Q & A - An Introduction
Some clarification and explanation of A Book of Brian Wilson.
This Q & A is offered to provide a general orientation to this publication/newsletter.
Thank you for reading—
Question: What is the purpose of this publication?
Answer: To offer some commentary and discussion of the life of Brian Wilson (1942-2025).
Q: Brian Wilson…
A: …of the Beach Boys. Famous musician, famous American rock ‘n’ roll band of the 1960s. Important musician, I would say. And also an important music group.
Q: Does the reader need to have any prior knowledge of Brian Wilson or the Beach Boys?
A: No, not really. But it will help to have a basic familiarity with the Beach Boys. Basic knowledge of what they are (or were): a very popular American rock ‘n’ roll band that formed during the early days of “the rock ‘n’ roll era” in American musical culture. I assume that the reader is familiar with at least some of the Beach Boys’ music. I more or less assume that readers know who the Beach Boys are—the individual members and their relations to one another. The Beach Boys were a family band, with 4 of the 5 principal members being blood relatives.
It also helps to know that Brian Wilson was the musical, creative leader of the Beach Boys during their most important years. Brian is the focus of this publication. Hence the title, A Book of Brian Wilson.
Q: How can you focus only on Brian Wilson without also examining the Beach Boys?
A: As a practical necessity, this will concern the Beach Boys too. The Beach Boys group and Brian Wilson are inextricably tied together in many ways, for many reasons. In other ways, they are separate entities, distinct and distinguishable from one another. Still, it is Brian’s life that is the focus here—at least to the extent that the details of that life can be known by an outsider.
Q: What do you mean by that?
A: I’m not a member of the Beach Boys, and I don’t know anybody involved in that organization or business. I have no access to any of the principals and I’m not a professional journalist.
Although there are negatives to being on the outside, there may be advantages to being neither an “insider” nor a friendly journalist with access, etc. I’m just a regular person with an interest in Brian Wilson’s life story, and some opinions about it that might be worth sharing.
Q: Have you undertaken any original research or uncovered new facts?
A: I’ve done some digging here and there, on esoteric and peripheral matters. I’m not sure any of it will ever come up.
My goal is not to present facts to the reader. Still, my reading of Brian Wilson is necessarily founded upon the “facts,” “data,” or raw information about Brian and the Beach Boys that have been transmitted through a variety of sources over more than half a century.
Some of those alleged facts are in dispute. People disagree on how to read the Beach Boy data. There’s a fair amount of unknowns in the Brian Wilson story. Gaps, riddles, contradictions, points of contention, etc. There are certain matters that can be dealt with as genuine fact, such as concert dates and studio personnel in a given recording session, what the correct chords are for a given tune, what key that tune was written and performed in. That kind of information is relevant to what I want to do here, but it is not the focus.
I will say now, at the outset, that I will be opinionated, because the subject matter at issue in this publication does not easily accommodate facts or provably “right” answers.
Q: Will the text make clear that this is merely opinion, as opposed to absolute truth or a factual account of what really happened?
A: Sometimes what’s in the text will be closer to fact, sometimes closer to opinion or speculation. There are times when the text will state outright that it’s an interpretation, or something that’s uncertain or practically unknowable as pure fact. But not always. I really don’t want to afflict readers with the excessive use of prefatory clauses like, “in my opinion…” and, “based on publicly-available information, it could very well be that…” or, “according to so-and-so’s book…” I encourage readers to mentally insert these and similar qualifying phrases at their discretion as they read the material on this site. Basically, I trust that the reader has read this Q & A and understands that this is criticism, opinion and interpretation, not factual journalism.
Q: Are you a music critic?
A: No, that’s not what I mean. But because this reflects my opinion, it will be closer to criticism than journalism. Also, although this publication will concern music, I don’t think of it as being about music, but about Brian Wilson.
Over time, Brian has become known to the public for things that are not strictly music-related. In the 2021 documentary Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road, the musician Elton John says, “Brian doesn’t deserve just the accolades about the music; he deserves the accolades about his personal life.” In using the term “personal life,” I believe Elton John is referring to Brian’s life beyond songwriting, record-making, and show-business. That is, Brian’s life as a person, as a man, a human being, rather than his “musical life” or “celebrity life.” And A Book of Brian Wilson will deal with some of those things, or at least try to. The music is important, and is often intimately close to Brian’s human life, but music is only a part of his life story. There are long stretches in Brian’s life during which he’s making little to no music, but what is going on during those times is still a matter of legitimate public interest.
Q: What do you mean? Can you give an example of what you’re talking about?
A: You can refer to the comments of Brian Wilson himself. In his book, I Am Brian Wilson, published in 2016, he says, “My story is a music story and a family story and a love story, but it’s a story of mental illness, too.” It’s not just about music. In a way, Brian is saying the same thing Elton John said, except that Elton also says Brian should get “accolades” and Brian doesn’t say that about himself.
Q: Should Brian Wilson get accolades for his personal life outside of music? Is that what you’re going to do here?
A: No. Brian received many accolades over his lifetime, but my writing here is about Brian Wilson, not for Brian Wilson. I’m not trying to praise Brian or express my appreciation of him as a fan, nor defend him against his antagonists, both real and imagined. It may appear that I am doing that at certain points, but that is not the motivation. I am instead trying to tell the story accurately, as I see it. Often that will entail a viewpoint sympathetic to Brian. But at other points, the writing might question Brian and his behavior, asking why and how he made certain decisions over the course of his life and career.
Q: What decisions are you talking about, specifically?
A: I think it would be easier to refer to the essays themselves, as they are posted, rather than getting into it here in this Q & A. The writing will focus on some important aspects of a man’s life. The life of a public figure. Which involves issues that I think should be of public concern, because regular, non-public people deal with the same matters in their own lives. I’ll say now that in doing this, we’re often dealing with psychology—emotional states, motivation, what people are doing, and why they are doing it. I don’t believe that psychology is a matter of laboratory experimentation, let alone hard science. It’s real life. Such matters can, at best, be discussed only as opinion, through inference and educated speculation. There can be a moral and philosophical component as well.
And let’s not forget that all but the most frivolous commentary on the Beach Boys has already, for a long time, speculated about internal motives and states of mind, and expressed views that implicate human psychology and family dynamics, among other things. In my opinion, it’s impossible to write about Brian Wilson (and the Beach Boys) without speculating in this manner. It’s a subjective, rather than objective inquiry. But it should still be a reasoned discussion, I hope; one that, right or wrong, is informed, thought-out, and sufficiently serious.
Q: Where did you obtain your information?
A: Over the past half-century (if not longer) a large amount of information has accumulated through books, newspaper articles, magazine profiles, video documentaries, and interviews. There is also a wealth of information in the music, song concepts, and lyrics of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.
I should, and will, credit the people who have provided the public with information (fact, opinion, journalistic research, critical commentary, autobiographical remembrance, etc.) about Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. From time to time the text will specifically acknowledge the work of a journalist, writer, or commentator when I am aware that the writer has already provided notable important research or insight on a specific issue. I will also provide a comprehensive (though non-exhaustive) bibliography of Beach Boys-related sources, and possibly, as may be appropriate in the future, a separate bibliography pertaining to other relevant subject matter.
However, this is not to suggest that even one of these people would endorse my citation of their work or agree with my opinions. My opinions are my own.
At the same time, I am aware that there is a vast store of information that remains inaccessible, and unknown to me: sealed or destroyed court files, confidential medical and legal files, and the recollection of many, many people who have dealt personally with Brian and the Beach Boys over the years. I’m doing the best I can with what is available to me as an average (albeit motivated) member of the public.
Readers always remain free to reach their own conclusions. After all, the name of this publication is A Book of Brian Wilson, not The Book of Brian Wilson. This is to acknowledge the fact that there are other ways to view the story, and mine is only one of them.
Q: Why did you decide to do this?
A: Because even with all that’s been written and said, there’s still plenty of room for further analysis of Brian Wilson, with a different understanding of the significance of his life and career.
Q: But why do you think that? How did you come to have that opinion?
A: It happened gradually, over time.
Q: Starting from… when?
A: I don’t know. I first became aware of the Beach Boys many decades ago. That’s technically the starting point for me. But maybe I would go back no further than approximately 25 years ago give or take a year. At that point, I was aware of the Beach Boys, but only superficially, being familiar with only two releases: the old Endless Summer hits compilation (released 1974), and the Pet Sounds album (1966). I wasn’t a fan necessarily. But something happened one day, which, for me, probably marks the first stirrings of a more serious and sober interest in Brian Wilson.
Q: And that was?
A: I’ll describe it, to the best of my recollection, over a couple of posts in the future, perhaps as a supplement to this introductory Q & A. For now, I think the main thing is that at some point I (like a lot of people) developed a casual interest in the story of Brian Wilson, and over a period of several years it reached a point where I really decided to learn as much as I could. And at some point after that, I decided to write about it (so as to better understand it) and it was only recently (around 2023) that I decided to share my thoughts in some kind of public forum. So here we are.
Q: Where to go next?
A: A Book of Brian Wilson features a Reader Guide that describes the different categories of reading material that can be found here. Having reached the end of this Q & A, I think the next step should be to check out the Reader Guide. Or, alternatively, why not just jump right here, and begin reading a detailed, informed, and opinionated account of Brian’s life and career from birth through the Pet Sounds and Smile-era of the mid-1960s. (I recommend starting at the beginning—with this post—and then progressing through the series in chronological order.)
A link to the Reader Guide can be found on the homepage under “Resources.” The Guide can also be accessed directly here: Reader Guide
