricky: the underlying subject matter of “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” was sophisticated, but the presentation was not. On that song, Brian was still writing down to the kids, even as he was trying at the same time to pull them (and himself) forward, toward maturity.

In the end, “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” may not have landed the way Brian hoped. It somehow got to No. 9 on the singles chart, but had no life whatsoever, becoming, at best, an interesting anomaly within the Beach Boys ‘60s discography. As Beach Boys music, it was easily overshadowed by the more well-known Beach Boys hits of 1963, ‘64 and ‘65. As a song about growing up, it became overlooked—at least when compared to the songs listed in the first part of this comment.

The existence of those other songs indicates that coming-of-age or passing-into-adulthood would become an acceptable theme among the rock ‘n’ roll/singer-songwriter crowd and its fans—provided that it was treated with some combination of artistry, musical quality, sincerity, and coolness. Even better if the song was delivered from the appropriately mature, retrospective outlook of a young adult.

For the rock ‘n’ roll/Rolling Stone generation(s), “Sugar Mountain” and “The Circle Game” are perhaps the most widely-known and celebrated tunes on this theme. Starting from the late 1970s, anytime Neil Young broke out his Martin guitar and started picking the opening phrase of “Sugar Mountain,” an entire arena of rock fans would erupt in cheers.6 “The Circle Game”—lovely, but not the best work from Joni Mitchell’s folky days—was for a time so widely known and respected that it became a teaching song, drilled into the consciousness of 1970s children left to the mercy of guitar-strumming parents, teachers, and hippie camp counselors. Meanwhile, the more lyrically dense “My Back Pages” has always been considered classic Bob Dylan poetry on the theme growing up (by staying young), and Pete Townshend’s “My Generation” is a staple of rock ‘n’ roll defiance, the definitive song of inter-generational aggression.

It would be crazy to say that “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” is better than any of these songs. It’s not. The concept had depth, but the lyrics were not sophisticated. Nor was the delivery. The lead voices—both Mike and Brian—sound immature. “My Generation”—likewise sung in the voice of a teenager—would surely have flattered the Who’s young male fans, making them feel tough and rebellious. If anything, “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” would have done the opposite. The tag—when I grow up / to be / a man, with Brian singing way up high—is actively uncool. Who sounds like that? What teenage boy of any era would want to sound like that, or be flattered by the idea that this is what he sounds like? In a nutshell, the awkward, pubescent character of “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” is likely the main reason the song never made it with the rock ‘n’ roll crowd or even the Beach Boys’ own fans.

However, right or wrong, Brian Wilson believed that “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” told the truth about what kids are really like on the inside. It could also have reflected how he himself was feeling. Accordingly, “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” sounds the way it does. It conveys no penetrating insight on the circle of life; no declaratory statement about growing older. Grown-ups might have that kind wisdom to share, but kids do not. They don’t have the perspective. And because kids don’t know about that stuff, the song doesn’t know either. The listener isn’t going to learn anything from “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” or feel more grown up or adult for having heard it.

Is the song therefore “dumb,” lame,” or “embarrassing,” or does it only make you feel a little embarrassed to listen to it? These are two different questions.

Feel is the key. The songs by Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, John Lennon, et al. convey their messages about growing-up through lyrics. With Brian Wilson, it’s a musical feeling, more than an intellectual or conceptual insight that is captured. (With Brian, the feeling is the insight.) With the help of the Beach Boys on the vocals and Mike Love on the lyrics, Brian puts you inside the feelings of a certain kind of 14-, 15- or 16-year-old boy. If “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” is dumb or lame—unworthy to be classified among some of these other songs of the 1960s—it’s because it’s too intimate and too real.

In “The Circle Game,” Joni Mitchell sang about the “seasons going ‘round and ‘round” and how we’re all “captive on the carousel of time.” On “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys eschewed lyrical elegance and just stuck the listener right on the carousel itself—during the bridge and especially the fade out, when the Beach Boys count off the years as they quickly expire in succession.

Both songs say that time is too powerful, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Joni Mitchell tells you something about the seasons and the years, and it certainly works—the chorus of “The Circle Game” is truthful. Meanwhile, Brian Wilson communicates in a different way, making the listener feel the message through instrumental and vocal arrangement, which is then buttressed by a good-enough (not great) lyric.

Brian’s approach is an unintellectual, but very musical and artful method of pop songwriting, appearing time and time again throughout his Beach Boys and solo discography. It was intentional, too. Even at that relatively early stage of his career during which he made “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man),” Brian had some awareness of what he was doing as a writer and record producer. In fall 1964 he said:

My ideas for the [Beach Boys] are to combine music that strikes a deep emotional response among listeners and still maintains a somewhat untrained and teen-age sound.7

If Brian Wilson’s life, career, and music can be said to be important, then this is one of the most important statements he ever made in the press. It explains an awful lot—why Brian and the Beach Boys succeeded, and also why so much of Brian’s music was (and perhaps remains) misunderstood or misinterpreted.

However, did Brian know why he was inclined to write songs and make records this way? That is an entirely different subject.

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2

In Rolling Stone’s defense, the magazine duly conducted an interview of Brian and the entire Beach Boys band-family in 1976. However, as Ben Fong-Torres says in his introduction to the 1981 book, Rolling Stone prided itself on interviews with “probing questions” and “thoughtful responses” that necessitated a relaxed, conversational back-and-forth between artist and journalist. Even at a time when the Beach Boys were riding high as a concert attraction, the 1976 Rolling Stone piece revealed, at best, a shambolic family organization whose best days were behind it, and with a very troubled person at its center. (This is the notorious interview in which Brian asks interviewer David Felton if he has any drugs to share.) Addressing the various omissions from the 1981 interview collection, Fong-Torres explained that some artists were better suited for a “personality profile” instead of a Q & A. He then acknowledged the absence of “some important people” from the collection—namely Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin. Excerpts from Brian’s 1976 Q & A were included in another interview collection gathered for the October 15, 1992 issue of Rolling Stone, along with updated commentary from Felton:

This addition to the Appendix section of A Book of Brian Wilson will be posted in two parts.

First part:

Parts 23, 24 & 25 of A History of Brian focused on the Beach Boys’ “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” 45-rpm single of August 1964. These posts praised the song for various reasons—its thematic sophistication, insight, subtlety, honesty, etc. Also for the way Brian Wilson steered the Beach Boys away from repetition and commercial expectations. While noting the childlike sound of the record, those posts underlined the point that it wasn’t childish. Although “When I Grow Up” was surely meant to be heard as unambiguously and specifically “teenage,” its theme and purpose signified a move toward maturity for the Beach Boys.

History of Brian Part 25 (“Me and Them”) claimed that “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” “differed from just about everything else in the field of teenage pop music.” I added the qualifying term just about because I’m not certain that nobody else has written and recorded something like “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man),” a song characterized by all of the following:

(1) deals with the transition from childhood/adolescence to adulthood;

(2) sung from the perspective of the child/adolescent;

(3) sung in the first-person;

(4) asks questions about an unknown future adulthood;

(5) provides no answers to those questions; no words of advice or worldly wisdom to guide the youth (or the listener);

(6) incorporates the element of the passing of the years.

While preparing to publish the posts on “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man),” I tried to remember other songs that dealt with the childhood-adulthood transition. I thought doing this might clarify what it is about “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” that has always made it sound (at least to me) unusual, if not outright strange.

For my purposes, only a certain type of song qualified for the comparison. It had to be reasonably well-known, written or performed by a reasonably well-established popular artist. Preferably, the song would date from the “rock ‘n’ roll era” (which is commonly thought to have been rooted in the 1950s, then begun in full force with the Beatles in 1964, ending at some point in the mid- or late-1990s); even better if it came from the 1960s years when Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys were at their peak.

Also, the song couldn’t just be about childhood or children generally, nor could it be one of those tunes in which a songwriter is remembering his or her own childhood. It would have to be a song about childhood as a concept or state of being, and it would have to deal in some way with the transition from childhood (or adolescence) to adulthood and/or the distinction between the qualities of childhood and adulthood.

It’s possible I overlooked a lot of songs, or maybe there’s not very many meeting these specifications. Anyway, I came up with fewer titles than I would have expected before getting into this.

The following is a list of songs, along with some semi-organized commentary. The second part of this comment (link below) tries to clarify the purpose of this exercise.

“Walk Like a Man” (Bob Gaudio - Bob Crewe) / The Four Seasons, 1963

See mention of this tune and how it differs from “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” in History of Brian Part 23.

“Que Sera, Sera” (Jay Livingston - Ray Evans) / Doris Day, 1956

Also mentioned in Part 23, as evidence that a song about the uncertainty of growing up could be a pop hit. It’s similar to “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” in the shared phrase, what will I be? In both songs a youth is asking questions about his/her future, but among the two, only this one has the added element of the adult perspective. Here, the singer is an adult who is only remembering what she used to ask when she was a little girl. And the recollection is that the pearl of wisdom—que sera, sera, the future’s not ours to see—comes from the singer’s mother. With Brian and the Beach Boys, this adult perspective and reassurance is absent.

“Sixteen Going on Seventeen” (Rodgers & Hammerstein) / The Sound of Music—musical, 1959; movie, 1965

A musical number, in which the singers sing in character, in furtherance of a story. Not sure this qualifies as dealing with childhood-to-adulthood in the same way as “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man).” This one seems to have a strong sexual undercurrent. (?) The theme of a young girl’s transition to womanhood (if that’s really what this song is about—in the movie, it’s more about a courtship ritual, and it seems that the boy is the one who needs to grow up, while the girl is waiting for him to catch up to her) is a recurring theme in Brian Wilson’s songs.

“When I’m Sixty-Four” (Paul McCartney, c. 1956) / The Beatles, 1967

If you can imagine this as sung by a teenager (Paul McCartney wrote this while in his teens), it qualifies as song in which a young kid is singing in the first-person, asking questions about his long-term future. As heard in its recorded version on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s, it comes off as a light, old-fashioned tune sung by somebody in his twenties, with the original teenage context removed. “When I’m Sixty-Four” seems less tied to McCartney’s actual life situation than “When I Grow Up” was to Brian Wilson’s, but you never know. It certainly sounds less anxious (and in the end, less interesting) than “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man),” which is more solitary and internal, raising questions that seem more substantial than those Paul is asking. “When I Grow Up” doesn’t have the dry, whimsical humor of “When I’m Sixty-Four,” though as noted in this post, Brian may have made a conscious effort to make his tune sound “fun,” if not exactly funny.

“Leaves That Are Green” (Paul Simon, c. 1964-65) / Simon & Garfunkel, 1966

“Sugar Mountain” (Neil Young, 1964 or 1965) / released as B-side, 1969

“The Circle Game” (Joni Mitchell, 1966) / released as album track, 1970

These are all written from the p.o.v. of someone who has already crossed over from adolescence to (young) adulthood. “Leaves That Are Green” (featuring prominent harpsichord) has the time-is-passing element, but the voice is that of a young man instead of a teen (which is made plain in the opening line). The song really isn’t about growing up per se (though it’s implicit).

“Sugar Mountain” might be the most immediate of this group, as Neil Young wrote it either after turning 19 in 1964, or 20 in 1965.1 Although he is singing about his own thoughts, he doesn’t use the “I” of the first-person: he says “you can’t be twenty on Sugar Mountain,” meaning that nobody who has reached 20 years old can remain in childhood. Like “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man),” the song is apprehensive: “. . . though you’re thinkin’ that you’re leaving there too soon.” However, unlike Brian Wilson, Neil Young shields himself as a writer, allowing for a little buffer between himself and the song. He’s not going to admit openly in the song that he himself is the one who is thinking that he’s growing up too fast. In August of 1964, Brian may not have been willing to admit that he was writing about himself either, but he probably was. (See History of Brian Part 25 for some commentary on this.)

Apparently believing “Sugar Mountain” to be too pessimistic about the prospect of getting older, Joni Mitchell wrote “The Circle Game” in response. It deals with both growing up and the passing of years, but the lyrics provide the wisdom about how everybody is “captive on the carousel of time.” In a way, the chorus is a variation on the sing-along refrain of “Que Sera, Sera.” It remains unclear how “The Circle Game” is more hopeful or optimistic than “Sugar Mountain.”

“You’re a Big Boy Now” (John Sebastian, 1966) / album track, 1970

“Working Class Hero” (John Lennon, 1970)

Here are two perspectives on growing up from 1970, both of which again take the adult viewpoint. John Sebastian’s “You’re a Big Boy Now” was written to fit with the plot of a movie, but if taken separately, the tune gently celebrates a boy’s coming-of-age. John Lennon, meanwhile, is not in a celebratory mood. The fourth verse of “Working Class Hero” is probably the most famous. The third verse is the one that specifically addresses the transition into adulthood, and the second verse concisely and accurately describes what happens to people like Brian Wilson.

“Working Class Hero” is far removed from the innocence and teenage naivete of “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)”—Lennon, now around 30 years old (ancient by the rock/pop standards of the time), sounds world-weary and disgusted, but he’s not without hope. Like it or not, this is a significant song. Years later, Brian would write his own “Working Class Hero”-type song, one equally important, but with the added plus that it’s easier to listen to.

“My Generation” (Pete Townshend) / The Who, 1965

“I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” (Tom Waits - Kathleen Brennan) / Tom Waits, 1992; The Ramones, 1995

If Lennon was an angry old man in 1970, in 1965 Pete Townshend was an angry young man looking ahead in time, and not liking what he sees. The previous year, “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” recognized the uncertainty of the future: who knows what’s going to happen? Townshend’s song (which alternates from the first-person singular to the more tribal first-person plural) differs because the singer professes to already know what’s in store for him. Whatever it is, it’s so awful that he hopes he dies before he gets old. The Beach Boys accept that adulthood (becoming a man) will occur one way or another, while “My Generation” objects to the entire idea of adulthood, as a matter of principle.

“My Generation” is like Tom Waits’s “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up,” which also presumes to know what happens as we grow older. Yet it seems to be written (and delivered) with less anger and more humor than “My Generation.” It’s possible Waits is singing in the voice of an adolescent, but it’s more likely that his character is a crusty, middle-aged contrarian who’s fed up with the responsibilities, compromises, and indignities of adulthood. If (as suggested in Part 23) “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” is an old man’s song intended for teenage boys, “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” (as originally recorded by Tom Waits) might be thought of as a young person’s song written for old people.

While in their forties, the Ramones covered “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” on their final album, lending force to the idea that this isn’t really a teenage song like “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” but one meant for older people. Or maybe the idea was that the song is teenage; that the Ramones defiantly remained teenage punks to the end.

“My Back Pages” (Bob Dylan, 1964) / The Byrds, 1967

“Goin’ Back” (Gerry Goffin - Carole King, 1966) / Dusty Springfield, 1966; The Byrds, 1968

Both Bob Dylan and Brian Wilson achieved breakthrough success in 1963 by holding fast to the dictates of their respective genres, but within a year or so, each came to realize that labeling and categorization was a career-threatening trap. Brian wanted (and needed) to grow up in music and in life. “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” in August ‘64 indicated a desire to reorient himself—and the Beach Boys, too.

Dating from around the same time, Dylan’s “My Back Pages” reflects his intention to move away from what was classified (and celebrated) as socially-conscious “protest” folk. In “My Back Pages,” Dylan wasn’t talking about growing up, but down—loosening up and getting a little “younger.” (This comes through in the lyrics, not the music, which is sort of plodding.) There’s a youthful outlook in “My Back Pages,” but it’s that of a young person who believes he’s actually “grown up to be a man” too fast, or in the wrong way—meaning, in Dylan’s case, that if he continues on the path he’s on, he won’t become the sort of musician he wants to be.

Like Brian Wilson and Bob Dylan, the songwriting team of Carole King and Gerry Goffin also achieved commercial success in the early 1960s. Like Brian, they wrote for kids and teenagers; like Dylan, they were based in New York City. “Goin’ Back” suggests that Goffin and King also wanted to evolve or “grow up” as songwriters in the mid-1960s. At the same time, it’s conceivable they pinched Dylan’s grow-up-by-getting-younger theme, and that “Goin’ Back” was crafted as a pop version of “My Back Pages.” (They wrote it before the Byrds did their own pop-friendly cover of “My Back Pages” in 1967.)

Dusty Springfield had a hit UK single with “Goin’ Back” in 1966, but Americans first heard the song in early 1968, on the Byrds’ album Notorious Byrd Brothers. With their version, the Byrds were not just covering Goffin & King (a decision possibly driven by commercially-minded producer Gary Usher, who always admired their songwriting), but in effect covering “My Back Pages” for the second time—via the intermediary Dylan-influenced songwriting of Goffin & King.

The Byrds’ version of “Goin’ Back” is wonderful, but because the song is (probably?) derived from “My Back Pages,” it slyly adheres to the then-prevailing folk-rock/Byrds-cover-Dylan formula. Compare, for whatever it’s worth, to “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man),” which cut against the Beach Boys’ market-tested formula. By 1968—and for many years after—it was always the Beach Boys (and therefore their chief songwriter, Brian Wilson) who would wear the scarlet letter of commercialism, shallowness and insincere formula-driven music. Brian was already trying, awkwardly perhaps, to do something different in August 1964. The timing was off.

To continue reading, see the second part of “Child/Adult.” That post tries to further distinguish “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” from these other songs, in order to get a better sense of what Brian Wilson did (or tried to do) as a composer that sets him apart.

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Postscript: Before publishing this entry, I entered the phrase, “songs about growing up” into a search engine. A bunch of lists came up, most of which consisted of songs I’m too old to be familiar with. Most of the songs mentioned in this post, including “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man),” were excluded from the lists. Also, for what it’s worth, some other songs I considered but didn’t think warranted further discussion in this post: “Changes” (David Bowie); “Get Older” (Matthew Sweet); “Sixteen Blue” (Paul Westerberg/Replacements); “Thirteen” (Alex Chilton/Big Star); “Rockin’ Stroll” (Evan Dando/Lemonheads). I suspect I’ve unknowingly omitted a lot more songs that would be relevant to this post.

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The previous three installments recounted how, as of 1960-61 (1) Beach Boy dad Murry Wilson retained an important personal connection to the independent recording industry in Hollywood; (2) the soon-to-be Beach Boys group eventually made critical inroads into the business via that same connection; and (3) the band nevertheless seems to have accomplished this without Murry’s involvement or knowledge. Part 2 characterized this as “usurpation” on the part of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys—perhaps occurring unavoidably, and likely inadvertently.

In an attempt to explain how these events make sense under the specific interpersonal circumstances of the Wilson family, Part 3 included some inferential leaps. It introduced the element of Brian Wilson’s individual psychology and the idea that Brian might (instinctively) elect to remain passive when confronted with a delicate situation involving his father. Part 3 speculated as to both Brian’s internal decision-making process, and his father’s internal (or even externally demonstrated) state of mind with respect to his sons’ sudden entry into the music business.

This admittedly unsentimental (and perhaps cynical) view of the Beach Boys’ founding recognizes that, as of the band’s formation in 1961, Brian Wilson and his brothers had long been required to adapt to an unhappy and dysfunctional family situation. It is on that point where Part 3 left off.

The post below, Part 4, will touch on the theme of “environmental adaptation” as it particularly applies to Brian. Finally, the essay will conclude with an attempt to explain the relevance of all this to Brian’s career and Beach Boys history.

Previous sections of this essay/comment:

“The Founding of the Beach Boys” (Part 1 of 4) (subchapters i - iii)

“The Founding of the Beach Boys” (Part 2 of 4) (subchapters (iv - vi)

“The Founding of the Beach Boys” (Part 3 of 4) (subchapters vii - viii)

ix.

The process of the Wilson brothers’ behavioral and psychological adaptation during childhood was briefly addressed in Part 3 of the History of Brian Wilson series. It will not be analyzed in detail here, yet it should be noted that for the purpose of cracking the band’s complicated origins in 1961, it is Brian’s method of adaptation that is most relevant.

Darian Sahanaja, one of Brian’s late-period musical collaborators and a member of his live band, once observed:

Something that’s constantly reinforced to me is that he works on a completely primal, intuitive level… Sometimes I think that, with music, Brian’s feelings are connected with what he needs to do. He’s like an animal on the plains of the Serengeti—they don’t even think; they just do: ‘This is what I’ve got to do to survive…’ 1

In strict terms, the observation is limited to how Brian makes music. Sahanaja frames it in terms of survival. And he uses the simile of animal existence in the unforgiving natural environment of the African plains. It summons images of danger and violence—animals left vulnerable to attack as they take water from a stream; the risk of straying from the relative safety of the herd; some unfortunate creature chased down and torn to bits by a group of predators; a pack of scavengers banding together to steal a kill from a larger, more dangerous predator that is simply outnumbered. What Sahanaja alludes to is both the necessity of brute physical survival and the obvious conclusion that “thinking” is useless under conditions of immediate threat. The animal must react, or be killed.

It is an unavoidable reality that human beings are often compelled to live under similar circumstances—in times of war, but also even during peacetime, as violent conditions persist in everyday life. This is what it was like growing up in the household of Murry and Audree Wilson. Violence existed as both constant threat and proven reality. The Wilson home was not a sanctuary from the hostility of the outside world; it was the very place in which violence reigned. Growing up there was in a sense a test of survival, and like animals in nature, the brothers “evolved” in childhood so as to withstand the “natural” environmental conditions at 3701 W. 119th Street in Hawthorne.

The late-period Brian Wilson knew this about himself and his brothers. In his 2016 book, he said:

Kids who get hit don’t just turn into one thing. They turn into all kinds of things. Dennis turned into one thing and Carl turned into another thing and I turned into a third thing. We had something in common, of course. We had my dad. And that meant that we all had to deal with it, though we all had our own ways of dealing with it.

Brian didn’t elaborate on what he and his brothers “turned into” or how that occurred. However, the point remains that the brothers responded to the conditions of their childhood in different ways. And that late in life, Brian has learned things about adaptation and survival that he couldn’t have known back when he was a kid who—day after day, week after week, year after year—was gradually adopting and sharpening the survival strategies that would make him the particular “thing” he would later become.

The instinctual quality of survival that Darian Sahanaja sees in Brian the musician isn’t limited to Brian’s decisions in the recording studio. It is deeply rooted, and tied to his very existence. He was raised in an environment that was both extremely abusive and at the same time rigidly controlled. The Wilson home was “dysfunctional,” but not “broken.” To the contrary, the family was intact—mother, father and sons were firmly in place (except to the extent Dennis was scapegoated and treated as outcast). Father was a self-made bread-winner, mother dutifully prepared the food on the table, and a roof was over their heads in a decent middle-class neighborhood. Carl was firmly attached to mother, while father employed a regimen of capricious and sometimes sadistic violence to cement the attachment bond with Brian.

Taken as a whole, a chronic pattern of physical and psychological abuse was taking place behind some very strong walls, within an ostensibly sound family culture. It should be clear in hindsight that getting out from behind those walls in order to do something—anything—in life wasn’t going to be easy.

Yet it seems, at least at first glance, to have been easy for Brian to take the first critical steps back in 1961. According to the available evidence, a rapid sequence of events commenced that summer with Al Jardine and Brian contributing to the Morgans’ aborted “Rio Grande” session, and progressing from there to Labor Day or thereabouts, when the nascent Beach Boys began work on “Surfin’.” Brian Wilson and Mike Love officially became professional songwriters no later than September 15 (the date of their songwriter-publisher contract with Guild Music), and by the end of the year, it all came to fruition with a hit Beach Boys single on local radio. All told, it was maybe a six-month process, and seemingly frictionless—except for Murry’s suspicious burst of anger and the possibly additional (and quite believable) detail that has Murry tossing Brian across the room at the famous practice session.

Not only did it occur “easily” but inadvertently too, or by happenstance. Brian certainly couldn’t have plotted this chain of events in advance. But inadvertence is not the same as randomness, for in this case, everything happened within a relatively small circle of music-business aspirants—the Morgans, Murry Wilson, Al Jardine, Brian Wilson—who knew each other (or at least knew of each other). It was not pure random chance that led Brian to the recording studio of his father’s very own music publishers. It was something else.

Brian was aware that his father had friends in the music business, that those friends had friends, and so on. But as a matter of hard-earned intuition and his own particular psychology (which is very distinguishable from that of both Dennis and Carl), Brian does not seem to have eagerly pursued that obvious route into the business. (Again, there’s little to no evidence Brian looked to his father for assistance.) But when it wasn’t Murry, but Al Jardine, who innocuously invited him to a session at the Morgans’ tiny studio, Brian said yes.

When offered this opportunity, did Brian analyze the implications of his decision? Was he thinking about it strategically? Did he anticipate how his father would react, or did that question remain “compartmentalized” or otherwise stashed in Brian’s unconscious? Did Brian even consider informing his father that he was spending time in Hite and Dorinda’s studio? Upon receiving Al’s invitation, Brian could have responded: The Morgans? Sure, but let me talk to my dad first. He didn’t though, did he? No—he just showed up and said to Dorinda Morgan, “I bet you don’t remember me.”

This was not a matter of conscious deliberation but of instinct. An opportunity materialized, and Brian, about 19-years-old, instinctually (and/or unconsciously) weighed the costs and benefits, risks and rewards. It was a good opportunity: a chance to get active in the local, independent recording scene without his dad’s involvement. Brian moved on it, and moved quickly, without conscious, intellectual awareness that he was acting in such a strategic manner. That’s what was required if you wanted to make music but had lived all your life as Murry Wilson’s very special punching-bag. You had to be like an animal on the Serengeti.

x.

At its best, Beach Boys music is uncommonly beautiful and moving. Once overlooked (if not disrespected outright) by the rock ‘n’ roll-listening public, the harmony blend of the Wilson brothers, their cousin Mike, and Al Jardine (and at times Bruce Johnston) has proven to be both durable and inimitable. And that may be why some fans and commentators are predisposed to view the Wilson family through rose-colored glasses. How bad could it have been in that house if something as beautiful, honest and harmonious as “In My Room” or Pet Sounds resulted from it? According to that outlook, it might seem outlandish, if not offensive, to liken the Wilsons’ intra-familial relationships—including that between a father and son—to wild beasts competing for survival in the state of nature.

Admittedly, the “positivity” stance doesn’t necessarily prescribe total denial of the Wilson family’s problems. An informed fan or critic can conceptualize the overall story in a positive light (a loving and talented family comes together to bring harmony and positivity to the masses) while still remaining aware of the troubles. However, problems arise when positivity unduly colors important events in the history of the group. The group’s very founding in 1961 could well be one such example.

When viewed through the lens of positivity, the origin story reveals a unified family working as it should—with a strong father applying his knowledge and resources toward the benefit of his young sons, so as to motivate and “drive” them to leave the nest and make their way in the world as men. And if this is true, it means that the Beach Boy drama, trauma, and dysfunction only occurred later, in the years after the band’s formation. In other words: the members of a fundamentally normal and talented All-American family were blessed with the rare ability to sing beautifully together. They joined forces and started a family-centered music enterprise. And it was only later when problems began to surface, as the Beach Boys fell victim to the pitfalls of fame—easy success, easy money, easy sex, drugs, the Sixties, hangers-on, egocentrism, and for some mysterious reason, mental illness.

The truth is that the Wilson family was in trouble long before its musical manifestation—the Beach Boys—ever came into existence. Accordingly, it’s not just money, success, artistic hubris, or drugs alone that crippled the Beach Boys. There was this element of family difficulty that was a Wilson birthright, duly perpetuated by the likes of Murry “Dad” Wilson. And if Murry’s sons were ever going to get to a place where they could make enjoyable, meaningful music while leading adequately stable lives, they would have to navigate through the trouble they were born into. They would have to figure a way out of it, or around it. Or maybe just learn to accept it and peacefully coexist with it. Or perhaps, in the end, succumb to it.

The boys were very unlikely to know, intellectually, that they were facing such a challenge, for this life was normal to them. As Brian now says, “I didn’t know anything else.” But the challenge was real, and it remained. And this is where Brian’s method of “instinctual survival” comes into it.

For Brian, survival would entail a variety of behavior, depending on the times and circumstances. During those critical years between early childhood and the formation of the Beach Boys, Brian would have had to do any or all of the following: absorb abuse without demonstrating injury; play music; study harmony; behave differently than Dennis; behave differently than Carl; develop a keen sensitivity to his father’s many moods. He would watch, wait, and perceive the conditions of his life as best he could. (Brian’s effort to think and perceive—to not be stupid—is demonstrated in his high school essay “My Philosophy.”)

Also, Brian would remain passive, quietly accepting the conditions of his life as he encountered them—but not too passive, for when an opportunity arose to change those conditions for the better, he would pursue it. From a distance of many decades, it can be said that this is what Brian was doing during the approximately 18-month period between high school graduation and the formation of the Beach Boys.

It may appear far-fetched to presume knowledge of the mechanics of Brian Wilson’s psyche. That would be fair criticism. However, it should be noted that the pattern of Brian’s behavior proposed here (the pattern enabling Brian to get going with the Beach Boys in 1961) is consistent with his actions at a number of points during the Beach Boys’ critical years in the 1960s. A review of Beach Boys history reveals several points at which Brian engages in his curious combination of passivity and activity: where he appears to passively accept an unfavorable personal or professional situation, only to quietly exploit a momentary change in circumstances and seize the upper hand for just enough time to allow him to achieve a goal. Circumstances then change again, and Brian adapts along with them, sometimes reverting to a state of passivity.

In these instances, Brian’s actions (or nonactions) communicate the idea expressed decades later by Darian Sahanaja: this is what I’ve got to do to survive. It worked for Brian in 1961, just well enough to get the ball rolling for himself and the Beach Boys. Yet things reached a point, around 1966 and ‘67, where this method of survival backfired on Brian. It would work for him until it simply stopped working.

References for “The Founding of the Beach Boys,” Parts 1-4

Doe, Andrew G. “In the Beginning.” Bellagio 10452.com. At: bellagio10452.com/Beginning.html

^__________ , and John Tobler. Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys: The Complete Guide to Their Music. London: Omnibus Press, 2004.

Gaines, Steven. Heroes and Villains: The True Story of the Beach Boys. New York: Signet/New American Library, 1986.

Leaf, David. The Beach Boys and the California Myth. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978.

McParland, Stephen J. Murry: The Many Moods of a Beach Boy Dad. CMusic Books, 2022.

Murphy, James B. Becoming the Beach Boys 1961-1963. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2015.

Priore, Domenic. Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece. London: Sanctuary Publishing, 2005.

Stebbins, Jon. The Lost Beach Boy. London: Virgin Books, 2007.

^__________. The Beach Boys FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About America’s Band. Milwaukee: Backbeat Books, 2011.

“The Fall 1961 Mexico Trip.” Comment thread at Endless Harmony Forum. At: https://endlessharmony.boards.net/thread/1959/fall-1961-mexico-trip

“The legendary Labor Day weekend, 1961.” Comment thread at The Smiley Smile Message Board. At: http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,9656.0.html

White, Timothy. “Still Waters Run Deep: A Child is Father to the Band, Part Two.” Crawdaddy, July 1976.

^__________ . The Nearest Faraway Place: Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys and the Southern California Experience. New York: Henry Holt, 1994.

Wilson, Brian, with Ben Greenman. I Am Brian Wilson. Boston: Da Capo Press, 2016.

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Using the currently available evidence, the first and second installments of this essay on the Beach Boys’ origins made the case that Murry Wilson (1) was not involved during any of the critical stages of the group’s founding; (2) was likely unaware that his friends and business contacts at Guild Music were engaged in (informal) negotiations with the group of singers that included his three sons; and (3) only became aware after finding the group in the midst of some kind of rehearsal session in the Wilson home during the fall of 1961 (perhaps early fall, on or about Labor Day).

Based on that foundation, Part 2 presented a specific reading of the implications: namely, that the Beach Boys essentially usurped, or appropriated, Murry’s business relationship with Guild Music without his permission. And further, that with respect to one Beach Boy in particular—Brian Wilson—this constituted an implicit act of disobedience, if not outright defiance.

The essay continues below with commentary on the significance of these events to the overall story of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. It begins with a look at the particular form through which Brian’s “disobedience” expressed itself.

vii.

When things reach the point where Murry Wilson is conspicuously underinformed about his sons’ dealings with his very own song publishers, the issue turns away from Brian’s overt activity and toward his inaction, whereby he “acts” by not acting. Where the significance of Brian’s behavior is not in what he does, but what he doesn’t do. (Such as tell his father what’s going on.)

And with this, we arrive at the issue of Brian Wilson’s passivity. Not “passive-aggressiveness” in this case, insofar as that term connotes an element of malice or intent to injure. Nor is it passivity of the sort that expresses itself through laziness. It is rather a passivity that simply entails doing nothing—refraining from acting—under certain circumstances. Or, how Brian might engage in a combination of both action (active behavior, doing something) and passive action (reacting to a set of circumstances by not acting at all) that results in an outcome to his benefit, or detriment, or perhaps both at the same time, as the case may be.

With respect to the formation of the Beach Boys, Brian’s behavior can be seen as active at certain points and passive at others. He took action in learning to sing, teaching himself the principles of vocal harmony, playing piano, going to school where he met Al Jardine, and maintaining social relationships. When Al invited him up to the Guild studio for the “Rio Grande” session, Brian took action in getting himself there, made the further effort to sing with Al, and then took the critical step of, basically, conceptualizing the vocal sound of the Beach Boys by actively pulling Carl and Mike into the mix. And so on. It might be said that as of the time the boys were writing and practicing “Surfin’,” Brian was already taking action to become leader and producer for what would become the Beach Boys.

But with respect to one challenging hurdle—securing a personal contact enabling his entry into the record business—Brian appears to have remained passive. He didn’t do much of anything to secure that connection. But this was not, as so often assumed, because his father knowingly assumed that task on his behalf. That would have been the case in most other scenarios in which an aspiring performer is lucky enough to have a family connection. But here, the family circumstances were not typical.

This wasn’t a normal, adequately functioning family with a minimally healthy father-son relationship. The relationship had instead been founded on violence, cruelty, fear, lies, master-slave psychology and lack of trust. With a foundation like that, a young man in Brian’s position would not be well-situated to benefit from his father’s useful business connection (at least not as well as might otherwise be assumed), especially when the youth wants to succeed in the very same profession as the father—to, in the broad sense, become the father’s competitor.

Yet Brian did want to get into the music business. As early as high school, he consciously intended to make a career in music; he himself anticipated that music would be his “life’s work.” Still, upon graduation in 1960, it wasn’t an urgent matter. That is, it was unlikely Brian was spending his days and nights feverishly plotting ways to get into the record business and become a producer or recording star.

While it’s true Brian had already auditioned as a performer at age 15 or 16, he had done so only at the behest of his father. At that time, back in 1958, Hite Morgan had notified Murry that local promoter Art Laboe was looking for teenage singers, and Murry had brought Brian to the Guild studio to record a demo or otherwise audition. That little episode is best understood as Murry’s stab at promoting Brian as a pop singer under Murry’s oversight. The audition was not Brian’s idea, and he had no control, and probably very little say in the matter.

The audition didn’t go well. According to Timothy White (who interviewed Brian and Dennis Wilson on multiple occasions), Brian “was flustered and depressed” afterwards, “telling Dennis he had to be more wary of their dad’s urgent schemes.”

Brian’s caution would have been justified. If nothing else, this anecdote suggests Brian was wary of his dad’s interference in his musical life. Or, at a minimum, it suggests Brian wasn’t so obtuse as to assume Murry’s involvement would always redound to his benefit.

In spite of all his personal problems and shortcomings, one thing can be said about Brian Wilson the person: he was never stupid. (If he had been, his life would have been much easier.) If it is true that Brian never asked his dad outright for a little boost into the business, that was the smart move, because only one of two outcomes could result: (1) Murry refuses (with the risk of triggering an explosion), or (2) Murry agrees, but on the implicit condition that he retain control over Brian’s fledgling career (i.e., writing the songs Brian will sing, and generally controlling his every move, as with the 1958 audition), while inevitably treating Brian the same way he had since early childhood. Neither outcome would have been appealing to Brian. It would have been better (and smarter) for him not to share his aspirations with his father-abuser, and instead play it closer to the vest. It was safer.

At 18 or 19 years of age, it was easier for Brian to hang back, hang out with friends, coach youth baseball, and go to El Camino college (where he took some classes in music). And even if Brian was consciously thinking about breaking into the record business in these early post-high school months, it would have been easy—and sensible—not to petition his father for any help, and instead try to maintain a status quo in which Murry remained at arm’s length. To do nothing on that front. And in that respect, to remain passive. To wait.

But what was Brian waiting for? The hand of Providence? If music was going to be his life’s work, at some point he would have to become active and figure out a way to break into the Hollywood record business. Wouldn’t he?

No. As it turned out, Brian never needed to pound the pavement, knock on doors, scuffle, or ask his father to introduce him to the Morgans or anybody else in the business. Because Providence did soon intervene through the person of Al Jardine. Back in the summer of 1960 Al had knocked on the door of the Wilson home and—for reasons having nothing to do with Brian at the time—secured the connection Brian would later use to make the jump into the business. All that needed to happen was for Al and Brian to meet up at some point, which they did during the summer of 1961.

It was simple: Al told Brian that he knew some people who needed help on a demo. It just so happened that it was the folks at Guild Music. Small world. Things evolved very fast, and the legendary group was in formation by the end of summer.

viii.

Murry’s anger upon discovering the band practicing in the music room could have been the result of a combination of factors, including the mess, any squandered cash, and Murry’s default setting as an ornery, aggressive authoritarian who never needed a legitimate reason for an outburst. But together with all that was the realization that he had been (or was then in the process of being) sandbagged. At some point in the fall of 1961 (still probably around Labor Day weekend), Murry unexpectedly discovered that his authority and control over the lives of his sons—Brian in particular—was weaker than he had assumed.

By the time Murry found out about all this, the momentum was in Brian’s favor. Brian and the boys were becoming a band, and it was too late for Murry to do his thing and make sure Brian stayed in his place. The prospect of commercial success—here defined as getting an actual single recorded and released—was genuine, as the Morgans were waiting on the completion of the new surfing song. With an opportunity like that in the offing, Brian and Mike were going to write the song one way or another. And it was going to find its way to the Morgans. The wheels were in motion, and it was too late for Murry to stop them. The physically violent methods of restraint Murry had used when Brian was younger (e.g., fists, wooden boards, tying to trees) wouldn’t work on a 19-year-old who stood 6’ 3” tall.

Murry had no choice but to fasten himself to the group as the parasite he was, while masquerading as a supportive stage-father. Because Murry was a father whose horrific treatment of his boys remained a secret unknown to the public (and in a sense to the family members themselves), it was easy for him to assume the guise of papa bear, beaming with pride.

During the early years of the Beach Boys he would try in various ways to secure total control over the band; to take possession and have his way with it. He would not succeed—at least not entirely, in the short term. Instead, the group would enjoy an improbably sustained run of creative and commercial achievement during the first half of the 1960s. Murry, as dad, would take credit for their success, while trying to undermine it in various ways (playing head games with Brian, obstructing recording sessions, pitting the members of the band against one another, etc.).

Even after his abuse became better known to the public, all it meant was that Murry would be demoted to the status of “complicated man” or “generous bully.” His wanton abuse of the brothers in the home would be recharacterized as “driving them to success.” The truth was—and remains—far uglier, for it concerns a very unhappy family in which three decent and talented boys had been compelled to adapt to impossible and inhumane circumstances.

Keep reading in “The Founding of the Beach Boys” (Part 4 of 4)

For selected references, see list at the conclusion of Part 4 of this essay.

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Part 1 of this four-part essay dealt with the Beach Boys’ beginnings in the years 1960-61. Focusing on a few critical events, it began to question one of the fundamental tenets of Beach Boys history: the assumption that Murry Wilson, father to Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, played a key role in the formation of the group by helping them make a connection with the song-publishing firm of Guild Music Co.

Part 1 acknowledged that Guild was the very same firm that published Murry Wilson’s songs, a critical fact lending credence to the idea that Murry brokered the relationship between Guild and the Beach Boys. It then addressed the particular means through which the Boys first made contact with Guild—through Al Jardine, who (then working separately from the Wilson family or any future Beach Boys) received the Guild contact information not from Murry Wilson, but from Murry’s wife Audree. It moreover appears that Audree first did this without Murry’s knowledge.

Part 1 further speculated as to the significance of business contacts in general, and the extent to which Murry would (or should) have been aware that his connection to the recording business was valuable property. Part 1 left off with a reminder that as of the time Al Jardine received the Guild contact info from Audree, Brian Wilson was not involved at all.

If you haven’t read Part 1 (consisting of subchapters i - iii), please read it before continuing here.

Below, Part 2 of this comment on the Beach Boys’ origins picks up with Brian Wilson’s entrance into the story, and sets forth a context in which to interpret Murry Wilson’s reaction upon learning of his sons’ efforts to form a band and get a single recorded.

iv.

Brian first enters the picture approximately one year later, during the summer of 1961, when Al invited him up to the studio of Guild Music Co. The job was to help demo a song, “Down by the Rio Grande,” written by Bruce Morgan, Hite and Dorinda’s son. It must be noted once again that Murry was not physically present for this session, nor has it been claimed that he even knew about it. There’s also no indication that Brian mentioned this to his father. (e.g., “hey Dad, I just talked to Al Jardine and oh boy, guess what?”)

While in 1960, it was Al who had needed an introduction to the likes of Guild Music, on this occasion a year later it was the Morgans who reached out to Al, seeking his musical assistance for “Down by the Rio Grande.” The implication first is that Al had developed some sort of relationship with the Morgans that now existed independent of the Wilson family. Second is that from the Morgans’ perspective at the time, Al Jardine was the guy to call, not Brian Wilson. This was not just because of Al’s talent or agreeable personality, but also the fact that the Morgans had no relationship with Brian to speak of. They knew very little of him. Given Brian’s words upon meeting Dorinda Morgan at the session—I bet you don’t remember me—it appears that the Morgans had indeed forgotten about him and had scarcely any knowledge of his doings or musical aspirations. This, notwithstanding Brian’s talent and status as the son of their long-time client and friend Murry Wilson.

Brian’s words, “I bet you don’t remember me” speak to the current state of affairs: although he had been to the Guild studio at least once before, in 1958, Brian knew the Morgans wouldn’t recognize him or know who he was. (Dorinda Morgan would later confirm that she indeed had not recognized Brian.) If Murry had brokered Brian’s involvement at the “Rio Grande” session in 1961, or called the Morgans to let them know his son was coming over to the studio, Brian wouldn’t have said that to Dorinda Morgan. But he did say it, and that is because Murry didn’t have anything to do with this. He probably didn’t even know about it. Naturally, this is because Al Jardine was the one who called Brian in; who first made it possible for Brian to start working, as a young adult, in a (semi) professional studio environment. And so naturally, Brian introduced himself to Dorinda Morgan the way he did.

The “Rio Grande” session fizzled out. Al and Brian soon regrouped, and along with one or two other guys, tried to get something else going. It seems this vocal blend wasn’t up to snuff. Brian shuffled the deck by substituting baby brother Carl and older cousin Mike Love, followed by Dennis Wilson, who apparently was included at his mother’s behest.1 This lineup—Jardine, B. Wilson, Love, C. Wilson, D. Wilson—is the group that performed at the legendary audition for Guild Music around Labor Day, 1961. The lineup that was soon to become The Beach Boys.

By this point, Murry Wilson—noisy, boisterous, “protective,” champion of the Beach Boys, enabler of their success—has become mightily conspicuous by his absence. For this is the third critical event in the band’s formation in which Murry leaves no trace, being neither physically present nor actively involved in any capacity. He’s neither a broker, nor agent, manager, advisor, motivator or moral support.

First there was the initial, in-person meeting between Al Jardine, Gary Winfrey and Audree Wilson at the Wilson residence in Hawthorne. Next came the Morgan family’s “Rio Grande” session at which Brian Wilson returned to the Guild studio for the first time since 1958. And now the most important date of all, when not only Brian, but Murry’s other sons, Dennis and Carl, joined with Mike Love and Al Jardine to audition for his friends the Morgans.

There is no evidence of Murry Wilson’s involvement. Moreover, based on the known facts, there is no reason to think he knew of it at all, let alone approved of it, let alone desired this state of affairs.

v.

The five Beach Boys (who probably didn’t have a group name at this point) performed for the Morgans at the legendary audition, at which the idea—generally attributed to Dennis Wilson—was hatched to write a song about surfing. The Morgans liked the idea, and were willing to hear the boys perform their “surfing song” once it had been written and rehearsed.

Here is a composite version of what happened next, as it has most often been told by journalists, historians and the principal members of the Beach Boys organization:

It is still around Labor Day weekend when the boys convene in the Wilson music room to rehearse. Murry Wilson is out of town on business—supposedly in Mexico—and has taken wife Audree with him. Before departing they leave their sons cash, with the instruction that it be spent only on food and emergencies. However, hot on the heels of their initial audition for Mr. & Mrs. Morgan, the boys need to rent instruments and gear with which to practice “Surfin’,” so the cash quickly evaporates for that or some other reason. The group practices over the course of a couple of days, putting together acoustic guitar, bass, percussion, harmony vocals and surfing lyrics. Brian records portions of these home sessions on his tape recorder. Then Murry and his wife return home.

Murry is taken unawares by the scene—the mess in the house, the musical instruments, the fact that the cash is gone—and throws a fit, perhaps going so far as to knock Brian across the room. The boys calm their father by playing “Surfin’” for him. Murry recognizes the song’s potential, softens, and soon agrees to become manager of the fledgling group.

There must be a fundamental truth to this account. It is doubtful that the Beach Boys and the Wilsons purposefully conspired to invent some tale out of whole cloth, especially one that already paints a less-than-rosy picture of the family’s inner workings. It’s also unlikely that all principals within this notoriously fractious organization would manage to remain unified in their telling of some kind of Big Lie.2 Everyone was basically telling the truth as they remembered it, and there is a baseline consistency among the various accounts.

However, some of the separate details may have become chronologically scrambled or mismatched. For instance, while it remains likely that the idea for the “surfing song” and the subsequent composition of “Surfin’” occurred around Labor Day or shortly thereafter, the rental of professional music equipment (if done for the ultimate purpose of studio recording) may have occurred at a later date. (Or maybe not.) And there is currently evidence that Murry and Audree Wilson did not go to Mexico around Labor Day weekend, but instead traveled there later that year, in November. Assuming that Mr. & Mrs. Wilson took only one trip to Mexico that year, and that it occurred in November, the timeline of events would then shift—but only if “Mexico” is seen as the critical detail to which all other events must be inextricably tied.

While not insignificant, the timing of Murry and Audree’s Mexico trip is not the most important detail. (Nor for that matter is the date the boys rented professional equipment.) What is most important is the fact that Murry and Audree were not home during an unspecified window of time in which the group was engaged in some sort of activity as a nascent rock ‘n’ roll band. The boys were writing their new original tune “Surfin’,” and/or rehearsing it, and/or polishing it in preparation for an audition, demo session, or more formal recording date. The parents’ specific whereabouts during that time—Mexico, Europe, the coffee shop around the corner, planetary orbit in a Mercury space capsule—does not matter as much as the fact that they were not physically present while a critical band-forming event was taking place in their house.

This element has remained unchanged in the telling of the story. In their 2004 Complete Guide to the music of the Beach Boys, Andrew Doe and John Tobler go so far as to note how the Wilson brothers “took advantage of parental absence” to quickly form a group and take a shot at recording a single professionally.

Why would it be advantageous to form a group while one’s parents are away, especially when one of those parents is supposed to have been a great supporter and driving force of that group, without whose guidance, generosity and know-how the group could not have existed in the first place? The answer could very well be that as a pathological and barbaric child abuser, Murry Wilson was driven to hurt his sons, not help them. And that if those sons were ever to engage in some activity to their own benefit, their father was less likely to be involved in a positive capacity. As outlined above (and in the preceding chapter of this essay), Murry was not present at any of the critical stages of the band’s formation in 1960-61. There’s really no evidence that he was aware of these goings-on at all.

Murry’s belated encounter with the group at the “Surfin’” writing/practice/rehearsal session—still quite possibly around Labor Day—is the earliest recorded (remembered) instance of his involvement with the Beach Boys as such: where he is present in the same space as the members of the band while they are working together as a band (or band-in-formation). And his role was not that of supporter but of oppositional counterforce. He’s angry. He wants his money back. He’s physically violent. The boys quickly played “Surfin’”—to “calm” him, it is said—which means not only that he was angry enough to require calming, but that he had never heard the song before; that he wasn’t aware of it. This is yet another detail implying that he had nothing to do with the formation of this lineup, the boys’ dealings and negotiations with the Morgans of Guild Music, the idea to write a song about surfing, or the actual writing of the song itself.

If this audition and subsequent home practice session did occur as so often described, it appears the boys had neglected to inform Murry of what they were doing. For wouldn’t Murry—an abusive control-freak whose later removal as Beach Boys manager would require an act of physical force—have been at his sons’ critical Guild audition if he knew about it? Could it really be possible that Brian (or somebody else) told Murry about the boys’ exciting prospects with Guild, and that Murry remained too uninterested to bother showing up at any of the auditions?

Yes, it is possible. In fact it’s technically possible Murry had been fully informed about everything, going back to the day Audree Wilson gave the Morgans’ name to Al Jardine. But if Murry knew about the audition(s) and still remained that passive and nonchalant, then a host of other questions would appear, particularly the extent to which he “encouraged,” “led,” or “drove” the boys to success. Just how much faith, really, would he then have had in his sons’ prospects as professional musicians?

But again, it seems more likely that Murry did not know about any of this; that he had been in the dark. That the whole thing came together without his encouragement, guidance, or awareness.

vi.

Still, there are two persistent facts that will always support the idea of Murry’s active and positive contribution to the founding of the Beach Boys. The strongest might be the plain biological fact that Murry was a dad—the father of Brian, Dennis and Carl (and uncle to Mike). Our proper faith in the institution of the family and instinctive recognition of its critical importance to civil society (plus a little sentimentality, and various other psychological factors, including our feelings toward our own parents and children) inspires the most positive reading of a given family as possible. So yes, everyone experiences painful family friction. But even in troubled families, mutual love, care, and sacrifice are presumed to exist by default, perhaps as a matter of biology or human nature. An “evolutionary” reading might suggest that all parents—even the abusive ones—retain a faculty for altruism when it comes to their offspring.

It then becomes easier to appreciate how a man like Murry will still work to enable his sons’ success, even if he abuses them, and even if they are entering the same field in which he has toiled for years with little to show for it. Even a chronically and sadistically abusive father will be naturally inclined to rejoice (if only internally) at his sons’ accomplishments. And if from time to time the tension between Murry’s demonstrated behavior and presumed decency of motive becomes uncomfortable, we remain free to characterize Murry as a “complicated” or “conflicted” person.

Murry’s entire relationship with his sons is likewise subject to revision: maybe the stories of abuse are fabrications, and therefore “it wasn’t so bad” for the brothers. Or, as certain of Murry’s advocates have claimed from time to time, he really was no different than any other father of the era. (Which in effect is to say the same thing, while slandering whole generations of decent American men.)

The second fact militating in Murry’s favor is the point from which this comment began: that it will always be true that the entire sequence of events would not have been possible without Murry’s relationship with Hite and Dorinda Morgan. Therefore, even if the foregoing account is otherwise sound, this fact will always reflect well on Murry, serving as one solid piece of evidence pointing to his encouragement and assistance.

Yet if the foregoing analysis is accurate, Murry neither willfully donated his contact to Guild Music (that was Audree’s doing), nor did he shepherd the boys through these initial stages, for he was fundamentally ignorant of Al Jardine’s work with the Morgans and even Brian’s involvement on their “Rio Grande” demo, when Brian returned to the Guild studio as a virtual stranger to them. Murry didn’t know about the Beach Boys’ critical Guild audition, the idea for the surfing song, or the actual writing of “Surfin’” itself. On the first occasion at which he is understood to be dealing with the future Beach Boys as a band (at some kind of writing session or rehearsal) he is conspicuously and suspiciously angry, to the point where he needs to be calmed or “soothed.” (Also, Dorinda Morgan, Brian Wilson’s first song publisher, specifically remembered that Murry was neither proud nor pleased to learn that his son was becoming a songwriter.)

How to characterize the evidence?

A proposition:

The Beach Boys appropriated and made use of Murry’s property—his business contact—without obtaining his permission.

Robbery, theft, or burglary are words too strong to describe the boys’ actions, insofar as those terms imply a use of force, malicious intent, or premeditation. But through a strange, protracted sequence, the sum total of their actions was to exploit Murry’s personal connection to the music business, while making no discernible effort to cut him in. The formation of the Beach Boys at the Guild audition can be characterized as an act of usurpation against Murry Wilson. Because Murry was an authoritarian, it can also be characterized—from Murry’s subjective p.o.v.—as an act of outright disobedience and insubordination.

Further:

More than anyone else, it was Brian Wilson who, in forming The Beach Boys, trespassed against Murry.

Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson and Mike Love only followed behind Brian, getting involved in the nascent singing group only after Brian alone had become the first Wilson brother to make contact with the Morgans. Al Jardine remained relatively “clean” and forthright in this, being a family outsider (with no history of growing up under Murry’s control) whose initial crime was to innocently knock on the Wilsons’ door back in 1960. But by doing that, Jardine set in motion a chain of events eventually resulting in Brian’s first real opportunity to get his toe in the door of the record business.

Through Al Jardine, a chance to audition for none other than his father’s song-publisher seems to have just dropped into Brian’s lap. And Brian took the opportunity, while perhaps being vaguely amused at this turn of events. (“I bet you don’t remember me.”) And, once involved with the Morgans, Brian doesn’t seem to have brought his father in. Brian forgot, or for some other reason neglected, to tell his father he was working with Al Jardine and the Morgans. Even after his brothers and cousin got involved, it seems Brian continued to overlook the matter of his father’s lack of knowledge.

This comment continues in Part 3 of “The Founding of the Beach Boys.”

For references, see list at the conclusion of Part 4 of this essay.

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This post is the first part of an in-depth essay about the founding of the Beach Boys in 1961. The essay is meant to supplement the A History of Brian Wilson narrative—in particular Part 5 and Part 6 of that series, those which directly concern the group’s origins.

Because “The Founding of the Beach Boys,” returns to the essential and unavoidable subject of Murry “Dad” Wilson, here is a reminder of some additional Murry-related commentary currently posted to A Book of Brian Wilson:

Murry’s treatment of the Wilson brothers in childhood: Mentioned in this post

A four-part essay on the challenges posed by Murry in a historical understanding of the Beach Boys: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Some editorial commentary on why the Murry issue requires extra attention: read here and here

Thanks,

JH

Beach Boys commentary—books, memoirs, documentaries, and in more recent years videocasts and podcasts—trickles out at a relatively constant rate. It’s a fascinating and important story. Over the past decade, perhaps the most significant contribution has been Jim Murphy’s detailed account of the Boys’ early years, Becoming the Beach Boys: 1961-1963.

Some of the most interesting information in Murphy’s book is that which concerns the initial formation of the Beach Boys between 1960 and 1961. This period constitutes the crucible from which The Beach Boys—not as people, but as a musical and business entity, a group of musicians in the record business—originated. Murphy convincingly relates the specific circumstances under which the Beach Boys—initially Al Jardine, acting separately from any of his future bandmates—first made contact with the small music publishing firm of Guild Music, thereby establishing the connection that would result in the launching of the band’s career in 1961 and 1962.

Murphy prefaces this section of his book with a concise summary of the difficulties that have long been posed by this portion of Beach Boys history; the portion that might be called the “origin story.” He then offers what he terms “a working theory subject to modification as new information is uncovered,” with “the hope that it will spark discussion, perhaps with input from the surviving band members…”

This essay on the Beach Boys’ founding is offered in furtherance of that discussion (and as a supplement to the History of Brian Wilson essays). Due to its length, it will be posted in four parts. It is not intended to prove anything (that would be impossible), but to clarify the reasoning underpinning the viewpoint expressed in the History of Brian Wilson posts (particularly Part 5 and Part 6, the posts that specifically address the Beach Boys’ founding).

Please keep in mind the ultimate, overarching purpose of this addendum: to help provide a clearer sense of Brian Wilson’s music, career (both in and out of the Beach Boys) and life. To do this, however, it’s necessary to examine some of the specifics of Brian’s story, including in this instance, the very formation of the Beach Boys group in 1961, and his father’s role (or lack thereof) in that process.

“The Founding of the Beach Boys” is intended to support the idea that Murry Wilson, father of Beach Boys Brian, Dennis, and Carl, contributed nothing (voluntarily) to the founding of the Beach Boys; that he fundamentally and instinctively objected to the group’s formation. For decades, Murry has been credited with helping the group break into the recording industry, to the point where it’s said the Beach Boys couldn’t have existed without his assistance. The effect of this presumption has been to mitigate the evidence of his cruelty, burnish his reputation, and make the story of Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys, and the Wilson family more palatable to the public. However, in my opinion, it has not made the story more accurate.

While I don’t believe Murry warrants any praise, the purpose here is not to bash him for sport. It is to help build the foundation for what I believe is a more focused understanding of Brian Wilson’s career with the Beach Boys. I will address this with a little more specificity in the final paragraphs of Part 4 of the essay.

— JH

i.

For about as long as there has been interest in the story of the Beach Boys, it has been assumed, or taken as fact, that Murry Wilson cleared a pathway to the record business for his three sons and nephew. It is rare, if not impossible, to read or hear anything, from anybody—inside or outside the Beach Boys organization—that seriously questions this basic and very important fact.

It is certainly fitting, for how could things ever have been otherwise for the Beach Boys? After all, the assumption of Murry’s crucial early support is itself founded upon three underlying facts that are even more unshakable:

First, that Murry Wilson was the father of Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, and the uncle of Mike Love. Second, that Murry was himself a modestly successful songwriter who enjoyed a preexisting relationship with Guild Music, the music publishing firm owned by Hite and Dorinda Morgan. And third, that the Beach Boys’ initial success with their local hit “Surfin’” was achieved through the intermediation of none other than those very same Morgans, who auditioned the Boys, recorded the demo of “Surfin’,” and sent it over to Candix, the small label that agreed to release it as a single.

It of course can’t be a random coincidence that father and sons happened to use the same small publishing company to further their respective musical ambitions. The natural inference has always been that Murry brokered the deal on behalf of the boys and their new singing group; that the Beach Boys’ all-important entrée into show business was knowingly and willingly facilitated by their dad and uncle.

This conclusion is not only logical and rational, but embodies a bittersweet sentimentality speaking to the complicated and conflicted relationship the boys had with the old man: yes, he was difficult—abusive, even—but he was the Beach Boys’ biggest fan. And when the chips were down, he would be there for them. He blazed a trail for the Beach Boys’ success. He was generous, and the Boys wouldn’t have made it without him. The concept is neatly summarized in journalist Timothy White’s description of Murry as a “legendarily big-hearted bully.” This reading of Murry is established Beach Boys doctrine, with versions of it appearing in one source after another for close to half a century.

ii.

And yet, during much of these same decades a separate and comparatively minor detail of the group’s formation has quietly persisted, leading one to think twice—if only for a moment—about what, exactly, occurred between Murry Wilson, Guild Music, and the group that would become the Beach Boys. It is this: the first member of the Beach Boys to audition for Murry’s publishers was not a member of the Wilson family—neither son nor nephew to Murry—but Al Jardine, a family outsider. And moreover, the group of which Jardine was then a member was not the Beach Boys (who did not yet exist in any form), nor did it include any Wilsons.

By itself, this fact does not change anything, necessarily. All it means is that among the Beach Boys, it was Jardine who first had the initiative to try to record his group and get a record pressed. And that Murry Wilson kindly referred him to Hite and Dorinda Morgan. And since Jardine’s lineup would eventually morph into the Beach Boys, it was still Murry in the end who provided his sons with their conduit to the music business.

Nevertheless, it now appears that Murry’s beneficent, paternal intervention assumes a more attenuated form: he was not helping out the Beach Boys group directly or any of his sons individually. His initial act of support was, at best, to lend a helping hand to somebody outside the family. His generosity was to that extent directed outward—away from Brian, his brothers, and Mike Love.

This in turn raises another red flag, for Beach Boys history establishes that Murry Wilson was not amiably disposed toward family “outsiders.” History is rife with examples of Murry’s suspicion, distrust and hostility toward various non-Wilsons during the group’s early years, when Murry’s overt power over the group was at its height. Beach Boys fans can rattle off the names of these foreigners: Gary Usher, Bob Norberg, Nik Venet, David Marks and his parents, Jan Berry. Al Jardine found himself in the crosshairs on one or two occasions. Blood-nephew Mike Love could testify to the various ways in which he was treated as outsider to the Wilson nucleus.

That nucleus ultimately consisted of one individual: Murry himself. At times, Mike may have viewed the Wilson family as a unit consisting of five (or maybe just two) Wilson insiders happily allied in their treatment of Mike as outsider. Yet things would appear that way only to the extent the Wilson family and each of its members remained in alignment with Murry’s subjective inner reality, a world in which he reigned as lord and master, a paragon of moral virtue, a giver of love and protection.

Therefore, even presumed Wilson family “insiders” could be treated as “outsiders” from time to time, to the extent their actions conflicted with Murry’s internal conception of himself, his family, and the world. Murry’s hidebound narcissism was such that he could even view his life-partner Audree as a kind of outsider, insofar as she supposedly “interfered” with the way he raised his sons. (She didn’t interfere.) And of course Murry repeatedly attacked, harassed, obstructed and undermined his son Brian whenever Brian himself assumed the role of outsider—those times when Murry saw him as a disloyal traitor whose actions threatened Murry’s unquestioned control over the family and its business.

While it is possible there were instances when Murry was agreeable to outside intervention in his own career or that of his sons, those were likely to occur only under two special sets of circumstances. The first situation would be when Murry initiated the relationship with the outsider, authorized it, or otherwise retained the power in the relationship. One example would be Brian Wilson’s brief songwriting partnership with lyricist Roger Christian in 1962 and ‘63, which was pre-authorized, if not wholly conceived, by Murry. (Christian did good work with Brian in a partnership of mutual benefit, and would speak highly of Murry in later years.) The second situation is the one in which Murry was the weaker party, without any leverage. In this case, Murry could act against his nature, and come on to the outsider with an unctuous but ingratiating false humility.

Even if human beings have developed a greater faculty for humanity and empathy over the past two or three thousand years—and that’s questionable—Murry remained generally untouched by moral progress. Though his personality profile is common enough, it probably wasn’t well-suited for the innovative, progressive, and forward-looking American democracy of the post-WWII era. Given his particular psychology, Murry may have been happier living as a member of an early Saxon tribe, as a Roman citizen of the slave-owning patriarchal class, in China somewhere during the warring states period, or among the ancient, child-sacrificing Phoenicians.

Murry was an inveterate authoritarian. For him, stability, morality and harmony (inner and outer) were achieved by licking the boots of those with greater power and stepping on the necks of those with less—especially one’s own children. Having been horribly abused in his own childhood, Murry had dutifully accepted the lesson that the world was cruel, and nothing else. Divide, conquer, and winner-take-all was the law. The Beach Boy record provides examples of this too.

Therefore, with respect to Al Jardine’s initial audition with the Morgans of Guild Music, we are faced with conflicting sets of data. On one hand, we have been led to believe that Murry graciously fixed up the young outsider Jardine with Guild, thereby enabling the success of the Beach Boys. On the other, we recognize that Murry was by nature disinclined to help anyone outside a family that he himself insisted on governing autocratically. We reasonably ask why Murry would be moved to help some 18-year-old kid who had nothing of value to offer him in exchange.

iii.

It appears that Jim Murphy’s Becoming the Beach Boys resolves this long-standing cognitive dissonance. For that is the book in which we learn that in fact, Murry never gave the names of Hite and Dorinda Morgan to Al Jardine in the first place. It was instead his wife, Audree Wilson, who did this.

In his book, Murphy relayed the recollection of both Al Jardine and Gary Winfrey, Al’s partner in a Kingston Trio-inspired group called the “Tikis”: they knocked on the door of the Wilson residence, in hope of securing some advice and assistance in getting a record deal. Audree Wilson, wife to Murry and mother to Brian, answered the door. Brian was not home. Murry was not home. Audree hospitably invited the young men inside, and in the course of discussing their musical ambitions, showed them samples (sheet music, or vinyl) of Murry’s songs. She gave them the contact information for the Morgans’ Guild Music on Melrose Ave. in Hollywood, and sent the boys on their way. At a minimum, this information shifts the focus from Murry Wilson’s presumed generosity to that of Audree.

Did Mrs. Wilson do this without her husband’s knowledge? At the time, it seems she did—Jardine had showed up unannounced, and Murry wasn’t home. And, her generosity aside, was this an act of naïveté on the part of Mrs. Wilson?

Yes, perhaps—to the extent that she may not have taken care to protect a valuable Wilson family asset: the family’s connection to the entertainment business. Unless Murry had already given Audree carte blanche to pass the Morgans’ contact information on to whomever she pleased, it might be reasoned that Audree should have at least checked with him first before giving it out. For in reality, it wasn’t family property that she gave away, but Murry’s alone.

As of the summer of 1960, Murry Wilson could legitimately boast of being “in the music business.” (It was Murry’s standing that prompted Al Jardine to knock on the Wilson’s door in the first place). But Murry traversed only the outer fringes of Hollywood; he still earned his living in the machinery trade. By dint of hard work and what he would have referred to as “guts,” the surly, love-starved Murry had clawed his way from the anonymous expanse of South L.A. up to Melrose Ave., and even on occasion to the inner sanctum of the Hollywood recording studios. Over the years he forged a reliable personal bond with Hite Morgan. Morgan was himself a small-timer, but he in turn had connections to other independent operators. And so on and so forth, with these relationships constituting the interpersonal network that might one day connect the likes of Murry Wilson to the big-time labels, producers, and talent.

Such personal contacts are valuable in any business, but particularly so in the glamorous and competitive setting of Hollywood, where there is no formal credentialing system. There is of course a component of the entertainment business that is founded on talent and creative drive, but the mechanics of the business itself, overall, run on social relationships. It’s not just about talent (though that matters) nor is it even always about money (though that’s often the endgame). Before that comes the personal relationship. It’s who you know that counts as much as anything—who returns whose phone call, who picks up the check at lunch, who is a relative of whom, which group of people can tolerate being in a room together. (Apparently, Murry and Audree Wilson socialized on occasion with the Morgans.)

Well-established insiders may come to take it all for granted, but an outsider or borderline player is quite aware of the importance of access—the degree to which he has it, the degree to which he wants for it. Murry had worked hard to cultivate at least one solid connection to the business: Hite Morgan. It can be reasonably assumed he was aware of its value.

Even a decent, reasonable, and non-sociopathic person will (and should) exercise judicious care when it comes to the address and phone number of a valued publisher, agent, manager, producer, etc. In the case of the Wilsons, the Morgans and Al Jardine’s Tikis, a different sort of man is involved. As of mid-1960, Murry had already committed acts indicating that he was neither decent, nor generous, nor reasonable, nor morally sane. His future actions would prove consistent with his past ones. How would such a man react after learning his wife had given Hite Morgan’s contact info to a couple of guitar-strumming punks who just knocked on the door? When did Murry find out Audree had done this? Even more importantly, under what circumstances did he find out?

There is nothing in the current record that really addresses these specific questions. It could be that Audree told Murry about Jardine’s visit as soon as Murry returned home that same day. It could have been that she became distracted by other things and forgot to mention it until days later. It could have been that she never told him at all. Maybe Hite Morgan mentioned it to him at some later date. Maybe not. Who knows.

For now, let us assume that Murry learned sooner rather than later that Audree had given the Morgans’ number and address to Al. And let’s further assume the happiest possible reading: that Murry was unperturbed, or even delighted to hear that Hite Morgan and the youngster Jardine might enjoy a little success on some tune Murry didn’t write. Even under that fact pattern, one detail remains constant: Brian Wilson was not yet involved in any of this.

In other words, even if Murry was aware of both Jardine’s contact with the Morgans and how he obtained that contact in the first place, none of it had anything to do with the young man whom Murry had abused at will and (among many other atrocities) once tied to a tree. The young man whom—as prior and subsequent history reveals—Murry viewed as personal property.

Continue reading in “The Founding of the Beach Boys” (Part 2 of 4)

For references, see list at the conclusion of Part 4 of this essay.

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Reminder: a comment on the overall purpose of this essay was provided in Part 1. See the Note to reader / Preface. — Thank you for reading.

The previous sections of “Murry” (see Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) tried to trace how the issue of Murry Wilson’s abusive parenting has evolved over several decades of Beach Boys reportage and critical commentary. During the height of the Beach Boys’ popularity in the 1960s, the problem was almost certainly unknown to family outsiders, being only hinted at in the vaguest sense if at all, in Crawdaddy magazine in 1968. It wasn’t until 1971 when Murry’s violence was first referred to in the print media (as a “rumor”). By 1976, the matter could no longer be treated as mere rumor. It had become, more or less, public knowledge, due in no small part to things Dennis Wilson said in the press.

Part 3 revisited David Leaf’s careful, judicious, and influential commentary from 1978 as a way to get inside the problem and unpack the difficulties inherent to the Murry question. In short: in a case of severe child abuse, middle ground is scarce; it could very well be impossible to be truly “fair” to both Murry and at the same time the kids he battered so severely. Part 3 ended with the suggestion that neither Murry nor Dennis were amenable to compromise on the issue of what had occurred back in Hawthorne. Murry held fast to his beliefs about his behavior, calling it love. To Dennis, it was hate.

Assuming (for now) that Carl Wilson’s virtual public silence amounts to an abstention, that leaves one brother to look at: Brian Wilson (1942-2025). Where did Brian stand on the question of how he and his brothers had been treated?

Part 4:

viii.

The problem with asking where Brian Wilson stood on the matter of his father is that Brian didn’t really “stand” anywhere. He floated—as he himself sang on “Til I Die,” like “a cork on the ocean.” In that song Brian was writing about his state of depression, egolessness and passivity. Moreover, while still only in his late twenties, Brian was making the tragic prediction that this was how it was going to be for the rest of his life, a prophecy that more or less proved accurate. Notwithstanding his various accomplishments, triumphs, and ultimate redemption, “Til I Die” accurately encapsulates the character of Brian’s life as a man: a certain passivity in the face of overpowering circumstances which may very well have been beyond his control.

The injurious phases of Brian’s life—the abuse and betrayal in childhood, the exploitation and theft of his songs, the lack of recognition, the rejection and suppression of his best music, the symbolic or literal retreat to “the bedroom”, the drug addiction, mental illness, continued exploitation and abuse (this time of the “therapeutic” variety)—demonstrate both the reason for Brian’s retreat and the enormous price he paid for it. In the ancient philosophy of the East, passivity, non-attachment, and withdrawal are steps on the path to enlightenment, and ultimately, God. In the popular movie The Big Lebowski, an amiable stoner’s ability to “abide” the incomprehensible human madness swirling about him is presented as a charming virtue. And in that movie, “The Dude”—very much a cork on the ocean himself—emerges from the chaos as a heroic slacker no worse for wear. Brian wasn’t as fortunate.

However, Brian’s passivity was not the same as powerlessness, regardless of how things might have seemed at times. Nor was it the same as weakness or “fragility.” And, notwithstanding the fear and anxiety he lived with all his life, it mustn’t be confused with cowardice. It was not failure either—certainly not in the long run, as Brian’s life story also demonstrates. Brian’s mode of withdrawal cannot be held up as a viable strategy for dealing with life, but considering the situation he was born into and how its unique circumstances began to unfold by age 19 or 20, it could be that along with all the damage, the passive, cork-on-the-ocean existence yielded a benefit: survival. As Brian observed in his 2016 book, “My body had taken a beating. My brains at times took a beating. But I tried to keep my spirit going. I was a survivor.”

In the years during which Brian survived, he made a number of public statements about Murry. The volume of his commentary far outweighs that of Carl and Dennis combined—a result of Brian’s longevity as well as the fact that he’s the brother at the center of the “Saga,” the main man, the one we write books and make movies about, the one whose opinion matters the most. And Brian delivered on this important issue. When asked about his father, he answered, time and again, often insightfully and authoritatively, saying what he thought.

However, taken as a collective whole, Brian’s commentary on his dad does not fully cohere. There are inconsistencies and in some cases, outright contradictions. To some degree, this is to be expected because, like any other man, Brian’s perspective on his own life is bound to change over time. And in Brian’s case there’s the added element of his uncommonly tumultuous life. If it’s true that Brian lived much of his life as a cork on the ocean (or leaf on a windy day), it makes sense that his attitude toward his father would be similarly inconstant and to some extent unpredictable.

Anyway, as an illustration, here is a jumble of Brian’s statements on Murry, grouped together in non-chronological order, without additional context or citation:

I didn’t like the feeling of, uh… being hit. It bothered me. I didn’t like it.

It bothered me because it made me feel like I was goofing up, that I was inferior, it made me feel worthless and a number of emotions like that.

We needed to express ourselves musically because of a bad childhood. A bad, bitter childhood.

He was the one who steered me and my brothers toward singing and playing, and who made it easy for it to be more than a hobby.

My dad taught me perfection.

He even wrote songs himself, and not as a total amateur.

I’m a perfectionist. Just like my dad was.

My dad yelled at or beat me so often that all he had to do was look at me and I’d flinch. I was always looking over my shoulder, expecting the worst from everyone.

He scared me so much I actually got scared into making good records.

He was a bad musician. I learned nothing from him.

My dad was a very inspirational person in my life, but he was also the worst person I ever met in my life.

You go through your childhood and you have a mean father that brutalizes you, that terrorizes you… He'd take his belt and he would double it over and he'd have maximum control and power and... Boom... boom... boom... boom…

…when you’re a kid, you have no defenses against your dad, or your mom… you’re totally dependent on them. And if they whack you around, you’ve got nothing but pain, and sorrow… that follows you around, you know?

When your father tells you to do something, you do it, because all you've ever known since you were a little baby was that he was boss.

I was partly my dad. I could sense things in me that were things in him. 

The way my dad treated me was tough, and it made me tougher.

He taught me how to be tough. He showed me a way to be the kind of person who has to forge ahead. 

He was also the main force behind the early years of the band.  He brought us from the garage to the Pendletones to the Beach Boys. We were just kids. We were his kids.

My relationship with him was very unique.

I am fortunate to have parents who are interested in the way I develop my character, and how I act.

I’ve come to understand him as a man, who, despite words to the contrary, hated himself, resented the world, and took out terrible feelings on his family.

I don’t like making the discussion all about how terrible my dad was, even if that’s true. The way he brought me up made me more focused on getting things done.

In some ways I haven't gotten beyond my dad… in some ways I was very afraid of my dad. In other ways I loved him because he knew where it was at. He had that competitive spirit which really blew my mind.

He always has had a problem of understanding people and their feelings.

Dad instilled in me a predisposition to mental illness that left me a cripple.

I was never scared of my brothers, but I was scared of my dad, though, I'll tell you that.

I can understand intellectually [why he hit me], but my feelings won't accept it. He got beat to hell all the time by his dad and he attacked me, assaulted me with this tremendous amount of aggression . . . boom!

He could be generous and guide me toward great things but he could also be brutal and belittle me and sometimes even make me regret that I was alive.

Brian doesn’t quite sound like Dennis, does he? There isn’t one reference to a “motherfucker” or “asshole” in the entire batch. Why not? Nor did Brian ever say (in public) that his father “beat the shit out of him” or that Murry’s punishments were sick. Instead, it’s boom… boom… boom. How come? It’s yet another complicated question, whose answer would at a minimum have something to do with the differences between the two brothers.

ix.

In hindsight, it’s clear that when he wrote “Til I Die,” Brian was consciously assessing his current situation (“I lost my way”) as well as the fact that his existence as a passive, acted-upon object would be permanent (“until I die”). But along with that, Brian was inadvertently predicting his long-term survival. Because after all, a cork on the ocean will not sink under the waves.

However, Brian’s brother Dennis did go under, quite literally, a long time ago. Brian and Dennis of course had several things in common: similar background; similar physical treatment at the hands of their father; a shared creative and artistic temperament; both became subsumed by addiction in their thirties. But there were critical differences between them too, not the least of which was the stance each adopted toward the world; the way they confronted the problems and challenges of their lives. When Brian found himself on the “raging sea” of his life, he withdrew into nonaction, sacrificing his personal agency and subjectivity to instead become an object to be fought over by competing factions. In contrast, when Dennis found himself on the raging sea, he raged back. He fought.

One of Dennis’s earliest memories, if not his earliest, was being punched by Murry. That was how the world greeted him (as it did Brian), and it probably wasn’t too long before Dennis began to fight back. As it always is in cases like this, he wasn’t fighting just to protect himself, but for love, and for that reason he was at a tremendous disadvantage. It would never be a fair fight. Having been acclimated to violence by his father, Dennis quickly developed a physical, externalized fearlessness. He fought in school, and later scrapped with the other Beach Boys, and other musicians in the backing band and on the touring circuit. He brawled in restaurants and bars. According to a story related by Jon Stebbins in his book The Lost Beach Boy, after an early Beach Boys gig in Santa Cruz, a 17 or 18-year-old Dennis single-handedly took on a group of young men, quickly incapacitated one of them, and scared the rest away. (Anecdotally, it seems a lot of these incidents involved territorial disputes over women.) Equipped with a hair-trigger fight reflex formed in childhood, Dennis would fight anyone, it seems, at the drop of a hat. In the end, this can’t be said to have been any more beneficial to him than extreme nonaggression had been for Brian.

But it was this same Dennis—the fighter—who, before spiraling down, made those blunt statements to press in the 1970s not only about what he and Brian had endured at Murry’s hands, but what it all meant, qualitatively: hate.

Dennis was wrong to think he could get away with saying something like this. Wrong if he thought anybody (who mattered) would really take him seriously; wrong to think anybody (who mattered) would really care; and finally, wrong to think that anyone would ever believe for a second that a demanding and protective old-school father like Murry could ever hate one (or two) of the sons for whom he had sacrificed so much. Murry as a “motherfucker” or “asshole?” Sure, and to some who knew the man, maybe even a “sick fuck” too. Undoubtedly, Murry was a true piece of work. But hate? Nobody except crazy Dennis Wilson would ever go so far as to invoke hate when talking about Murry.

Nobody, that is, except one other commentator: Brian Wilson. What Brian said (in David Leaf’s 2005 Smile documentary Beautiful Dreamer) was:

My dad was a very, very hostile, messed up man, with a lot of hatred in him.

That was it. At first pass, it’s a fairly uncontroversial statement, given all that Brian and many other people had already said by that point. But the word “hatred” stands out here, for it is extremely rare to locate any Beach Boys commentary in which the quality of hate is ascribed to Murry Wilson so directly, as a plain fact. It can’t be stated with absolute certainty, but it could very well be that the only two people who have used the words hate or hatred to describe Murry are Dennis Wilson and Brian Wilson. And if that is the case, the reason is obvious. It’s because they were there. They know.

Yet the brothers apply the concept of hatred differently. Dennis says that “the motherfucker hated us”—that Murry’s appalling actions, in the end, prove that Murry hated him and Brian (and maybe Carl too). Brian might agree, but only to the extent that a man who is already assumed to hate his kids must necessarily have hatred inside him. But did Brian assume, as Dennis came to believe, that Murry hated them?

No. According to the late-era Brian who in 2016 spoke through the book I Am Brian Wilson, Murry did not hate him and Dennis. To the contrary:

But my dad loved me. He loved all of us.

It is common to see the word “love” used in connection with Murry, certainly much more common than “hate” or “hatred.” Many commentators in the journalist and critical community have opined, or assumed (or relayed the opinion of observers and insiders who believe) that Murry loved his sons. Yet it was quite rare to hear Brian Wilson say it. In fact, this 2016 statement may very well have been the first time Brian publicly stated that his father loved him. That Brian loved Murry? That the son loved the father? Yes—Brian had said that before. But this is something different, and the fact that Brian said it (maybe for the first time) so late in life is significant.

Because Brian must be taken seriously, it should be assumed that he knew what he was saying here and that he meant it: that, as Brian sang around the same time, “there’s only one kind of love”—unconditional love—and this must have been the kind Murry gave to Brian. Does this then constitute Brian’s retraction of his words of 2004-05, when he said Murry “had a lot of hatred in him”? Not necessarily. The phrases my dad had a lot of hatred in him and my dad loved me are not contradictory.

What it means is that the older Brian of the lateera and the Dennis of the mid-1970s (and up until his death1) agreed on certain important matters, but differed on how to think about it. Dennis had reached a point in life where he could feel that Murry hated him and Brian. Brian may have felt the same at various points but did not say that Murry hated him or Dennis.2 What Brian said was that hate was something inside Murry. Dennis uses the word as a verb, while for Brian, hate is a noun. For Brian, hate is its own thing, a distinct entity separate from human beings like his father who for whatever reason are afflicted and infected with it in excess.

Taken as a whole, what Brian is saying is that “a hostile, messed up man with a lot of hatred in him” who treated his children with extreme cruelty can nevertheless love those children. It is itself a very loving and optimistic way of thinking not only about Murry but all people. In a nutshell, Brian is saying that hate is real, love is real, and that anybody—even people like his father who are filled with hate—can retain the faculty for love.

Is this true? Does Brian’s way of thinking make the matter of love too easy or too hard? What would Murry have said in response to Brian’s outlook? What would Dennis have said? What if Dennis had regained some measure of stability and gone on to live a long life? Would he have remained steadfast in his uncharitable view of Murry, or would he have come around to Brian’s way of thinking? Did Brian’s insight, fundamental optimism, and ultimate belief in Murry’s love aid his own long-term survival? Did Brian pay a price for thinking this way, and if so, what was it? What was the price Dennis paid for his way of thinking? And was it all worth it?

Who said it was easy.

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Selected References for “Murry,” Parts 1-4

Carlin, Peter Ames. Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson. Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2006.

“Dennis Wilson—Pete Fornatale Interview 1976.” At YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVItbEJBkJM (posted by “steel7866”)

Edmonds, Ben. “The Lonely Sea.” MOJO, November, 2002.

Felton, David. "The Healing of Brother Bri." Rolling Stone, November 4, 1976.

Gabler, Neal. “The Beach Boys: Riding a New Wave.” New Times, April 2, 1976.

Gaines, Steven. “Brian Wilson Is Trying Hard to Catch Another Wave.” New West, August 16, 1976.

^__________. Heroes and Villains: The True Story of the Beach Boys. New York: Signet/New American Library, 1986.

I Just Wasn't Made For These Times. Directed by Don Was. Palomar Pictures, 1995. DVD: Artisan Entertainment.

Kent, Nick. “The Last Beach Movie, Part 1: 20,000 Leagues Under the Surf.” New Musical Express, June 21, 1975.

^__________. “The Last Beach Movie, Part 2: Smile…” In Domenic Priore, Look! Listen! Vibrate! SMILE! San Francisco: Last Gasp, 1994. 

Leaf, David. The Beach Boys and the California Myth. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978.

^__________ . "Requiem for the Beach Boy." In Kingsley Abbott, ed. Back to the Beach: A Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys Reader. London: Helter Skelter Publishing, 1999.

^__________ . God Only Knows: The Story of Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys and the California Myth. London: Omnibus Press, 2022.

“The Lorren Daro Thread.” Comment thread at The Smiley Smile Message Board. At Smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,19579.0.html

Matijas-Mecca, Christian. The Words and Music of Brian Wilson. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2017.

Nolan, Tom. “The Beach Boys: A California Saga." Rolling Stone, October 28, 1971.

^__________. “The Beach Boys: Tales of Hawthorne" Rolling Stone, November 11, 1971. As republished in Kingsley Abbott, ed. Back to the Beach: A Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys Reader. London: Helter Skelter Publishing, 1999.

Pamplin, Rushton, and Ron Hamady. The Beach Boys’ Endless Wave: Inside America’s Band. Culver City, CA: Westcom Press, 2018.

Preiss, Byron. The Beach Boys: The Authorized Biography of America's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band. New York: Ballantine Books, 1979.

Stebbins, Jon. The Real Beach Boy: Dennis Wilson. Toronto: ECW Press, 2000.

^__________. The Beach Boys FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About America’s Band. Milwaukee: Backbeat Books, 2011.

Tune X Podcast. “Pretty Soon I’ll Be Blown Away.” November 30, 2022. Download via Apple iTunes. (hosted by dauberbumble)

White, Timothy. The Nearest Faraway Place: Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys and the Southern California Experience. New York: Henry Holt, 1994.

Williams, Paul. Brian Wilson & the Beach Boys: How Deep Is the Ocean? New York: Omnibus Press, 1997.

Wilson, Brian, with Todd Gold.  Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

^__________, with Ben Greenman. I Am Brian Wilson. Boston: Da Capo Press, 2016.

Wilson, Murry. Letter to Brian Wilson. May 8, 1965. Collection of Hard Rock International/Hard Rock Memorabilia.

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The extended comment on Murry Wilson continues here in Part 3. The previous section recounted how during the mid-1970s, Dennis Wilson condemned his father’s abuse of himself and older brother Brian. It left off with a summary of Murry’s historical reputation, as it has developed among the loose community of Beach Boys journalists, authors, critics and fans. Notwithstanding Murry’s reported acts—taken either as “fact” or mere “rumor”—and Dennis’s vitriol, Murry is today viewed as not such an awful person. (However, as mentioned in Part 1 of this essay, the opinion of the public, beyond those who write articles and trade opinions on the internet, remains less knowable.)

Go back to Part 1

Go back to Part 2

Read introductory preface to this essay

Part 3 below:

vii.

David Leaf is the preeminent journalistic and critical voice on the subject of Brian Wilson. In his 1978 book, The Beach Boys and the California Myth, Leaf was partial to Brian above all others, framing Brian’s story in a way that convincingly justified any apparent “bias” in his favor. Leaf expressed sensitivity to Brian’s difficult situation and a degree of empathy with him as both man and artist that had been non-existent in the print media up to that point.

The book commented incisively on the art-commerce tension, the burden and responsibility of being an artist, and the relationship between suffering and art. It included insightful commentary on Brian’s personal psychology, and outlined (or maybe even exposed) the less-than-optimal relationship Brian had maintained with his family and the Beach Boys group. Leaf contrasted Brian’s standing as an artist in need of personal security with the Beach Boys’ need for a different kind of security—to stay securely in business—and described how the competing security needs clashed. In the 1985 edition of the book, Leaf efficiently expressed the sad truth about what had become of the Beach Boys as a family of musicians: “the Beach Boys have always been most unified in failure, and success seems to be the catalyst to disagreement.”1

The impact of The Beach Boys and the California Myth was such that it became an important turning point in the Beach Boys’ historical saga, permanently altering public perception of Brian and the group. The book would become (and remains) a touchstone for virtually any serious commentary on the Beach Boys. Leaf himself at some point transitioned from reporter-outsider to become a not-insignificant figure within the story of Brian Wilson’s later years.

It is because of Leaf’s overall importance and influence as a journalist that his handling of Murry Wilson can be assumed to itself have been influential, shaping the parameters and setting the tone of future opinion.2 The following passage, first published in the 1978 book, deserves special attention:

Murry Wilson was a harsh parent, but there was no overt malice involved in his actions. Murry was bringing his boys up to make them men the best way he knew how. If this included physical violence and tongue-lashings, Murry still had his boys’ interests in mind. That makes his actions more understandable but no more excusable.

Given the complexities that are inseparable from the Beach Boys’ story and the Wilson family past, these words are markedly declaratory and conclusive. The tone is judicial—as if in the course of researching this topic, Leaf privately conducted his own trial of Murry, in which the defendant’s actions and state of mind were considered, important witnesses gave testimony, and excuses and mitigating circumstances were presented. All of it then given due consideration by Leaf, who issues this judgment.

What is the essence of that verdict? Overall, it boils down to the distinction between Murry’s actions and his state of mind: Murry was physically (and verbally) harsh, but in his own mind, his motivation was decent—to raise the boys the best way he knew how. There was “no overt malice involved in his actions.” The motivation instead was the brothers’ best interests. And this—Murry’s true motive of acting in the boys’ interests—is what makes his actions understandable. Still, those actions did take place—Murry committed them—and Murry’s subjective state of mind is no excuse for what he did. Therefore, as Leaf basically says, those actions were inexcusable, regardless of motive. If this really had been a criminal trial, the verdict would be something like: acquitted on the charge of hate and malice, but guilty on the lesser count of excessive harshness.3

Is this judgment fair to Murry? Is it fair that the “understandable” actions of a man, undertaken without overt malice and for the benefit of his sons, be pronounced inexcusable in the media by a journalist who wasn’t even there?

And for that matter, is it fair to Dennis Wilson? What would he have thought if he read these words in 1978? How would the righteous, profanity-spewing Dennis of the mid-1970s react if he ever read in print that the man whom he remembered as a “motherfucker” who “resented the fucking kids to death” and “hated us,” was actually doing the best he could and was consciously motivated by Dennis’s best interests? What would Dennis think if he read that the man whose punishments were “sick”—who beat him with a board, burned his fingers, and force-fed him food until he vomited—acted with no overt malice? Arguably, Leaf’s comment is at the same time unfair to both Murry and Dennis; to both father and son.

Undoubtedly, this was not David Leaf’s intention. It can only be assumed that he was making a good faith effort, as a journalist, to be judicious and fair to all sides. Unfairness is what he would have wanted to avoid. But this is how it is with families in which children are treated like this. A genuine middle-ground is difficult to locate, probably because it doesn’t exist. To live in a state of war is to be forced to abide by the realities of war. You must choose the side you are on.

The point of bitterest contention is not whether the acts themselves—the slap, the fist, the wooden board (“the stud” as Brian Wilson remembered it in his 2016 book), the force-feeding, the tying to the tree—took place. Nor is it a question of severity or harshness. In the case of the Wilson family and the Beach Boys, everyone—Brian, Dennis, the journalists, the adequately-informed fans—is in agreement that something happened back there and that it was unusually harsh. Even Audree Wilson conceded that Dennis got “some pretty hard spankings.”4 Murry remains in agreement too, as evidenced not only by his public comment to Rolling Stone about “more than one way to give love to kids,” but also his notorious 1965 letter to Brian in which he acknowledged (privately) more than his wife ever would: not only did he administer “spanks on the bottom” but also “more violent punishment.”5

The underlying (and likely unacknowledged) issue that divided the Wilson family was that of parental character, intent, and state of mind. Of right and wrong. What was the true meaning of these acts? To Murry, it was love, protection, and security for the boys. Knowing that a recalcitrant Brian believed otherwise, on May 8, 1965 Murry took pains to lecture him (then nearly 23 years old) on this point, in writing. That same day Murry wrote a separate letter to Dennis (age 20) in which he dispensed with the pedagogy and simply trashed him for his “total failure on all levels as a son.”

Murry took his stand: love, security, protection, morality, etc. And in the mid-1970s, so did Dennis: it was sick. It was hate. As things have stood for the past several decades, it is Dennis who has been losing the war—at least at the level of public opinion. His father Murry has so far proven victorious, not because people do not believe he beat the boys severely (among other acts), but because he is recognized as a man of sufficiently beneficent motive. As a fundamentally decent man without whose drive, protection, and sacrifice the Beach Boys would not exist.

This framing might be too pessimistic. (Or it could be optimistic, depending on one’s point of view.6 ) But if so, the pessimism mostly concerns Dennis, who drowned 40 years ago. There is of course another of Murry’s abuse targets—Brian Wilson, who in terms of historical significance is more important than anybody else in this entire “California Saga.”

“Murry” continues in the fourth and final part (which includes relevant citations)

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The first part of this supplementary essay began to trace the history of how the “question” of Murry Wilson has evolved over the years. In the 1960s, Murry was known, if at all, only as the “Beach Boy Dad”—a brash, protective, and perhaps pushy father who had blazed the way for the Beach Boys’ success in the music business.

By 1971, that success had diminished, and, as revealed that year in a Rolling Stone article, Brian Wilson had become a mysteriously directionless figure, only partially involved in the Beach Boys’ music; beset by emotional problems. As discussed here in Part 2, that article marked the first time Murry’s violently abusive treatment of Brian was ever mentioned in a public forum.

iv.

It was not abuse, per se, that came up in the Rolling Stone piece. (In 1971, the idea that a parent would strike a child was, as it remains today, unremarkable, as such treatment is justified across humanity as a legitimate method of pedagogical discipline.) What was more notable was the possibility that Brian Wilson—one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most accomplished composers—had sustained a violent trauma of such magnitude that it caused permanent deafness in his right ear. “There’s a rumor going around that you might have hit him on the ear when he was young,” Murry was asked, point-blank, in print.

This was how the issue was first raised in the media. The writer, Tom Nolan, was slyly contemptuous of Murry throughout the piece, and the question of Brian’s hearing loss—as potentially the outcome of a specific act of abuse—was broached with delicacy, as a mere “rumor.” In the article, Murry summarily denied the allegation.

At the time, could anyone appreciate that the semi-famous “Beach Boy Dad” was being outed as a child abuser?

Yes. Murry knew it, along with at least one other person: whoever it was that slipped this information to Tom Nolan and Rolling Stone. Who might it have been? Who knows, but an outraged Murry demanded a public retraction (or correction) from none other than Brian Wilson himself. Brian—who by now was effectively retired from the music business, afflicted by auditory-verbal hallucinations and depression, dabbling in drugs, and not yet 30 years old—refused, basically telling his father to shove it.

This father-son exchange raises an interesting question: why weren’t the brothers ever moved to correct any supposed misconceptions about events that allegedly took place during their childhood?

The 1971 Rolling Stone profile marked the first time the brothers would have had cause to speak up in defense of their beloved supporter and protector. They didn’t. Other opportunities to defend Murry would follow soon enough, as more unflattering articles and books were published during the 1970s. In his influential article for Britain’s New Musical Express in 1975, journalist Nick Kent recounted a particular beating Dennis received in childhood as well as the opinion of Pet Sounds lyricist Tony Asher that Murry was “a really sick man” who resented Brian. Former Beach Boys publicist Derek Taylor was quoted similarly—he called Murry “a daft man,” who “scared the hell out of his boys.” Echoing David Anderle’s earlier comments about Brian’s “strong mother and father thing,” Asher commented on Brian’s personal shortcomings (his irresponsibility, mainly) and suggested that Brian had been “self-destructive” in the way he had maintained a “claustrophobic scene with his family.”1

Looking back, there’s at least one major reason that neither the brothers nor any other close family members could ever unify to preserve the reputation of their recently-deceased father: the main attack would come from “inside the house” so to speak, from Dennis Wilson, one of their very own (though always the black sheep). While youngest brother Carl remained quietly diplomatic, and as Brian vanished into the comorbidity of clinical mental illness and drug addiction, Dennis raged.

v.

In David Felton’s extended profile of the Beach Boys for Rolling Stone in 1976, Dennis said, “our father beat the shit out of us; his punishments were outrageous.” Dennis explained to another reporter that “we had a shitty childhood. I mean my dad was a tyrant. He used to whale on us, physically beat the crap out of us. I don’t know kids who got it like we did.” This was the same Dennis who, when asked about Brian’s mental problems in a radio interview, said, “I could sit here and tell you atrocities, stories, things that have happened to Brian.”

In Steven Gaines’s important article for New West in 1976, Dennis again explained: “My father just had a unique way of showing his affection, which consisted of beating the shit out of us. He burned my hands for playing with matches and beat me up in front of my friends.” By the time Gaines’s book Heroes and Villains was published in 1986, Dennis had passed on, so the effect was as if he was speaking from the afterlife: “My dad was an asshole, and he treated us like shit, and his punishments were sick.” And finally: “The motherfucker hated us, or he would have loved the shit out of us. It’s that fucking simple.”2

Here, Dennis reduced it to a question of love and hate. He was obviously unable to forget what had happened to him, and now, in his early thirties and with his father deceased, was saying (coming to realize) that he had felt no love. And to Dennis, that meant it had been Murry’s hate that he experienced. In other words, getting beaten up and burned by a stranger is one thing, but when your own father does it to you, it’s hate. It’s that fucking simple.

But if it’s that simple, why couldn’t Dennis change his life in accordance with this knowledge? As of those mid-1970s days when he was speaking so candidly, he was falling into a years-long tailspin. His life would soon devolve into a series of sordid and depressing episodes, ending with his drowning in 1983 at the age of 39.3 That a young man of Dennis’s physical strength and intelligence could accurately pinpoint the problem in his life, yet remain helpless to turn himself around (by, among many other things, getting off alcohol and drugs) tells us that in reality, it’s not so (fucking) simple after all.

It’s simple only at the level of theory—the level of words easily written on paper (or here on the internet) or spoken in an interview. In real life, the matter is very difficult. That is to say, maybe Dennis got it wrong when he said that his father’s actions could be simply reduced to hate. Then again, maybe Dennis did get it right, but his subsequent difficulty in life was because he didn’t go far enough into the darkness of his (and his brothers’) childhood past. That is, the lack of simplicity was because things may have been even worse than what the words, “the motherfucker hated us” already imply.

If it is agreed that the issue is very complicated, it should be clarified that it’s the subject that’s complicated, not Murry, himself, as an individual person. Murry was not nearly as complicated a man as he is now commonly assumed to be. Nor was he “conflicted.” In layman’s terms, he was basically a psycho. That is, you wouldn’t want this man in your life, period. What was complicated was having to deal with this destructive and uncomplicated phenomenon if for some reason fate had firmly embedded him in your life. For example, if he was your father. It was difficult being his son and growing up in his home, as the lives of Brian, Dennis, and Carl have borne out.

And it has remained difficult for the many fans, critics and historians of later years. We are the people who commonly describe Murry as “complicated,” “complex,” or “conflicted,” but what we are really saying is that it is complicated, or difficult for us to understand. It is hard for outsiders to understand the “father thing” (to use David Anderle’s phrasing) that occurred within the Beach Boys. Murry himself was not saddled with uncertainty and doubt.

Murry understood everything there was to know—about himself, his sons, the past, present and future; about good and bad, friend and enemy, right and wrong. It is the rest of us who are confronted with the various questions Murry was unburdened by: Why was Murry the way he was? How did he get away with his crimes, and how come the brothers seemed unable to fully stand up to him, even in adulthood? What was the effect of all this on the brothers and the Beach Boys’ intra-band relationships? In hindsight, what would have been the best course of action for the Wilson brothers collectively or individually?

Interestingly, these kinds of questions have not been the main focus over the years, perhaps because they are too negative, implying that Murry committed crimes and then got away with them, that the brothers were mistreated, that they should have stood up to him and didn’t, that they somehow remained vulnerable to mistreatment, even in adulthood. Instead, a different line of critical inquiry has developed, to a happier, more positive end: how might Murry’s behavior have benefited his sons? In what ways were the Wilson brothers lucky to have Murry as a dad?

vi.

Murry himself lectured Brian in 1965 that “I’ve protected you for 22 years” and that Brian should be grateful to have received “the security a punishment gives.” So those are two benefits, straight from the horse’s mouth: (a) protection and (b) security-through-punishment. Anything else?

It has mostly been the journalist, fan, and critical community, more so than the Wilson brothers themselves (or for that matter any of the Beach Boys), that has stepped in to the breach on Murry’s behalf, contextualizing him with a verbal clarity Brian Wilson didn’t possess and the nuance Dennis Wilson was unwilling to express.4 Among the Beach Boys fan and critical community, Murry Wilson is not a figure of opprobrium.5

Of course, this doesn’t mean Murry hasn’t gathered his share of criticism. But it seems that the strongest opposition comes not from music critics or fans of the Beach Boys and Wilson brothers, but from people who knew Murry personally and interacted with him. Among this class, Murry has his champions, but critics far outnumber supporters. A sampling of the salty, anti-Murry terminology that has accumulated: “maniac,” “total control freak,” “really sick man,” “wheedling toad of a man,” “sick fuck,” “angry guy,” “motherfucker,” “asshole,” “brutal, narcissistic, insane psychopath,” and “ornery fart.”

Still, along with the name-calling Murry has secured recognition as an important contributor to the band’s success without whose guidance and support the band—and therefore its great music—would not exist. In 2017, author Christian Matijas-Mecca concisely summarized what is true: “For every horrific story about Murry and Brian’s relationship, there is a story that gives credit to Murry for his persistence and dedication to the group.” Because of this widely-accepted balance between competing stories, critics, fans and even various members of the Beach Boys’ circle have made peace with Murry, and in a few isolated instances, celebrated him.

It would take too long to provide a full and comprehensive catalog of Murry’s positive attributes, as recognized over decades of published Beach Boys commentary. Here is a composite summary (“mash-up”) pieced together from a variety of sources:

Murry was a complex person, "but he was a good person.” His aggressive bluster was really just a facade masking the “pushover softness” within, which revealed itself at “the sound of a beautiful chord” or “the thought of his wife and three sons.”6

If people of today have a problem with Murry’s actions, they should remember that he was “not unlike any other father of the era,” those men who had been through tough times in the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s. When it came to his sons and the Beach Boys, Murry was just a normal dad “who’s really doing what a dad should do”—among other things, counseling Brian to “stay humble” and not hang out with “phonies” in the record and entertainment business. He was “very protective of his family,” fighting for the Beach Boys as “stalwart advocate,” “ferocious defender” and “loyal promoter” of the band’s interests. Murry was “like a mother bear watching over her cubs” in the early days of the Beach Boys (it was Murry himself who said this), and he “can only be praised for trying to protect his kids,” which was “a difficult task.” And even if Murry failed in his efforts, he did the best he could.

If he hadn’t been manager, the Beach Boys “probably would not have survived in the early years.” Murry of course helped Brian set up his own song publishing company in those years, which was a “good decision” reflecting both Murry’s protectiveness and promotion of the band’s interests. And Brian needed that protection, because he had none of the business skills—namely the “corporate steeliness”—needed to succeed in the music business. For the Beach Boys, success demanded that Brian’s musical talent be paired with “Murry’s will” and “perseverance.” It was Murry, the “hard-assed businessman,” who provided the “fearless” and “tenacious drive” that “rocketed the Beach Boys into a phenomenal career.”

At least one Beach Boys-affiliated observer has said that Murry’s ouster as manager (in April 1964) was a principal reason for the Beach Boys’ decline. It is this line of thought, maybe, that would lead one published author to comment (recently, within the past 10 years) that the Brian Wilson-Tony Asher song “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times” from Pet Sounds (1966) is “possibly quite close to expressing the sense of nostalgic longing that Brian had for earlier, simpler days, when the word of Murry was final and no one messed with it.”

You never know what people think and why they think it. The fact that something like this could reach the printed page in recent years is, at best, the result of both Brian Wilson’s inscrutability and a general indifference to Dennis Wilson’s words and life story. And surely, it must also be an indication of how difficult it is to figure out, exactly, who Murry was, what he did, why he did it, and what the impact was.

“Murry” continues in Part 3

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Note to reader / Preface

This essay (to be posted in four parts) is intended to provide some additional context for any other posts on the site that significantly deal with Murry Wilson’s relationship with his sons, Beach Boys Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson. The essay is intended as a sort of all-purpose addendum to those posts. Also, for any readers who remain interested in the subject of Murry while at the same time believing my treatment of his role to be unnecessarily bleak (or unfair to him), this will hopefully provide a fuller explanation of my thinking.

It’s not pleasant to think, write, or read about, but the topic of what is now euphemistically referred to as “maltreatment” or “interpersonal child trauma” is essential to a full and accurate understanding not only of Brian Wilson’s life as a person, but his music too. It must be dealt with. I have been addressing it on an as-needed basis in the A History of Brian Wilson posts. Because this site is about Brian more than his brothers or the Beach Boys generally, these posts will more often than not focus on the relationship between Murry and Brian in particular.

Please note further that this essay is grouped here, in the “Appendix” because I don’t intend its subject matter—purposeful and sustained child abuse in the two-parent home—to be the focus of A Book of Brian Wilson. My intended focus—provided that this newsletter survives—is more positive and redemptive in nature: the way Brian Wilson dealt with the circumstances of his upbringing (both positively and negatively) and ultimately persevered, against tremendous odds, and created great art. Brian is commonly celebrated in the media as a “survivor,” but it’s not certain that the public—even Brian’s greatest fans—have full awareness of what it is, exactly, that he has had to survive. And if that’s true, one reason would be the various difficulties inherent to the study of Brian and the Beach Boys. That is a separate subject which I have been writing about in this series of postings.

It is possible I will write more extensively about this topic in the future. It is only my opinion, but I do believe that this type of analysis is long overdue in the world of Brian Wilson and Beach Boys commentary. My hope is that there are readers who feel the same way, and understand the spirit in which this is offered.

Thank you for taking the time to engage with the material on this site.

—JH

i.

As of 2025, it will be about 63 years since the Beach Boys’ first real hit, “Surfin’ Safari,” and 62 years since the band achieved national superstardom with “Surfin’ U.S.A.” 2025 will also mark the 21st anniversary of the Brian Wilson Presents Smile album—a relatively late work in Brian Wilson’s career that itself had existed in a state of incompletion for around 35 years. Back in the 1960s and ‘70s, “Beach Boys” was a household name and the band’s hit songs were widely recognized, even by non-fans—people who didn’t really like the Beach Boys or even the genre of rock ‘n’ roll. Today, the number of people familiar with the group inevitably grows ever smaller. This doesn’t mean the Beach Boys will be forgotten, but that their music and story will become increasingly less “relevant” in the public mind and more “historical.” To some extent this already occurred long ago.

Among the current population of Beach Boys listeners—those of us who stream their tunes, upload them to our phones, assemble playlists with Beach Boys tracks, and scan YouTube videos—what portion is aware of the personal, extra-musical story of the band? And even among that group, how many have actively researched the Beach Boys by reviewing at least some of the available books, articles, and documentaries?

Only those who have done this will know the name, “Murry Wilson” and who it refers to, and retain a sense of his significance in the story. They will have read about Murry’s treatment of his sons in childhood, particularly oldest son Brian and middle son Dennis. (A concise summary of the most memorable of Murry’s reported acts was included in Part 2 of A History of Brian Wilson.)

When confronted with this kind of information, we are challenged to deal with it in different ways. First is the choice between thinking about the issue at all or leaving it unaddressed, behind a locked door of privacy or secrecy. (The nature of this choice and its relevance in the study of Brian Wilson was discussed first in this post and again in this post.) If we decide to give our attention to the matter, the next step is to decide whether or not to believe what has been printed (and said). If we don’t believe it, the matter is closed, but if we do give it credence, the next step is to think about what those acts meant—both at the time Murry committed them and in later years. Why did Murry do these things? What was his purpose, and how might the boys, from their separate perspectives, have understood it? And the last question concerns the long-term impact on the Beach Boys personally and musically: what effect, if any, did the violence have on the lives of the Wilson brothers (and therefore the history of the Beach Boys group)? How, if at all, did it affect Brian Wilson’s music?

Is there an identifiable public consensus on these questions? Who knows. It is comparatively easy to get a sense of public opinion of a piece of recorded music—just look at the chart ranking, the cash receipts, or the number of streams. When it comes to Murry Wilson’s treatment of his sons and its long-term impact, each reader, fan, journalist, or critic arrives at his own conclusion. Only a small handful will voice their opinions in print media or on the internet. That leaves who knows how many others whose opinion remain unknown.

ii.

This wouldn’t be a problem if the Beach Boys themselves—the key principals, the members of the Wilson family—had been able to definitively take hold of the matter and make their collective voice heard. The family organization was, theoretically, in the best position to shape public perception of Murry and tell us how to understand him. But they never did this. They probably never could do it, but if it ever was to happen, it understandably would have to wait until sometime after Murry’s death in 1973. By that point, however, the Beach Boys family was in the midst of a protracted and ultimately permanent fragmentation.1

Individually, Brian Wilson spoke about his father many times—with sensitivity and insight, but also indirectness, obscurity, and contradiction. Brian never addressed the subject (publicly) with the depth it demands. And he shouldn’t have been expected to; it seems, from an outsider’s perspective, that Brian was never been able to fully confront whatever it was that occurred—an outcome whose root cause is likely to be the severity of the abuse itself. Brian knew he was badly abused, and was honest in his commentary. Yet he was less than authoritative on the significance and meaning of the abuse. In late years (notably in his 2016 book I Am Brian Wilson) he expressed ambivalence, noting both positive and negative aspects of Murry’s parenting methods, and among other things giving Murry credit for instilling toughness and the ability to survive.2

Carl Wilson’s comments about his father were few and superficial to the point of silence—a kind of abstention, at least as far as the public is concerned. In contrast, during those years between Murry’s death and his own passing 10 years later, Dennis Wilson used blunt, profane language to convey what he and Brian had endured in childhood. Al Jardine has been circumspect and diplomatic, and can’t necessarily be expected to have any real knowledge of what happened in the Wilson home. As an important member of the extended Wilson family, Mike Love can be assumed to have had more knowledge than Jardine, and more personal investment. Mike has indeed not hesitated to criticize Murry as both Beach Boys manager and overall human being. However, Mike’s criticism is more often than not centered on Murry’s mistreatment of Mike himself, particularly with respect to the matter of songwriting credits—an issue on which Mike seems to view Brian not as an abuse victim, but a bad actor in cahoots with Murry to cheat Mike. Overall, it could be that the actions of the non-Brian Beach Boys have spoken more clearly than words ever could. The show must go on, until death. Any other concern is, at best, secondary.3

Meanwhile, Wilson wife and mother Audree acknowledged no more than that the boys received “spankings,” that Murry was “high-strung,” and that, yes—he did compete with Brian. But she tempered that with explanations of how hard it was for Murry to raise three sons and that Murry’s competitiveness benefited Brian by spurring him to greater heights. There were “no real problems,” she said in the 1970s, and claimed in later years that her son Brian had in fact been “a happy kid” in childhood. “I don’t know if he’ll admit that today,” she said.

Murry himself took pains to explain to the press, publicly, and to Brian, privately, that whatever he did was an expression of love and protectiveness, while also providing the boys with “security.” In a 1965 letter, Murry told Brian that he could “remember giving all three of my sons love in many forms,” and in 1971 he explained to Rolling Stone that “there’s more than one way to give love to kids, you know, for their own good.” It was then understood—as it should still be today—that Murry was referring to the beatings and other “forms” of his violence.

About 35 years later, Brian, then around age 65, wrote a song called “Good Kind of Love.” Brian subsequently put out another record on which he clarified that the good kind is in fact the only kind of love. By conceptualizing, writing, and singing these songs (and “Love and Mercy,” and a bunch of others over his career) Brian did not necessarily contradict his dad’s views, but nevertheless provided food for thought about alleged “forms” or “kinds” of love, and the ways that love might be expressed. (With Brian, music was often—and remains—the medium through which he is most verbally and emotionally articulate.)

iii.

During the height of the Beach Boys’ musical career in the 1960s, the Murry problem was completely unknown to journalists and the public alike. Instead, it was the Brian problem—Brian’s emotional and psychological profile, Brian’s intrinsic strangeness—that first made its way into print, via Jules Siegel’s landmark “Goodbye Surfing” article.4 Researched during the early days of the “Smile-era” in 1966 but not published until October 1967, Siegel’s piece discussed Brian’s eccentricity, fear, and paranoia, while Siegel and his readers remained ignorant of Brian’s family life and childhood history. However, within only a month or two, former Beach Boys business consultant David Anderle (who had been close to Brian during the Smile-era) became the first to comment publicly on the troubling relationship Brian maintained with his parents.

Speaking to journalist Paul Williams in late November of 1967, Anderle said, “sometimes it's very negative, sometimes it's very positive. Extreme in both cases. I mean, it's not a normal son/parent relationship, it's a very active relationship between family. Extremely close to the mother, and a very tight bond between father and son.” Anderle wasn’t saying that there was anything inherently wrong about close parent-child relations, but that in this particular case, there was something unusual, something not normal.

As an outsider not privy to the backstory, Anderle could not speak to any abuse as such, relaying only his general impression of the parent-child dynamic. Using detached, idiomatic phrasing, Anderle referred to it as “a strong mother and father thing” that Brian had going with his folks. Whatever that thing was, in Anderle’s view it seemed neither admirable nor enviable for a young man to have this kind of relationship with his parents. It was strange.

Today things are different. The public has since obtained information that Anderle didn’t have in 1967. Today, we can “do the math,” and pair Anderle’s observations with what we know about Brian’s background. We ought to now understand how and why those mother and father bonds remained so tight.5

It is unlikely that either Jules Siegel’s article (printed in an obscure and short-lived magazine called Cheetah) or Paul Williams’s interview with David Anderle (published in Williams’s upstart Crawdaddy) were read by that many people at the time of their publication in 1967 and 1968. However, within a few years the counterculture (or what would become “rock culture”) was extending its reach—notably through Rolling Stone magazine, which printed an in-depth profile of the Beach Boys in 1971, across two consecutive issues. This article, written by Tom Nolan, was the first piece of journalism to address (glancingly) the violence in the Wilson home. For that reason alone, it is historically significant.

This essay continues in “Murry” (Part 2 of 4)

A list of sources relevant to this essay will be provided at the conclusion of Part 4, when posted.

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