This post continues on the subject of the August 1964 Beach Boys single, “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)”—a significant turning point in Brian Wilson’s creative evolution during the early- and mid-1960s. To summarize the previous entry:
(1) Although “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” was written for the typical teenage Beach Boys fan of the early ‘60s, it was deceptively sophisticated, expressing an outlook on life more likely to be appreciated by adults than the average teen;
(2) “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” marked the first time Brian wrote about the inner life intentionally—knowing he was doing so and wanting to do it. Moreover, it was the first time he took the fairly bold step of showcasing this kind of introspective material on a Beach Boys A-side.
The post below looks at the special significance “When I Grow Up” (To Be a Man)” would have had for 22-year-old Brian Wilson specifically, as an individual.
In his 2016 book I Am Brian Wilson, Brian flagged “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” as “one of the most important songs” from 1964, but didn’t explain why. Was it the musical arrangement? The fact that it wasn’t about a fad? Brian didn’t say, but only a few paragraphs later he offered the following, in the course of recounting his evolving approach to songwriting in the weeks and months after his nervous breakdown in December of that year:
When I came off the road after I freaked out on the flight to Houston, I spent lots of time in my apartment, thinking about the perfect songs for the group. We had done so many surfing songs and so many hot-rod songs by that point, and wanted to branch out. I wanted to write songs about relationships. I was growing in my normal life and I wanted to grow up musically.
In this passage, Brian was referring to his post-breakdown music of 1965—songs like “Let Him Run Wild” and “California Girls”—not “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man”) in 1964. Still, his comment points to the sensitivity he had to the importance of “growing up” as both musician and human being. Notwithstanding the fact that Brian was significantly older than the typical Beach Boys fan (by about 6-8 years), he himself was still growing up.
If Brian was to grow up in real life, shouldn’t his music grow up too? And for that matter, if Brian was growing up in his music (progressing as a producer and composer) shouldn’t he start growing up as a person? The answer, as Brian recalled it, was yes. The two spheres, life and music, would go together. They had to, for what would happen if they didn’t?
One possibility was the situation in which Brian evolved toward adulthood while dutifully cranking out teen-focused songs on fairly unserious and often fad-oriented themes. He had done this since the beginning, was still doing it very well, and it was easily conceivable that he could continue. After all, Bob Crewe was in his early thirties while writing and producing teen hits for the Four Seasons; Roger Christian was pushing thirty when he wrote stuff like “In the Parkin’ Lot” and “Car Crazy Cutie” with Brian. (Murry Wilson was then in his forties and trying to write teen music for the Sunrays.) In other words, Brian could become an adult in his role of businessman, while remaining a teenager as a songwriter.
However, Brian wasn’t this kind of musician. Time proves that he was a “visionary”—somebody who conceives new musical ideas, feelings, and sounds, and has the ability to bring them into existence. Of course he wouldn’t have been comfortable with typecasting, and as of the middle of 1964 he was well aware of the threat it posed to his and the Beach Boys’ career. That August, Brian was quoted in the trade press, saying, “I’m a little afraid of limiting our subject matter too much.”
Even less appealing was the prospect of the reverse scenario, in which Brian would be free to break new ground musically while failing to develop as young man, living outside the studio only as a kind of regressed man-child. Still worse than that was the possibility of being thwarted or stunted on both fronts, growing as neither musician nor human being. If that future was presented to Brian in 1964, he would have certainly rejected it.
As Brian implied in I Am Brian Wilson, the best way for someone like himself—a young, artistically-inclined musician—to handle this was to grow up in both music and in “normal life” together, bringing them into synch. “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” would seem to perfectly encapsulate Brian’s effort to simultaneously grow up both inside and outside of music. If you’re a songwriter who’s growing up in your personal life, why not write a song about the process (or prospect) of growing up itself?
From any rational point-of-view, as of August 1964 Brian would have seemed very mature in terms of physical stature, professional accomplishment, and personal deportment. Brian was hard-working, creative, knowledgeable about the business, and aware of his responsibilities. After two years of consistent success under his leadership, the Beach Boys had proven themselves to be more than just a fluke. Brian was the primary breadwinner for his entire family. He had earned the respect of Capitol Records, which gave him a virtually unprecedented level of creative license.1 In his personal life, Brian wasn’t reckless, neither an alcohol or drug-abuser, nor a skirt-chasing horndog. Nor is there any indication that wealth, notoriety and success had made him into an egocentric jerk.
Nevertheless, despite appearances Brian had internal problems that were not noticeable to the casual observer. His personal background had been especially harmful and was potentially crippling in the long-term. What Brian referred to as the “normal life” outside of music hadn’t been very normal at all.
There's a strong mother and father thing happening with Brian; 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.
—David Anderle, 1967
Brian’s dad, Murry Wilson, was the most visible and easily identifiable embodiment of the developmental challenges Brian faced. Murry’s noxious mode of parenting Brian had consisted of three main components: (i) an extreme level of physical violence, perversity, and punitiveness; (ii) oppressive, suffocating parental involvement and control; and (iii) moralistic instruction that framed all of it as a righteous form of love and protection. Within this alternate reality, Murry was a paragon of fatherly decency; a self-described “intelligent,” “strong,” and “honest” man who would say things to Brian like, “I’ve protected you for 22 years against many people that have tried to hurt you.”
In other words, the official Wilson narrative was that Murry had never tried to, and never had, hurt Brian. (As Murry’s infamous 1965 letter to Brian illustrates, it was basically every other human being on earth who wanted to do that.) If Murry had his way, his special brand of fatherly guidance and protection would continue in perpetuity, so that he could continue to subordinate and exploit Brian under the pretext of guidance and security, and appropriate Brian’s success as his own. Were this to occur, the adult Brian might appear to be a man in physical appearance, but in substance he would remain a compromised figure—at best, a satellite forever in orbit around the all-powerful and domineering protector.
In his own quiet way, Brian endured, resisted, and pushed back throughout childhood. Later, he successfully held the line against Murry’s aggression in the early years of the Beach Boys. And just recently, in April 1964, Brian took the landmark step of firing Murry as Beach Boys manager. This was a very big deal for the Beach Boys and especially the members of the Wilson family of Hawthorne. The real significance of the act wasn’t so much that Murry lost the formal title of “manager” (he would continue to maintain standing in the organization) as much as the fact that for the first time, Brian asserted authority over his father, effectively treating him as an employee subject to at-will termination.
It can be assumed that after doing this, Brian had some awareness that he had accomplished something significant. After all, this was probably the first time anybody in the family had drawn a line in the sand and said NO to Murry Wilson. (And Murry was stunned, retreating to his bedroom before rising again to write anti-Brian songs for the Sunrays.) Was it a mere coincidence that Brian conceived “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” in the weeks or months after standing up to his father like this? Could a Beach Boys song on the theme of incipient manhood/adulthood ever have been made while a father like Murry Wilson was manager and unofficial co-producer in the studio? Would Brian have even conceived the idea for “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” while he was still being formally “managed” and “protected” by the person who beat him throughout childhood as a matter of course?
The middle of 1964 was a period during which Brian would have been better able to imagine a real future for himself as an adult. He had at last taken an overt stand against Murry. Murry then retreated. Brian had stood fast, taken responsibility for his own well-being, and survived. And the world did not come to an end. He had earned a little more freedom with which to move forward with the music he was making with the Beach Boys. He was freer to move forward in life, too. He was growing up—“becoming a man”— and had to have known, or felt it on some level. After all, “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” does not ask, “will I grow up” but instead assumes that adulthood will happen.
What “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” does not take for granted is the specific character of that adulthood. “What will I be?” it asks. In the song, the future is uncertain and undefined, just as it would have been for Brian in his new, potentially Murry-free life. If Brian had indeed won a measure of personal freedom, that was good. But he would have to pay for it with a reduction in certainty. The exchange of parental security for increased autonomy is certainly a big part of growing up. And for poorly-raised people like Brian, it is essential that it occur—the sooner he puts some distance between himself and the thuggish security of abuse and suppression, the better.
I can remember giving all three of my sons love in many forms and actually, when I was strict from time to time, it was because I felt it was my duty as a father to give you the security a punishment gives.
—Murry Wilson, letter to Brian Wilson, 1965
But if we are just simply told that children need security, we feel that something must be missing from this statement. Children find in security a sort of challenge, a challenge to them to prove that they can break out. The extreme of the idea that security is good would be that prison is a happy place to grow up in.
—D.W. Winnicott, BBC broadcast, 1960
Subsequent history proves that Brian Wilson would never really be able to emancipate himself from the past. Whatever autonomy he earned in late adolescence and with the Beach Boys in his early twenties would gradually evaporate, starting in the mid- or late-1960s. The reason this happened has, for decades, been the subject of a very bitter private and public debate. Eventually, Brian would forfeit all agency over his own life, leaving himself vulnerable to all manner of mistreatment and exploitation—often administered by people who, like Murry Wilson, professed undying love for Brian.
In the end, “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” can be heard as a song delivering heavy concerns about the future that, tragically, proved to be well-founded.2 Like “In My Room,” it dealt with introspection and emotion with a solitary, internal voice—the song never falls back to the more settled ground of male-female romance. “When I Grow Up” was in fact an up-tempo variation on the “In My Room” theme, for when this sort of kid—a kid like Brian—is in his room, alone with his thoughts, one of the things he’s thinking about is what kind of person he’ll become in adulthood. And if he’s Brian Wilson himself, he might be wondering if, when, and how he will become a monster like his father and grandfather.3
Many children cling to the hope that growing up will bring escape and freedom. But the personality formed in an environment of coercive control is not well adapted to adult life. The survivor is left with fundamental problems in basic trust, autonomy, and initiative. She approaches the tasks of early adulthood—establishing independence and intimacy—burdened by major impairments in self-care, in cognition and memory, in identity, and in the capacity to form stable relationships. She is still a prisoner of her childhood. . .
—Judith Herman
More commentary in Part 25 of A History of Brian—click here to continue
Selected References for Part 24
Beach Boys, The. “Help Me, Rhonda” session recording. March 1965. At: WFMU’s Beware of the Blog. At: https://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2005/10/im_a_genius_too.html (last accessed September 5, 2023).
The Beach Boys. Directed by Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny. Kennedy/Marshall Company/White Horse Pictures/Disney+, 2024.
Carlin, Peter Ames. Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson. Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2006.
Felton, David. "The Healing of Brother Bri." Rolling Stone, November 4, 1976.
Gaines, Steven. Heroes and Villains: The True Story of the Beach Boys. New York: Dutton/Signet, 1986.
Grevatt, Ren. “The Beach Boys Ride the Trends.” Music Business, August 15, 1964.
Herman, Judith. Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books, 1997.
Leaf, David. The Beach Boys and the California Myth. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978.
Sharp, Ken. “Love Among the Ruins: The Controversial Beach Boy Speaks His Mind.” Goldmine, September 18, 1992.
__________ . “Mike Love of the Beach Boys: One-On-One.” Rock Cellar, September 9, 2015. At: https://web.archive.org/web/20180612170213/https://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/2015/09/09/mike-love-of-the-beach-boys-one-on-one-the-interview-part-1/2/ (last accessed May 24, 2024)
Williams, Paul. Brian Wilson & The Beach Boys: How Deep Is the Ocean? New York: Omnibus Press, 1997.
Wilson, Brian, and 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.
Winnicott, D.W. The Family and Individual Development. New York: Routledge Classics, 2006.
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However, it is best understood as a license to be creative only as a businessman or record-making craftsman. Brian’s professional and personal situation did not allow him creative license as an artist.
The fatalism of Brian’s epic “Til I Die” from 1970-71—with its recognition of a certain powerlessness that will persist “until I die”—is noticeable in “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man).” As Brian and the Beach Boys count off the years one-by-one in the fade-out of “When I Grow Up,” the listener is left free to realize that the counting will stop only when the singer/narrator finally expires at the end of his life.
The prospect of somehow following in the Wilson tradition and becoming a habitual child abuser was always a fear in the back of Brian’s mind. According to his former wife Marilyn, once she and Brian started to have children in the late 1960s, Brian expressly told her that he did not want to be involved in child discipline because he was afraid of what he might do.