My first rock concert was to see the Beach Boys in the early 1960s, and I fell in love – not just with the joyous surfin’ sound, but with the ballads like “In My Room” and “Don’t Worry Baby,” written and sung with quiet anguish by the boy not much older than me, Brian Wilson.
He was the gentle, creative genius behind the Beach Boys, the first pop musician credited with writing, arranging, producing and performing his own material, holding harmonies meant for a choir in his head.
Bob Dylan once said, “That ear. I mean, Jesus, he’s got to will that to the Smithsonian,” and, “He gave us little slices of the twinkle in God’s eye.”
By the mid-1960s, Wilson had steered more than two dozen hits to the top of the charts.
By 1964, he’d had a nervous breakdown.
We, his many fans, always saw him as sensitive and fragile, felt we had to cheer him on, lift him up. And it only added to his tortured-genius lore when after his breakdown, in 1966, the Beach Boys released Brian Wilson’s masterpiece, the first concept album, “Pet Sounds.”
But his downward spiral continued. Drug addictions. Mental health diagnosis. His family said a quack psychologist took over Wilson’s life.
He was slipping through our fingers. And then he just disappeared.
Fast forward to 1999. I was working at a commercial radio station in Boston and saw that Wilson had stepped tentatively back on the stage for the first time in years in Chicago.
So, I called the great concert promoter, the late Freddie Taylor, and said, “let’s get Wilson and the Beach Boys!”
And we did. Wilson was petrified, but he sold out Boston’s Symphony Hall. I also did a lovely interview, which no one has been able to find since.
It wouldn’t be the first time I’d lose Brian Wilson.
Because of that first interview in 1999, I was offered another in 2002, for Here and Now. But incredibly there were rare technical difficulties when we aired the interview.
For years, we thought that was lost as well.
When the news came that Brian Wilson had died at the age of 82, I told colleagues I was trying to find any trace of him. They jumped into action and found a portion of our talk.
Again, it was 2002, Wilson’s unlikely comeback from a hallucinogenic drug and mental health- addled wilderness had grown from Chicago and Boston to London, where the Beach Boys had just re-recorded the “Pet Sounds” album, live. We would talk about that, and you can hear the damage done to Brian’s speech and thought process. But his kind soul was very much intact.
Robin Young’s 2002 conversation with Brian Wilson
This interview was edited for clarity.
Let’s go back for a second, what was it like to play for only the second time in years at the sold-out Symphony Hall?
“It was quite a hum. I really feel very, very honored and proud yeah.
It brought the house down, didn’t it?”
What do you think that is, so many years later?
“Well, I don’t know, to tell you the truth. I don’t know, I think it was just time for me to hit the road and get going.”
What happens in the concerts when you play through “Pet Sounds”?
“People are quiet and they listen hard, but they listen very carefully. It’s a special album. Because it brings love to people and they need that love.”
I didn’t know it was a concept album. I just thought it was beautiful. When you were writing it, were you thinking it was a concept album?
“No, I didn’t think it was a concept album. It was just an album that had some continuity to it. You know, one song flows into another.”
The voice of a singer sounds like a young man, he also seems to be singing about as one title says, not being “made for these times”?
“Yeah, it’s about a guy who is too far ahead of his time.”
Was that you?
“Yeah.”
How else did you feel that, being too far ahead of your time?
“All kind of strange. But that was just that one song you know. It didn’t necessarily have to be the truth. Well, some of it was the truth, yeah.”
What were the things influencing you when you wrote your music? Some people, especially younger people, think it was just surf and sun.
“Right. Well, I met a collaborator named Tony Asher, and he and I decided to take a different approach. To venture to new areas of music, that’s what we did.”
Can you remember what you were feeling when you were actually writing this music?
“I was feeling very, very full of love. I had a lot of love to express in my voice in my heart.”
And yet there were some tough times as well. Your dad for instance was tough on you guys?
“Yeah, he cracked the whip quite a bit, he got us in gear.”
Was there more than that?
“It got that way, yeah, it did for a while.”
Was there a way you found to talk about that in the music?
“It came out in “Caroline, No.” I expressed love because I was being beaten up a lot by my dad and I just wanted to express love.”
It’s funny. I asked you about that a few years ago and you couldn’t talk about that then.
“Yeah, it’s actually kind of tough to talk about right now.”
That leads me to the breakdown. Do you know what happened?
“I have auditory hallucinations in my head. It got very intense. I had to stop for a while.”
It must be intense, especially since you’re a songwriter and you’re going to hear songs in your head.
“Right.”
These (hallucinations) were not good?
“No.”
Do you know why it happened?
“No, I don’t.”
Do you know why it stopped?
“I got off my butt and started working.”
The song “I Know There’s an Answer”. When you introduce that song, you say this is sort of a Bob Dylan lyric.
“Right, right. I was thinking, my God, you know this is going to be fantastic! We’re writing something very special here.”
Can you say more?
“No.” [laughs]
How about the song “These Times Now”. Do you feel that?
“Yeah, I feel more in tune, like I feel a lot better. I fit in because I don’t know, I just fit into life better. Because I’m not doing something that’s ahead of my time, I’m in my time now.”
And then, some technical gremlins started to creep in, just as we were laughing about the Barenaked Ladies hit song, “Brian Wilson”. The lyrics, “lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did,” are reference to the years Wilson couldn’t get out of bed. Wilson laughed and sang some of the song. He said he sings it on stage.
The rest of our interview is just gone.
Why is it so damn hard to hold onto Brian Wilson?
This week we learned he died, at 82, held by his loving family, after a diagnosis of dementia.
After decades of joining fans in rooting him on, searching for him in so many different ways, I can’t help but think, maybe he wasn’t mine, or ours, to hold on to after all.
I’m letting go of Brian Wilson, with the deepest gratitude for all he struggled to give us.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
Copyright 2025 WBUR