Light the Lamp
by Peter Reum
Author's Preface: This article originally appeared in Open Sky Magazine. Thank you to Chris Allen who helped with this piece, and Jon Hechtman, who assisted with editing. This version has been edited for readability.
Chris: I first saw your name under a Beach Boys picture crediting The Peter Reum Collection. I know that your Collection was actually the beginning of an amazing journey into the world of Brian Wilson. Can you tell us a little bit about the Collection? What is it
?
Peter: The Collection was the product of years of research and collaboration between several people, most notably myself and David Leaf. I had started collecting in the mid 1970s, having rekindled an interest in Brian Wilson's music that I had in the early Sixties when I first had heard his music. I would estimate that the photo archive alone had close to 3500 images from different periods of The Beach Boys careers. Today, that part of it, including the famous Jasper Dailey Smile Era photographs are with David.
I specialized in the discovery of arcane Brian and Beach Boy records and memorabilia that today are taken for granted as part of the canon of Beach Boy/Brian Wilson history. I did the first detailed Beach Boys discographies. For example, The Timers 45 was one that I identified as being a BW guest vocal appearance that was confirmed by other researchers later. I could cite dozens more, but why drive people crazy?
I used the Collection, on my own, and with David and others to keep Brian and The Beach Boys' names in front of the public eye with the goal of awaiting Brian's return to health and subsequent recognition for the achievements in music he has accomplished. Between media projects I worked on and ones David Leaf brought me into, the list is well over 100 now. Most of these happened between 1976 and 1996 though. In recent years, having given up the Collection as part of a divorce, I tend to do only historical consulting now.
The list of projects to name a few, would include the Leaf, Preiss, Elliott, Milward, Gaines, Gold, Carlin, and Priore books, the Capitol cd 2-for reissues, The Capitol Years Box (first Beach Boys Boxed set), the 20th Anniversary TV Special, 25th Anniversary Special, I Just Wasn't Made for These Times DVD, The Brian Wilson Songwriter's Tribute DVD, 30 Years of The Beach Boys Boxed cd Set, Pet Sounds Sessions Boxed cd Set, Smile Sessions Boxed Set and much more. But, I am proudest of helping Brian with his health over the years, far more than what the Collection accomplished.
Chris: Could you talk a little bit about that? When did you meet Brian, and what were the circumstances?
Peter: The first encounter I had with Brian was in the initial Landy era on a trip with a friend to LA in 1976. We had come out for the Capitol Record Collector's Swap Meet and were making the rounds of LA Beach Boy sites-the Bellagio Road House, Brother Studio, etc. We met him at the backdoor to Brother Studio which had a loading dock cement slab with a Surfin' USA RIAA Gold Record Award in the concrete. We were talking about it when out the door comes Brian and his entourage. He was not a particularly social guy at this point but still was friendly and talked with us for about 5 minutes. Needless to say, it was a thrill, and I was the Colorado BB Fan Club Rep. at the time, about which Brian seemed amused as he was having occasional encounters with Alice Lillie, the then and still Fan Club President.
Later in 1977, I met David Leaf, and agreed to help him by serving as a Contributing Editor to Pet Sounds Magazine, which he published at the time. David got the contract to his Brian/Beach Boy biography, and we worked together nearly 15 months gathering stuff to illustrate the book. By 1981, I was maintaining fairly regular contact with the people trying to help Brian at the time. It was an uphill fight complicated by Brian's illness and the lack of a competent diagnosis. I was in graduate school. I went out to LA and attended the 20th Anniversary concert that year and was staying at David's home while he went back East visiting relatives.
I met Brian backstage at the concert and was disturbed by how withdrawn he seemed from the people around him. I introduced myself, and told him, making small talk, what a huge fan of George Gershwin's music I was. His countenance immediately lit up, and we discussed favorite songs and works for a few minutes. I told him that if he ever needed a particular Gershwin recording to call David and I'd get it for him. Little did I think that he would take me seriously, or even remember what I said.
Several months later, David called me, asking me to find a little known rendition of Rhapsody in Blue, recorded by Stanley Black conducting the London Festival Orchestra. David explained that this was Brian's favorite version of the Rhapsody, and that he badly wanted a copy of it. He had apparently lost his cassette or lp of the Black recording. Being an accomplished Gershwin as well as Beach Boy collector, I set about trying to find a copy for Brian. It was not easy, but thanks to Roy Gudge and John Tobler, I was able to get a cassette recording of the Black version, off an lp Tobler owned. Roy was a trooper, looking around until he found the right version. Interestingly, the Stanley Black recording is copyrighted 1966, and is probably the one Brian was listening to when he cut Pet Sounds and Smile.
I dubbed a copy off for Brian and sent it to him through David Leaf. David gave it to Brian, and told him there would always be a copy for him if he misplaced it, because "Peter has a copy also." I still have a cd I maintain for this purpose. I was told by David that Brian loved that tape and played it often. I received a Christmas card from Brian I still have. I got out to California in December 1982, and discovered Brian had invited me over with David to thank me for the tape. Brian was living in Pacific Palisades at the time and was not in good health. He was living with a nurse named Carolyn, and David took me over to visit him.
I had heard through the grapevine that Brian was very ill, and not expected to live much longer. Nothing could prepare me for the time I spent with him. It was only a couple of hours, but it was a very interesting and emotional experience. Brian reintroduced himself, and I did likewise, referring back to our Gershwin conversation backstage the previous year. Brian immediately remembered it, and proceeded to ask me about myself. He asked me whether I had a family, what I liked to eat, what music I liked, and so forth. The conversation was friendly, and he sat down at the upright piano and played some boogie woogie piano and then went into Rhapsody in Blue, going on for about 10 minutes.
This was a spiritual experience I can never explain well verbally, but there is a part of the slow part of Rhapsody in Blue that obviously affects Brian the way it affects me, in that certain versions are so moving that they make my heart almost explode in my chest. He told me the same thing in passing at the piano, and I told him that Rhapsody in Blue is the most moving and spiritual American piece of music. Brian said "You know, I have heard this music and loved it since I was a small child." I explained to Brian that my mother used to play it on the piano for me as a child because I loved it more than almost anything else she played. Brian replied by saying "All of my life is in Rhapsody in Blue. It is the story of my life. Your finding and giving me this tape has meant so much this last year. Every time I have felt like ending my life or hurting myself, I have played this tape and it has saved my life." By this time I was floored and humbled. God works in mysterious ways. I told Brian that it was my privilege to help, and that I would do everything I could to assist. I had just finished graduate school, and I had no idea how that training would later help me work with people around Brian again in 1990-91.
Brian invited me back to his bedroom to listen to the tape. We talked for awhile before he pressed play. The conversation's details I will not discuss here, except to say that I asked Brian if he ever had wanted to do longer, more classical type compositions like Gershwin. He said, "Yeah, I had hoped to move in that direction." I told him I heard a Gershwin influence in his work, especially his mid 60s compositions. He said "I wanted to be known for more than writing pop songs." I told him I had heard some of the Smile music, and that I heard a strong Gershwin influence in it, especially in it being so emotional and in the way the horns and strings played. I asked him if Smile was going to be his "Rhapsody in Blue." Brian replied by saying, "Yeah, I wanted to do a long piece with 3 movements like the Rhapsody in Blue that would take up an album." I knew I was treading on sensitive stuff, and said "Hey, let's listen to the tape." Brian said "Yeah, then I gotta go." We listened to Rhapsody in Blue, and Brian shook my hand, and I repeated to him that if he ever needed any Gershwin, especially the Stanley Black, that I had a copy, and lots of other stuff too. Little did I know how much a shared Gershwin interest would bring me into Brian's orbit. I didn't see him again until 1986. I never disclosed this part of our conversation until Smile's premiere this year. I found it interesting that Smile's structure as performed in London matched the description he gave me back in 1982. I honestly did not know if that was accurate at the time or not.
Chris: "What happened in the '90-'91 timeframe you referred to?"
Peter: I rehooked up with Brian in 1986 after he had been in Dr. Landy's care for a few years. We were working on the 25th Anniversary TV Special, and Brian came down to the office one afternoon while David was out. I went down to see how he was doing, and he appeared alert, healthy, and somewhat stifled. He had 2 people with him at all times who seemed to be "keepers."
I later learned that Brian's family had not had contact with him and that he rarely got to see his daughters. I reintroduced myself to Brian, mentioning Gershwin yet again, and he brightened up and said "How ya doin'?" I replied that I was fine, how was he doing? He said, "I'm writing music again, and I've got several new songs." I told him "That's great. Brian, the world needs your music." He left, and I didn't hear about him or from him again until the sessions for his solo album were going on.
I began to hear stories of Dr. Landy being such a controlling influence that he would call every 10 minutes for updates on Brian's activities. I also began to hear about facial tics, a waxen countenance on his face, and his hands having tremors. I asked to have more details, as this began to concern me. I spoke to Domenic Priore, Andy Paley, and David Leaf several times. They were all involved to one degree or another with Brian's studio work at this time, 1988. Brian had become extremely passive, unwilling to work under the conditions he was experiencing. Privately, he would complain about his living circumstances when the "Surf Nazis" (Brian's handlers) turned away for a minute.
It became apparent as 1988 went on into 1989 that Brian was being heavily medicated. Being in the field of mental health myself, as well as developmental disabilities services, I began to wonder if the medications were being well monitored. People around Brian would mention lapses in attention, what appeared to be minor blackouts, and the symptoms already mentioned above. In the mental health and developmental disability services fields, we do regular medication reviews, blood draws, and other forms of monitoring to be sure the medications are not at toxic levels or having deleterious effects. By late 1989, I had heard stories of several close calls regarding toxicity.
I attended the 1990 fan convention in San Diego which Brian attended. The man I saw was not the man I had seen in 1981 or 1986. The symptoms of waxen appearance, facial tics, and palsied hands and legs added up to only one answer. Brian had tardive dyskinesia, which is a condition brought on by long term excessive administration of controlled psychotropic medications.
It became apparent as 1988 went on into 1989 that Brian was being heavily medicated. Being in the field of mental health myself, as well as developmental disabilities services, I began to wonder if the medications were being well monitored. People around Brian would mention lapses in attention, what appeared to be minor blackouts, and the symptoms already mentioned above. In the mental health and developmental disability services fields, we do regular medication reviews, blood draws, and other forms of monitoring to be sure the medications are not at toxic levels or having deleterious effects. By late 1989, I had heard stories of several close calls regarding toxicity.
I attended the 1990 fan convention in San Diego which Brian attended. The man I saw was not the man I had seen in 1981 or 1986. The symptoms of waxen appearance, facial tics, and palsied hands and legs added up to only one answer. Brian had tardive dyskinesia, which is a condition brought on by long term excessive administration of controlled psychotropic medications.
I was extremely concerned by what I had heard and seen. I called my friends David Leaf and his wife Eva and told them that Brian was probably over medicated, and that such over medication was having a long term and permanent effect upon his neurological well being. I told them if they did not want Brian to die of toxic levels of medication in his system, or become a drooling, palsied mental patient, that they needed to alert the authorities. They had contacted me earlier asking why Brian might have these symptoms. I told them exactly what the condition Brian had was, and why it came on.
David and Eva contacted Carl and Audree Wilson, and they eventually understood the issues at hand. He and his mother, along with other parties began legal proceedings to terminate the therapeutic relationship between Brian and his psychologist. I was shown a videotape, which had been given to the parties who filed for freeing Brian and asked whether it was significant. It had been taken out of Brian's home by a former Surf Nazi. When I saw the tape in 1991, which I call "the smoking gun", it was apparent that the issues behind the litigation were supported. I told the people filing the litigation that they had what they needed. Several months later, an out of court settlement was reached, and Landy withdrew as Brian's psychologist, severing all therapeutic and business ties.
David and Eva contacted Carl and Audree Wilson, and they eventually understood the issues at hand. He and his mother, along with other parties began legal proceedings to terminate the therapeutic relationship between Brian and his psychologist. I was shown a videotape, which had been given to the parties who filed for freeing Brian and asked whether it was significant. It had been taken out of Brian's home by a former Surf Nazi. When I saw the tape in 1991, which I call "the smoking gun", it was apparent that the issues behind the litigation were supported. I told the people filing the litigation that they had what they needed. Several months later, an out of court settlement was reached, and Landy withdrew as Brian's psychologist, severing all therapeutic and business ties.
Today, people inside Brian's camp still come up and introduce me as the person who "gave us the name of Brian's condition and told us what we needed to know to tell the review board." Once again, God works in mysterious ways, because I had had an in-service on tardive dyskinesia less than a week before I went to the San Diego Fan Convention.
Today, most of Brian's symptoms seem to be in retreat, and it is apparent that the doctors treating him are working very hard to help him as much as is possible. Brian today is the person who I imagined from afar before meeting him... funny, gentle, and very kind.
Chris: Peter, It seems that no matter what the obstacles were, and they appear to have been huge, in the midst of it Brian used music to survive. "Love and Mercy," "Melt Away" and "Rio Grande" (among others) were written in the midst of a very trying time, and transcend his life situation in some way. How much easier it must be now to do what he loves without so much insanity. Which he kind of said with "Happy Days."
Peter: The thing about surviving is learning what nurtures us when human beings don't. Brian had to do so as a child. We go through times in our lives where for one reason or another, human contact is either not forthcoming or is not rewarding. Yet, Brian has had some rich friendships throughout his life, and the people that have helped him on his journey are often genuine heroes, helping him rebel against whoever was trying to run his life at that point.
Peter: The thing about surviving is learning what nurtures us when human beings don't. Brian had to do so as a child. We go through times in our lives where for one reason or another, human contact is either not forthcoming or is not rewarding. Yet, Brian has had some rich friendships throughout his life, and the people that have helped him on his journey are often genuine heroes, helping him rebel against whoever was trying to run his life at that point.
In the time when Brian was with Landy, most of his contact was with paid psychological professionals or people who wanted something from him...a new song, a background vocal, perhaps production advice. The first solo album was sinking in the mire of too many people trying to tell Brian what to do rather than letting him create. He also felt the pressure, and was scared of what people would say critically. There was incredible tension between the production team and Landy's people. Brian just shut down after while.
Along came Andy Paley, who came to enjoy Brian as a person, and early on thought of him as a friend. Rio Grande, Melt Away, and other tunes on BW '88 happened because one person reached out to Brian as a person first. Andy gave Brian an excuse to do a little healthy rebelling against the crushing pressure of the Surf Nazis and Landy.
Brian has always enjoyed the process of doing little stunts that allow him to "get away" with things when the authority figures in his life aren't looking. It probably goes back to his childhood with his dad. In this case, many of the tunes were born out of rebellion against Landy and other people crowding him at that point in time. Brian's rebellious behavior is very well documented in several books. The nature of being rebellious is that you either have to like conflict or be incredibly covert. Brian tends toward the latter because he hates conflict. The only way to approach someone like Brian is to slowly gain his trust by being very consistent. When you are predictable, you are not a threat. Andy mastered this manner of interacting with Brian, and by taking it slowly and having a helper's attitude drew Brian out of his shell and into creating new music. Brian's alliance with Paley lasted well into the 90s in the studio, and his album, Getting In Over My Head has some Wilson/Paley tunes. It is due to Andy Paley that we have a Brian who enjoys the studio again and wants to use it as an instrument. Music is Brian's sanctuary, but he needs collaborators to bounce ideas off of, and to help play instruments he can't play.
Lots of people who grow up in dysfunctional (unhealthy) families develop strategies like Brian's to survive. The difference is that Brian has learned that while being sneaky is fun, it's also a good way to make authority figures mad and get new friends sent away, should he not want to hang out any more.
Chris: I'm not a music historian, but listening to Rhapsody In Blue, it sounds like it was probably as new for its time as the Smile music was in the '60s, would you agree? Brian was clearly pushing the pop envelope. What were some of your reactions to hearing the music in London?
Peter: In thinking about how to address how Rhapsody in Blue and Smile are closely connected, we can see that for Brian, Rhapsody in Blue is such a personal piece of music that he has been reticent to talk about it through the years until recently except privately. Perhaps the best way to start is with a quote from George Gershwin about how he approached Rhapsody in Blue, taken from "The Gershwins" by Kimball and Simon (p35): "I was summoned to Boston for the promotion of Sweet Little Devil (a musical featuring Gershwin songs). I had already done some work on the rhapsody. It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ly bang that is so often stimulating to a composer...I frequently hear music in the very heart of noise. And there I suddenly heard--and even saw on paper---the complete construction of the rhapsody, from beginning to end. No new themes came to me, but I worked on the thematic material already in my mind, and tried to conceive of the composition as a whole. I HEARD IT AS A SORT OF MUSICAL KALEIDOSCOPE OF AMERICA---OF OUR VAST MELTING POT, OF OUR UNDUPLICATED NATIONAL PEP, OF OUR METROPOLITAN MADNESS. By the time I reached Boston, I had a definite plot of the piece, as distinguished from its actual substance (emphasis in caps is mine)."
Rhapsody in Blue was originally presented as part of a concert promoted by bandleader Paul Whiteman entitled "An Experiment in Modern Music." The idea was to present what were termed pieces which showed "progress in jazz." The Rhapsody in Blue was to be the centerpiece of the concert, blurring the line between jazz, classical, and popular music of the time. Gershwin performed it on February 12, 1924 in Aeolian Hall in New York. Critics' reactions were mixed. One critic said the Rhapsody was pretentious, and wept "over the lifelessness of its melody and harmony, so derivative, so stale, and so inexpressive." Another said Gershwin was "a new talent finding its voice and likely to say something personally and musically important to the world (ibid p37)."
What is most fascinating is that although Rhapsody was billed as a jazz composition, it is really more diverse in its influences, and today is considered a symphonic piece. The original Grofe Rhapsody arrangement, which can be heard on a 1924 78 rpm record which has been presented on several cds, is far more sassy and humorous than versions recorded today. It is interesting to note that both composers placed a high priority on capturing the upbeat, optimistic nature of the American Spirit. Brian and Van Dyke also placed a high priority on the presence of humor throughout Smile.
Brian heard versions throughout his childhood. It is not surprising that Gershwin's Rhapsody would have such a strong influence on Brian's "Rhapsody." He wanted to have his feet both in the popular music world and symphonic concert hall like his hero did. The similarities between the men and their work is interesting…We hear that Gershwin was 25 when Rhapsody was performed. Brian was 25 when he canned Smile. Both men had been having "hits" for about 5 years when they decided to step outside the pop music song structure. Smile and Rhapsody in Blue were both conceived of as experiments in long form symphonic composition, yet used pop music musicians to perform the piece when premiered live. Both pieces were to depict a portrait of America in all its grandeur and diversity. The words "musical kaleidoscope of America" have been used by both men to describe their compositions. Both men had no formal training in composing in symphonic form. We are left wondering and in awe when we hear either piece. The youth and vitality of the composers of both works and their utter lack of cynicism and irony is an incredible testament to the belief present in both the Twenties and the Sixties that if there is anything wrong with America, it can be remedied and made right.
For me, hearing Rhapsody in Blue is tantamount to hearing everything great about American Music...it's sassiness, bustling momentum, melodic and rhythmic genius, vast grandeur, diversity, spirituality, melting pot of musical styles, humor, and so forth. The first time I heard Smile, the sheer audacity of its scope, irresistibility of its melodies, pictorial grandeur of its instrumental and vocal arrangements, and the added dimension of brilliant poetry set to its structure left me exactly as I felt it always would---exhausted, overwhelmed emotionally, and exultant at its sheer beauty. The genius of its structure and flow reminded me so much of Rhapsody in Blue...a vibrant and grand initial movement, starting as dramatically as the Rhapsody's clarinet glissando...using an acapella prayer, followed by a small "quote" from what many consider to be the first rock and roll record- "Gee" by the Crows, letting you know this is a Rock composition. It is also interesting that the musical content of Smile moves from a riff from Gee at its beginning to the most musically advanced rock record up to that time "Good Vibrations."
The sweeping passages evoking the landscape of America from The Old West to Plymouth Rock, the Great Plains to Hawaii, to Native America. The first section of Rhapsody covers similar territory, one has visions of 1920s America, economically robust, turned inward in self-awareness, bustling with busy cities, railroads, and unfettered optimism. I would call Smile's First Movement Americana, not that my opinion counts.
Brian's Smile turns introspective in its second movement, exploring the connection between generations, and how spirituality is best expressed in simple, basic family life. To grow spiritually, we must become as children. As Smile passes through the Second Movement, which I would call Cycle of Life, we understand that the child is truly father to the man. The thoughts we have as old men and women are concerned with many of the same ideas we had as children. We again have become dependent, not upon our parents, but upon our children. The music is slower, more evocative emotionally, and very spiritual. The second section of the Rhapsody in Blue is probably the most famous piece of American Classical Music. We all know those few bars that United Airlines used as its signature theme, but those notes come out of a busy, almost consciously preoccupied and incongruous set of notes that make the segue into the main theme all the more dramatic. I have always associated it with spiritual rebirth...like an awakening. The notes of the main theme paint a broad vision of two people embracing, dancing, and looking intimately toward each other. It is unquestionably a theme of intimacy, love, and spiritual union.
Smile's Third Movement is about spiritual seeking, uniting body, mind, and spirit, and the cleansing nature of spiritual crises and suffering. As one moves through the Third Movement, which I would call The Spiritual Rebirth (Elements), one sees the Seeker trying out different approaches to life...love, hedonism, living naturally, meditating, exercising....only to realize that it is all for naught. He has a spiritual crisis, and asks God to take his suffering and bear his burden. He steps into Light, experiences the cleansing power of water, and decides to live the rest of his life in a simple manner, free from he rat race. He closes in a Prayer, and praying for Good Vibrations to himself, his listeners, and to the world at large. Rhapsody's Third Section also presents a picture of seeking something better, something more than just being busy, being preoccupied, and chasing the almighty dollar. It restates several themes heard throughout, and ends resonating on a note of optimism, about the future, the listener's world, and the composer's world.
The beauty of Smile is, that because of Van Dyke's stunning lyrics, we are not left to try to puzzle out what Smile is about as much as we are in the instrumental Rhapsody in Blue. Smile covers an overall theme of being reunified with the One, the God of our understanding. We see that in the First Movement, there is a strong theme of how technology and Manifest Destiny changed the character of North America forever. Native cultures were decimated. The whole Movement seems to be a prayer to God to help us recapture our lost innocence and natural state as a country. The Second Movement emphasizes the importance of family and interdependence, showing us that what one generation builds, another generation tears down. This theme mirrors the world weary theme we find from Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament, wherein Solomon states "there is nothing new under the sun." The Second Movement seems almost to be a prayer for wisdom and assistance to God to help us train our children wisely to make the world a safer, better place. The Third Movement documents the journey of a Spiritual Seeker through a variety of different experiments in personal identity, all ending in an unsatisfying manner, until a spiritual crisis places the Seeker in the position of being totally broken, as foreshadowed in the lyrics to Surfs Up. The Seeker meets God, and is transformed, praying for Good spiritual Vibrations for himself, his family, and the world at large. One, One, Wonderful…a common word used throughout Smile.
I kept thinking that night of the Smile premiere in London how much George Gershwin's beautiful music had brought me into the life of the only man in the Rock Era whose talent probably matched Gershwin's, and how George must be smiling in pride somewhere at how Brian had finally been able to complete his symphonic work inspired by Rhapsody in Blue--Smile. I had brought over an 8 cd boxed set of George Gershwin music for Brian, and wondered how in Heaven's name I would get it to him.
Through the kindness of Mark London, the man responsible for the Smile Tour's Program, I was escorted to a room where the Band and Brian and Melinda relaxed each night after the show. I explained to Melinda that it was a gift to Brian, and how our interest in Gershwin had brought us together. She graciously agreed to give it to Brian. The next night, Brian signed my Concert Program at the Meet and Greet, and I asked him if he got the Gershwin set. He said "yeah, Peter, I did." I was amazed he remembered me after all these years. The next night I told him that "Smile was the most beautiful piece of music I have ever heard. I'm glad I lived long enough to hear it." Brian got a big Smile on his face and said "Thanks, Peter!" Both of us knew without saying it out loud that it's better than the Rhapsody in Blue.
Chris: Knowing the history of what happened with the project and how much Brian avoided talking about it, it must have taken a lot of courage to decide to go back and finally finish Smile.
Peter: Brian did not initially want to reenter the dark cave from his past called Smile. He had terrible memories from the period...feelings of being emotionally terrified, feelings of betrayal by his family and record company; feelings of spiritual evil and isolation that were real to him; feelings of failure and descent into emotional malaise and pain that only he truly knows.
Most of all he felt alone and separated from God for the first time in his life. The experience is well documented in the literature of religion through the centuries. St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila both describe this terrible spiritual phase of life. Brian only knew it as a crisis, the worst of his life. When the crisis begins to pass, and you emerge from the cave, the light is at first overwhelming. Brian tried to "get back to where he once belonged" only to find that he couldn't. Then the real long term crisis began...how to live in a world where old coping mechanisms no longer kept the terror and the fear at bay.
Booze, food, and drugs were the answer for a long time, eventually to be replaced by milieu therapy under Dr. Landy, who substituted exercise and composing regularly as substitute positive addictions replacing the negative ones. This, along with "reparenting" Brian, came right out of the William Glasser textbook. The only problem is that emotional healing and change comes from inside a person and entails spiritual as well as emotional change...being with people who love you, not paid professionals, and feeling loved unconditionally.
Brian meets Melinda, and starts dating her. Landy realizes this is the real thing and cuts it off, because it gives Brian a taste of what real, rather than simulated unconditional love feels like. There's a fight for Brian Wilson's soul. On one side is Landy and the Surf Nazis, on the other side is Carl and Audree Wilson, The Leafs, Melinda, Andy Paley, myself, and the California Psychological License Review Board, along with many others who are heroes, but remain nameless.
Brian is freed. Brian discovers true love and friendship, reunites with his brother (albeit with difficulty), marries, has kids, and begins to share his music again on his terms. But there's always that cave, that terrifying cave. Brian wants to heal, more than anything in the world. Brian wants to be a strong father, husband, and grandfather to his loved ones. His therapists tell him that to heal, he has to enter the cave, face his dark side, put his faith and trust in the force within himself, and triumph. Modern day Star Wars, eh????
Brian says...."Okay I'll enter the cave, but only the first 10 feet." Everyone says "Sure!!!! We're right here with you....we'll support you, you won't have a Dark Night of the Soul this time." Brian agrees to listen to the tapes...no anvil falls outta the sky and hits him on the head. Brian says "hey, this was pretty good work" and his friends say "it is GREAT work Brian." Brian says "okay I'll go in 25 more feet." Friends say "we're right with you Brian." He asks Darian Sahanaja, Smile's Musical Secretary, to bring the tapes to the house so they can review them together. Darian does this, records the tapes on his laptop. Brian wonders if they are possible to be done live. Darian affirms this. Melinda and David Leaf say they will support Brian if he wants to go further into the cave. Brian in a typical flash of Brian enthusiasm goes "yeah" without thinking of what that'll entail.
His friends step out on faith and announce the concerts and get backing for them and for other projects. Planning begins in earnest. Brian begins shuffling the fragments, remembering this is where Smile broke down last time. Darian is there, and Brian begins to step further into the cave, finding familiar landmarks, like unrecorded melodies, unsung lyrics, and ideas for Movement themes.
Darian facilitates, but they come to a point where to finish, they need another old friend who loves Brian unconditionally--Van Dyke Parks. Van has heard all this talk, wants to be called, and is thrilled when Brian gets together with him. They do the work needed to finish Smile...lyrics for songs recorded after Van left, final sequencing of tunes, and segues to make the whole work flow as it should.
Van Dyke is the other musical muscle that pushes the rock away from the Sanctum Sanctorum, the innermost part of the cave. The other musicians are called in, they begin to rehearse. They see the possibilities, and know more is needed to pull it off. They need strings, but not an orchestra...too cumbersome. Darian remembers the Stockholm Strings and Horns and calls them. They agree to play, not knowing this tour will be the gig of their lives.
As the time approaches, Brian fears that his work will be ridiculed or worse yet, ignored. He knows it is his best work ever, and the fear of being rejected is almost too much to bear. He shuts down emotionally INSIDE the cave and sits, afraid to reemerge into the Light because of what happened last time... decades of wandering in the wilderness.
His friends gather 'round and support him, and he finally gathers up the courage to step into the Light. His angels this time are real people, and their names are Melinda, David, Eva, Ray, Jerry, Lois, Van Dyke, Darian, Jeff, Taylor, Probyn, Scott, Nelson, Nick, Bob, Jim, and Paul, and us, the fans ourselves. All make the step together into the Light. Brian gets past his reservations, and plays Smile for the first time.
The rest is history, and old wounds have been healed, what was wrong has been made right, what was lost has been restored tenfold, and the world has a new beautiful piece of music, reflecting God's glory, as Brian intended it to so very long ago. Who can deny that God had His hand in this story and it's outcome, and that Smile happened when He wanted it to???
By the way, the "Is it hot as Hell in here…" lyric in Water, as it follows Mrs. O'Leary's Cow (Fire), is new, and is the prayer Brian offers before he steps out of the cave into the Light. Hawaii to Brian is a metaphor for spiritual peace...he feels at peace there, and told me that. The Prayer benediction is the prayer offered just before they all step into the world again. Good Vibrations is placed where it is to pray for Good spiritual Vibrations for him, for his friends, and for us, the listeners. This is why the boy/girl Mike Love lyrics were dropped. It's no coincidence that Water follows Fire...the crisis of spirit inside the cave, leading to the step into the Light.
Chris: I wonder if you'd care to comment on the context of Smile related to its composer - the way it was approached initially as a way to musically express the inexpressible. It's difficult finding words to describe a spiritual experience, and maybe its just easier to do with music. Not easier, but at least possible.
Peter: When Brian set out to write Smile with Van Dyke, I think they saw it as a new approach to the union of a new Rock and Classical aesthetic that would combine the various streams of American Pop Music into a new and different approach. It was to be a work that engendered change. Their initial goals varied a bit, in that Van is a little more of a commentator on current affairs than Brian. Brian's goals were more traditional in that he wanted to step into the new role of being a composer in long form like Gershwin.
We have essentially the marriage for this project of a brilliant composer, producer, arranger, and vocal arranger with an accomplished social critic, folk musician, composer, lyricist, musicologist, and arranger. What a combination! When Smile was being created both men were in their mid 20s, a time in life when we believe all is possible, and our optimism about our potential is without horizon. Brian was coming off the most sophisticated album of his career, an emotional tour de force, and Van was establishing himself in LA as an eclectic and talented songwriter, arranger, and session musician. Both men share a strong knowledge and love of American folklore and music, with Brian having quoted Stephen Foster and Gershwin in several songs throughout his career. Van had played folk music in coffee houses up and down the California coast with his brother Carson in the early 60s.
They approached Smile as a project which would be a travelogue of American music as presented by the Bicycle Rider, a manifestation of the industrial revolution and the commercial birth of the US, and a metaphor for the movement of Manifest Destiny across the United States, and the conquest of America's Native People from Plymouth Rock to Hawaii, with the subsequent destruction the change did to their culture and their church, our natural environment.
Brian also had two themes he wanted to explore---the restless seeking of spirituality and personal change that he had lived through in 1965-66 through reading, talking with friends, and use of acid, and the role of family in life and how it seemed to impact his spirituality. Underlying both these themes was Brian's desire to meet and know God.
In the Mid 60s, traditional Western Judeo-Christian religious views had been culturally opened to question. Authors like John A.T. Robinson and Malcolm Boyd were questioning how God interacted with people in a personal manner that they could comprehend. Time Magazine wondered if God was either dead or asleep at the wheel. A nuclear arms race was on, a war in Vietnam was growing exponentially, and at home, Martin Luther King, SNCC, and several other organizations were confronting America's racism on a daily basis on national television. Alan Watts was bringing a new familiarity to the understanding of Zen Buddhism to the common American...and writers like D.T. Suzuki and Phillip Kapleau were publishing books that showed how Asian and Western sensibilities met. Books like the Bhagahvad-Gita, Tibetan Book of the Dead, the I Ching, and The Way of Tao were receiving their first exposure to American mass consumption. We were becoming attuned to the new American approach to religion---a spiritual buffet line.
Thus was the milieu in which Smile was initiated. There was a resentment among American musicians that Rock and Roll, the great American polyglot art form had been shanghaied by a bunch of British. Not only that, but they were doing things that were labeled "more progressive" than their American counterparts. Heck, if we can have a race to the moon with the Russians, why can't we have a race to the musical moon with the British?
Our intrepid heroes, Brian and Van Dyke decided to respond to the British Invasion with an American Rock long form composition which would reestablish American credibility and prestige in Rock. It would help regain and reestablish American leadership in pop music with a style that celebrated America itself, yet would be honest, an important quality in mid 60s America. It would change music as we know it.
It is ironic that when Smile was finally premiered in 2004, the premiere took place in the very country which was in the 60s considered to be plundering our American musical preeminence. It is also ironic that they would have the most intuitive appreciation culturally and musically for what has become an American classic in the making. But didn't the British take American pop music and reflect it back to us in the 60s, causing us to fall in love with rock and roll all over again? Those three themes---Americana, the Cycle of Life, and Spiritual Rebirth (Elements) combine to form a modern American Classical Composition--Smile. Underlying all of it is Brian's original intention, to meet and get to know God.
God had a different idea.
I have always personally believed that God has a way of turning our ambitions and our pretensions to his own purpose and needs. Brian has stated to people he considers friends that he experienced a spiritual presence throughout the time he created the music which we now call a golden period of his... roughly from when he left the road touring until the collapse of Smile. He called these beings his "angels."
Brian has stated in many interviews that he made the music for Smile under spiritual inspiration. He termed it a "pipeline" to heaven. He stated that when he was creating, it was as if the music flowed through him. He has been quoted as saying "Music is God's voice." He has also stated many times that his composing at the time of Smile was something he could not put into words... it was mystical and intuitive.
Brian is not a proselytizer. He did not write Smile to convert the unwashed. I honestly think he wrote it to try to express musically spiritual experiences he could not express verbally…to describe his process of meeting God. In that sense, he really was communicating intuitively from the depths of his soul. We sometimes go places ecstatically, (in the spiritual sense of the word) and don't realize what we have created until we come out of the trance. I think this is what Brian is talking about when he says he cannot answer certain questions about Smile. For him, it was, and remains, a mystical experience.
In my opinion, Brian experienced what I would submit is an "ecstatic" experience spiritually. In the New Testament and in Zen literature, St. Paul and Eastern authors speak of a deep, spiritual longing to speak with God which if we allow, will take over our conscious mind and speak for us. In Christianity, glossolalia, or speaking in tongues, is a longstanding spiritual "gift" which Paul writes about in First Corinthians. Zen monks use riddles called koans to unlock the deeper Buddha Mind from the conscious mind. Brian needed Van Dyke to finish Smile. Van Dyke could express what Brian could not.
Smile could not happen under the circumstances of its initial birth in the 60s. I see it as a perceived conflict between commercial concerns, the world of the secular life, and spiritual concerns, the world of what is sacred. Van Dyke has stated that he withdrew from Smile in the 60s so as not to be a focus of contention between Brian and his family, The Beach Boys. Things move in God's time, not ours. Carl and Dennis, sadly, are gone, and Mike is now representing the trade name "The Beach Boys."
Brian has regained a great deal of his emotional health, has learned what unconditional love really is, and both men have seen their first marriage's children grow healthy, wealthy, and wise. Van has established his reputation as a motion picture composer and arranger, and has produced an eclectic series of albums that any artist would be proud to call his own. What has happened, is that both men, in their own way, have come to know God. God is Love. God is Life.
Both Brian and Van Dyke have had the chance to live full, rich lives, and now, as they enter the latter part of their lives, it is as if God is saying to them: "Before, you were trying to write about something you did not understand because you did not know Me well enough....you did not know My ways, you did not know how I sustain, how I support, how I always love you unconditionally, even when you do not love yourself. Now, you understand, you know Me, and I can allow this work I give you to go forward, to show My world My Love, My Justice, and My Compassion. Now you have lived, you have experienced My Love and are performing My Purpose for you, to express My Love through your music, your lyrics, and your playing and singing the music I give to you. Now you know Me, because you have waited on the Lord."
Chris: What would you say to those who say that Smile as it is presented by Brian Wilson today, is not the Smile he wrote in 1966.
Peter: To those who contend that Smile should have come out in the 60s, and is not valid in 2004, I would say---in my opinion, you have totally missed the whole point of Smile, which is to glorify and praise God, His Love, and His Gift of Life which we so often do not recognize as our greatest blessing and which we take for granted.
Did Brian and Van Dyke succeed in their quest to create a Teenage Symphony to God? I would say yes, though not as a Teenage Symphony, but a Life Symphony. To know God, you do indeed have to be as a child in your faith, but you also need to experience His Love, reflected in your family growing and changing, His supporting your life walk when you cannot walk yourself, and His renewing power, ever creating, ever renewing, ever cleansing and purifying, healing the wounds we inflict upon ourselves.
Smile is a smashing success because it is mystical, and its very story is the story of God guiding Brian and us back to Him, through all our trials and tribulations, all our sorrows and all of our triumphs...all passing away until we are reunited with Him, as He has always desired, and patiently awaits.
Chris: You described Smile's three movements as having three themes - Americana, Cycle of Life, and The Elements Spiritual Rebirth (Elements). Do you see a unifying thread which links these three as a whole, either on an intellectual level or an emotional one?
Peter: At the risk of sounding esoteric, I think there is an overriding theme to Smile which is very close to Brian's heart, and which has been ably amplified and articulated by Van Dyke. When we look at the three Movement themes, what they have in common is Brian's experience with them. I would contend that Brian had "this whole world" on his mind when he wrote the music for Smile. He was thinking on a spiritually broad level, a family level, and a personal spiritual level. It is not a coincidence that when we speak of how humans deal with their environment, we move from macro to micro. We call it "systems theory" in psychology and it refers to humans experiencing their environment in an ever more proximal series of circles around us, beginning with the world as a whole, moving into one's country, one's community, the extended family, immediate family and friends, and finally, ourselves. Our interaction with these various systems determines our outlook on our world.
Spiritually, it would be worthwhile to try to look at the world through the eyes of Brian Wilson circa 1966-67. We know he was very upset with the way that human beings were fouling their environmental nest back then. We also know that he is a person who literally WORRIES about how the world is doing on a daily basis from past interviews. He dislikes violence, and was sensitized to the daily death counts from Vietnam each night on television. We also know he was concerned with the ripple effect that unplanned change has upon the world from his reading list back then, especially Koestler. Brian had become attuned to how Native Americans looked at the world and their environmentally based spirituality. Van Dyke was similarly concerned with social issues at the time, as he has been throughout his career.
When we look at the First (Americana) Movement, we see a clash of cultures. We also see European Americans subjecting Native Americans to a way of life based upon what their vision of how Native Americans should be living. It is as if we thought to ourselves "Inferior culture, inferior people....they need to be modernized and be like us." We see waves of immigration of European Americans moving ever Westward, even to Hawaii, the last outpost of Native Culture extant. Virgin tall grass prairie is pierced by the plow, never to know the hoof of the buffalo again. Animals, tribes, languages, religions, and a continent are plundered, ruined, and turned into a market economy, what was indigenous is either gone or radically changed.....perhaps in Brian's mind spoiled. His rant on smog, his ideas about Native American spirituality and lands, and his anger at the rape of North America by his ancestors and other European Americans is very obvious, very apparent. His realization is that the building of the transcontinental railroad, the opening of western lands to farming, ranching, and mining was all accomplished in an almost unplanned, unconscious manner. The effects were devastating. The West became Wild…thousands migrated and died in places like the town described in Heroes and Villains. Genocide decimated the Indigenous Americans. However, the key to this first movement is Cabinessence. It is clearly a musical manifesto advocating the return of values that are more environmentally friendly, and spiritually more simple. I think both men were familiar with some of the Native American literature from the Sixties, especially Black Elk Speaks.
Thus begins our first summary of Smile's underlying and assumed values....simplicity, back to basics in religion and spirituality, regaining lost innocence and lifestyles, living simpler and more spiritually, cherishing God's Creation instead of abusing it, restoring and maintaining God's Creation in a balanced responsible manner, and being able to laugh at your self, especially the unconscious blind spots in your life. Spiritually, God created a world that man is fouling up, literally.
In my opinion, The First Movement (Americana) is a prayer to God to help us to become more aware of our effect on this world and its diversity before it is too late and we make it impossible for us and our fellow species to survive.
The Second Movement, (Cycle of Life), is more of a statement about family and the interdependence of generations. We realize again, that Wonderful starting off this movement describes the miracle of life beginning, but in a way that is open ended and ambiguous. Van Dyke's lyrics state "Farther down the path is a mystery." For me, this indicates that once a person leaves the innocence of childhood, the world become more ambiguous, potentially sinister, and we lose our connection with things beautiful, spiritual, and potentially God Himself. Yet, taking the song literally, it is also a tragic beginning for so many young females in our society. Perhaps close female friends of Brian's had experienced this sort of unanticipated life change. From Brian's perspective, he wanted nothing more than to find a family outside his own where he would be accepted unconditionally, and without reservation.
I think Brian understood intuitively how the childhood he had was messing up not only his life, but that of his brothers. When you grow up in a household like Brian's, there is a black hole right in your solar plexus, which cannot be filled, no matter how much love you receive. This can only happen when you learn to love yourself. Brian so wanted approval from so many people. In 1966 and 1967, he was so attuned to what was wrong with his family. He had a few Psychology classes at El Camino Community College in 1961, and realized that things were not right. He had not yet had an extensive exposure to psychotherapy, and he was working based on his instincts.
Van Dyke knew what Brian was trying to articulate in Surfs Up, and touched on so many important themes. Interdependence is the central theme of the Second Movement. Man is not meant to be an island. We are social creatures by design. Our family is our passport to adulthood. The values our parents inculcate in us become the recurring functional or dysfunctional themes of our adult lives. What we think becomes what we feel. What we feel influences how we behave. How we behave in turn brings us the reactions that help determine what we think. If the thoughts are distorted, the emotions are tortured, and the behavior is dysfunctional or even antisocial. Yet what we try to accomplish in our generation is often destroyed by the next.
Child is Father to the Man, based on a poem by Wordsworth, grasps this principle on such a brilliant level:
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety
We become our fathers and our mothers. We have children, and our vow is that we will not make the same mistakes our parents made. Yet, unconsciously, we are imparting the very values our parents taught us to our own children without even realizing it. We don't realize that by being interdependent, we change ourselves as we interact with our children. We learn to be adults by the process of teaching our children. We envision what our children will become. But there is an old adage...children are not ours...they are entrusted to us by God. If we love our children unselfishly, our children will usually reflect our values back to us as they grow older.
God asks us to "be as children to enter the Kingdom of God." The world's major religions are replete with examples of what to do and not do as a parent. In Judeo-Christian tradition, fathers are exhorted to be an unselfish teachers and guides. Both the Old and New Testaments are full of stories of fathers repeatedly forgiving their children and modeling unconditional love. The Old Testament is a series of examples of God making a covenant with the Israelites, only to have them somehow break it. He disciplines them, then forgives them, and then shows them again what He wants, and they keep their agreement with Him for awhile, only to fall short. This theme is repeated over and over.
Brian and Van Dyke grew up hearing these scriptures, as well as the New Testament examples of family love, such as The Parable of the Prodigal Son. The whole Easter/Last Supper theme is one of family misunderstanding, denial of family membership, cowardice, reunification, forgiveness, and growing up spiritually into adults. When Child's lyrics say "what you conceive, you'll achieve" we are looking at both processes of growing up spiritually and developmentally. The paradox is that again we return to Smile's underlying values of living simply, living spiritually, living honestly, honoring your family, and supporting each other unconditionally.
Surfs Up reinforces the message of being as children to know God, and thereby knowing yourself. "Come about hard and join the young and often spring you gave…" "I heard the word, wonderful thing, a children's song." Word can be interpreted on several levels, but it can be inferred to refer to the Logos, or Eternal Word. There are also several references to the Son (Sun) in Child. Surf’s Up obliquely recalls the Parable of the Prodigal Son in its reference to an arrogance so pronounced that it causes "a choke of grief, hearthardened I, beyond belief, a broken man, too tough to cry."
At the end of Child, and again at the end of Surfs Up, one gets the sense that we eventually become as dependent on our children in our old age as they were upon us in their youth. We enjoy our grandchildren, and experience them reflecting our teaching of our own children, now their parents. The fears of our youth-dependence, vulnerability, helplessness, become the fears of our old age. By reuniting with our families, we reunite with God. The fact that Child Is Father to The Man and Surfs Up unite as songs at the end of this Movement is a beautiful way of stating this reunion. By being simple in our lives we retain a childlike faith.
At the end of Child, and again at the end of Surfs Up, one gets the sense that we eventually become as dependent on our children in our old age as they were upon us in their youth. We enjoy our grandchildren, and experience them reflecting our teaching of our own children, now their parents. The fears of our youth-dependence, vulnerability, helplessness, become the fears of our old age. By reuniting with our families, we reunite with God. The fact that Child Is Father to The Man and Surfs Up unite as songs at the end of this Movement is a beautiful way of stating this reunion. By being simple in our lives we retain a childlike faith.
Brian wanted so much for his family to be at peace. He tried so hard to please his dad. He tried so hard to protect his mom. As the oldest child in a very dysfunctional family, he probably felt on some irrational level that he was responsible for his dad's insanity and his mom's passivity. What an unfair burden for a eldest son to bear! Then, he became the person most economically responsible for the well being of 2 brothers and their families, dad and mom, his cousin and his family, and his friend and his family. The pressure to perform and accomplish success must have been unbearable.
The Second Movement, (Cycle of Life), to me, is a prayer for a family that works, that is functional, that behaves like the ones Brian saw on television in the 50s and 60s....the Cleavers, The Thomases, the Nelsons, Uncle Bill from Family Affair, and Sheriff Andy. Brian must have thought "God, why can't my family be like the ones I see on television?" The turbulent emotions in Brian's music give a strong clue to both the idealized world he wanted, as exemplified in Song for Children, and the actual tumult he lived in Child is Father to the Man. "God, help me regain my lost innocence......give me Your Peace….."
The Third Movement, (Spiritual Rebirth-Elements), moves the circle proximally inward to Brian himself. This part of Smile I happen to believe is the story of a man seeking God, and trying to find himself. Success had come so quickly; nary a chance to grow up developmentally the way post adolescents usually do. Teenage boys, and post adolescents who don't develop a solid identity are constantly trying on different personas to determine what is right and what "isn't me." We hear that theme throughout Pet Sounds, and it continues in Smile's Third Movement.
For lack of a better term, let's call the spiritual pilgrim Brian is writing about in Spiritual Rebirth "The Seeker." What is he seeking? To know God, to know himself, and to develop an identity. We go through phases where we want to envision what attributes we personally value and want to make a part of ourselves. In the Third Movement, The Seeker tries on several different "hats" before he finally goes through a spiritual crisis and discovers that being himself, and liking himself, is an integral part of the Golden Rule. We see Brian writing about having a healthy lifestyle (Van's love of salads was an inspiration), the adventures of dating and the broken hearts experienced with their subsequent repair, being an athlete and getting exercise, partying and getting high, and praying and becoming spiritual before the spiritual crisis sets in, and Mrs. O'Leary's Cow begins. There is a flash of touching God's face on hallucinogens, but the use of it triggers auditory voices, primeval emotions, and cognitive distortions Brian can't explain.
Brian is inspired and composes at a pace and quality which is unmatched in the history of Rock while it is happening. Brian needs to impart this feeling in sound, and uses Fire to do so. The Seeker has encountered the Sought, and it is a life changing experience which cannot be articulated, but HAS TO COME OUT. When the Seeker realizes his separation from God, and its potential consequences, he asks "Is it hot as hell in here or is it me?" He has come to a consciousness that there is something far more profound than he ever dreamed of experiencing. By touching the face of God, he has had a glimmer of what the Eternal offers, as opposed to the confused identities with which he has experimented. He prays to find a "placid pool and sink." This is for me, a powerful metaphor for spiritual rebirth. In the Christian spiritual tradition, the act of being immersed in water by baptism connotes a public manifestation of a personal decision to seek and unite with God through a sacramental commitment. Another way of stating it would be to say that the Seeker has been born of water into new life. This is symbolic of spiritual rebirth and a decision to live seeking God's will, not our own.
Change is taking place, powerful spiritual change, which is unconscious and which The Seeker cannot really clearly communicate because it is too close and too mystical. The prime revelation is that personal simplicity is the only way to survive, because the pressure is killing him. God has told him to simplify, to give up seeking perfection, to cease trying to control others, and to let others bear the burden----interdependence. Stop trying to be perfect, relax. Stop trying to please everyone, please and like yourself. The Seeker prays to God to "take my misery." He prays to "find a placid pool" wherever Heaven on Earth can be found-reunion with God. He prays that he can find simplicity, innocence, and learn to live day by day with the God whose face he has touched.
Our Seeker wants to get back to basics...musically, personally, family wise, and in his interactions with the world at large. He has learned that complexity and sophistication come at a high price...one's life, one's soul, and one's relationships with loved ones. He wants to step into a new life with his God, family, world, and self. This is a new life which is more spiritual, more basic, more organic, more family centered, and innocent. He wants to share his gift with the world, but first he needs to pray again, as he did when this prayerful meditation began before The First Movement-Americana. He then prays for Good Vibrations for himself, his family, his friends, and his world. He prays that they may all see what he has seen, and know what needs to happen to save God's Family, the Family of Man.
As a long form composition in Movements, Smile is probably closest in design and in structure to a cantata. Cantatas have been around since the Middle Ages, and are long form compositions with a theme, arranged for vocal choir or ensemble and instruments. A cantata usually has an overriding theme, and can include songs or segments like songs within its structure which relate to the theme and may have spiritual or social commentary.
Thematically, Smile is about Brian and mankind's relationship with God. It approaches this theme in a worldwide, family, and individual perspective. The message seems to center around the fact that when we try to function without God in our world, in our families, or as individual souls, we make a mess of things, we are lost …Paradise Lost--environmentally, generationally, and as individuals in God's Creation. When we simplify and let God control, we regain our perspective, and we move away from the values that cause our separation from God...greed, lust, gluttony, dishonesty, self-centeredness, desire for earthly power, idolatry, and indifference. We reunify with God by stopping trying to be God. We let God be God, and allow ourselves to follow His wishes and desires. He shows us His purpose for our lives, and if we listen, our identity is solidly in Him.
It appears to me from where I sit in 2004 that the very process of making Smile back in the 60s taught Brian that he was on a one way track to killing himself from self-imposed pressure, compulsion, and perfectionism. He was spiritually exhausted, mentally and emotionally drained from trying to help his family and friends to survive, and he knew he needed to pull back and simplify...spiritually, emotionally, and musically. He felt betrayed by everyone and viewed them as ungrateful and self-centered and retreated to a self serving yet ultimately self destructive isolation.
Personally, I have a hunch that God probably told him there was another time for Smile, but Brian wasn't sure he heard right because his intuition was very dulled at that time. He would have gladly shared his talent with The Beach Boys freely, but wanted to work outside them as well. Their own fears and feelings of inferiority caused them to block Brian. It took him 37 years to get back to Smile.
Thank God he did.
Chris: Practically all of Brian's albums preceding Smile, with the exception of Pet Sounds, included humorous tracks which seemed to connect with his listeners in a really personal way. This is partly why he is so endearing. What would you say about Brian's sense of humor in general, and specifically in relation to Smile?
Peter : It seems appropriate to begin this answer with a Br'er Rabbit quotation in light of our Smile lyricist's famous exposition of Jonathan Chandler Harris's famous work...."Everybody's got a laughin' place. Trouble is, most folks won't take the time to look for it."
So we begin our search for Brian Wilson's laughin' place....We know that Brian valued humor as a child and as a young adult from anecdotal evidence from childhood friends and The Wilson Brothers' own stories of his antics at home in Hawthorne, at school, later on the road, or in the studio. We also see that the albums we have enjoyed through the years have all had differing types of humor that evolved and changed as Brian grew older, became more worldly, and was more responsible for his extended family.
A high school friend of Brian's tells the story of Brian's high school graduation, where Brian asked several friends to limp across the stage to get their diplomas. He told each person "everyone is doing it." In the end, only Brian decided to limp. What would motivate Brian to do this?
Another notorious part of Brian's sense of humor is the put on. Even his best friends report difficulty determining at times whether the answers they are getting in conversations they have with him are complete fabrications or on the level. Don Was tells the story of asking Brian how he wrote Til' I Die during the I Just Wasn't Made for There Times Film. Brian replied by telling Don that he was trying to compose a song by "only playing the black keys." Don admits not knowing whether Brian's reply was true, or "Brian was just entertaining me."
If we accept the definition of humor as outline by Steven Sultanoff, Ph.D. from a well done 1997 article at the American Academy of Therapeutic Humor website entitled "What is Humor?", we find a definition in several parts. First, Dr. Sultanoff makes the point that one way to experience humor is to experience incongruity in a familiar situation. Musically, this could be as complex as a song with a paradoxical twist at the end of it, a musical unexpected moment, or simply a picture of people that does not fit with standard behavior.
My favorite example in Brian's body of music of a song with an unexpected ending is I'd Love Just Once to See You from Wild Honey. The song tracks down its unsuspecting victim, circling around him or her, asking increasingly more personal rhetorical questions. One gets the feeling that the target of the song has no clue just how sexually frustrated its protagonist is at that moment. When the "in the nude" ending emerges, the echo and background vocals frame the song's ending surprise brilliantly, emphasizing the emotion in a way that the lyrics do not on their own. The ending "punchline" paradox is not just lyrical, but also musical.
Another example of a musical punchline almost approaching a Zen koan in its emotional suddenness is the version of Wind Chimes on Smiley Smile. We are lulled into somnambulence listening to our wind chimes, almost to the point of total relaxation. If Brian were to loop the singing, it would surely have the mantric effect it potentially demonstrates. Out of the mist comes a blaring fuzztone which brings us back to our conscious mind temporarily, only to be partially lulled again by the mantric music. We are now half smiling at ourselves, and at Brian, because we don't know if we can trust him enough to let ourselves get into that pre fuzztone relaxed state all over again. We are then forced to increase the volume on our receiver to be able to hear the "whispering winds" section of Wind Chimes, only to jump out of our skins when the loud introduction to Getting' Hungry follows. Using a contemporary humor term, we've been punk'd!
Still another example of incongruity is the idea of a sleigh being outfitted like a street hotrod, as exemplified in Little Saint Nick. The idea of a "toboggan with a four speed stick" hits us as incongruous. The pleasure of the song in its approach is the continuing picture we get Christmas after Christmas of a little old man with a beard personifying a drag race driver. It is not much of a stretch to see where Jan and Dean got their picture of a Little Old Lady with "a Super Stock Dodge" from Pasadena. What we don't necessarily catch is the incongruity of the idea of a hot rod sled with sleigh bells audibly jingling in the backing track and the background chorus repeating "run run reindeer." That doesn't make sense, given the picture drawn lyrically, but the music is telling the opposite story.
We are also presented in Drive-In from All Summer Long with the absurdity of a bunch of teenagers getting "chased through the lot" at a drive in theater after getting caught sneaking in. This reference catches all of us, because we have all tried to get away with something forbidden. The stop and start music track perfectly complements the absurd lyrics, conveying a picture of a chase scene with sudden turns, stops, and starts. In this approach to humor, Brian has made us remember stupid things we all have attempted, only to be caught trying to be sneaky, and then doing all we can to escape the consequences with all of the ensuing insanity that scenario can engender. In this example, we are the "perps," trying to get away with something that is forbidden.
In Finders Keepers, from Surfin' USA, the laugh is on the perp, as the surfer who has had his board stolen by a hodad raises the shark flag at the lifeguard station and the hodad panics and lets the board get away, only to have it float back to the surfer, who is laughing himself silly. We are all let in on the joke, however, and back in 1963, it was a big deal for some nonsurfer in the landlocked Midwest to be able to laugh with the surfers by getting the joke.
Another example of Brian letting us be a part of the humor of the hip, laid back world of Southern California is his approach to the presentation of The Beach Boys' Party Album. Brian goes out of his way to overdub the repartee between the people at the party, and shows us that no song is sacred, even his own. People in areas away from California have the feeling that they are really aware of what the in crowd is doing in Los Angeles. The joy we experience in getting these insights is another definition of humor as set up by Sultanoff, and another of Brian's diverse approaches to use of humor in his music.
Sometimes Brian's music can amplify things humorous yet also forbidden which can be at once frightening and witty. In Amusement Parks USA on Summer Days, we are exposed the the sonic equivalent of a three minute visit to the fun house. Brian's maniacal laugh is a trifle too unsettling, and we are made uncomfortable by its shrill sound. Simultaneously, we are hearing Hal Blaine imitate a carnival barker talking about "Stella the Snake Dancer," who in Little Egypt fashion "walks, talks, and has the biggest asp in town." We witness an expression of multiple uses of differing types of humor (forbidden experiences and punnish wit) to create a sonic landscape portrait which is at once disquieting and also charmingly familiar and funny.
By now we are beginning to see a multifaceted and sophisticated approach to humor which makes us wonder why someone like Brian would employ it in his music so pervasively. Brian has been naively labeled as primitive in his approach to humor in his music, yet we are witnessing a use of several types of humor to accomplish different objectives.
To cover these purposes, we need to return to Dr. Sultanoff's wonderful article, which outlines several therapeutic purposes for humor. First, humor reduces social and emotional distances between people. For Brian, humor was one way for a very shy and gifted teenager who was always on the edge of several social circles to be able to be accepted. This is well documented by David Leaf in his interviews with Rich Sloane and other high school friends of Brian's.
Second, humor dispels anger. In Brian's chaotic, abusive, alcoholic home, the major emotion he witnessed was anger. His father's volcanic temper could be tamed by two of Brian's gifts, music and humor. Brian used one or the other as often as he could in order to lighten the emotional tension in his mom and his brothers' lives. There are several interviews with Brian, Dennis, and Carl which mention Brian telling funny jokes or singing songs to reduce the anger and fear that the boys experienced and its consequential anxiety, which was always at a high level throughout their childhood. In this sense, we can attribute to humor a third and critical purpose for Brian, which was to alleviate anger, depression, and to reduce stress generated anxiety.
For Brian, humor was indeed a gift from God. He has been quoted repeating that idea in several interviews down the years. For him, the good feelings and relief that came from being funny and getting laughs generated from brothers and friends were a lifesaver. Dr. Sultanoff mentions in his article that as anxiety increases, a person's ability to maintain healthy self-esteem, realistic self-perspective, and ultimately, sanity, decreases. He mentions that the effect that is commonly seen therapeutically is that without humor "peoples' thoughts become stuck and increasingly narrowly focused." We will return to that theme many times in this work as a cause of the loss of the 1966-67 Smile.
If we carefully listen to Brian's humorous songs. we have a window into his feelings. For Brian, humor was the safe outlet to express the anger and hostility he felt for the wrongs that life had dealt him as a child and young adult. The Cassius Love vs. Sonny Wilson script is one written mostly by Brian on Shut Down Volume 2, and reflects some of the frustration Brian felt with his relationship with his cousin, but more importantly, his father, Murry. We see that Brian found humor in replaying the arguments of his childhood in his art. The famous story about Brian wanting to have his Smile era pals go out and provoke a bar fight to be tape recorded for Smile was serious. There is also Brian's skit from April 1967 which has Hal Blaine (imitating Murry) arguing with Dennis about whether Dennis can have some Vegetables because he is hungry. Hal says "get outta here you punk, and take your dog with you!" Does anyone else catch the similarity to the lines of a certain witch in the Wizard of Oz?
Brian got a form of emotional release and humor from seeing conflict. He scripted a scene at a rehearsal for Heroes and Villains at the 1967 Hawaiian Live Concerts in which Mike Love actually reads a Brian authored script making fun of Brian for having a less successful sales result with the Heroes and Villains single than anticipated. Brian is making fun of Mike making fun of Brian and Van Dyke's art during Smile's recording several months beforehand. Self-deprecation is a major form of expression of what Brian finds funny.
Perhaps the ultimate expression of what Brian finds funny is his complex, yet hilarious send up of himself and his father and the ongoing and terribly damaging conflict in their relationship in I'm Bugged At My Old Man on Summer Days. The absurdity of a millionaire Beverly Hills musician singing 12 bar blues about having his phone ripped out of the wall and having boards tacked up on the windows, while "dad is out there eating steak" is brilliant, and went over everyone's heads in 1965. This is a valid yet hysterically funny expression of Brian's incredible anger at his dad for all that had happened in his life, most recently his dad's infidelity to his mom, which also spawned the more emotionally wrenching Let Him Run Wild, also on Summer Days.
In the beginning, we asked what Brian finds funny, and why he might limp across the stage at his high school graduation. One answer is that Brian finds the opportunity to sneakily get back at those who he perceives as hurting him as funny, and the actual act of doing so hilarious. To limp across the stage at his high school graduation was to say to his tyrannical father, "Hah! you won't be able to tell me what to do much longer, because I'm going to be my own boss. Screw you for wanting this to be a dignified occasion!" Brian finds humor in being able to put on over on people he considers intrusive, rude, pushy, or bullies.
Brian also is highly interested in the use of visual humor, and began to utilize pratfalls, camera tricks, absurdity, and even Three Stooges gags to illustrate his music beginning with Pet Sounds. We see Brian, in the Sloop John B promotional film greeting what we assume to be Brian, only to have the unseen person turn around and be Carl. They all carry a life raft into a swimming pool, then proceed to swamp it, turning it over and falling into the pool. In the Good Vibrations Promotional Film, several Beach Boys slide up a fire station pole after sliding down. In another Pet Sounds Promotional film, Brian employs the use of masks to create a surreal atmosphere involving confused identities. These ideas, had they been further developed in Smile would have likely resulted in some ground breaking performance art comedies of the type later used on MTV. There were discussions of a complete album related to comedy with accompanying visuals.
Dr. Sultanoff points out that humor is a highly idiosyncratic experience which is unique to each human being. We are left to wonder what else Brian himself finds humorous. His use of humor in his music has had the effect of bringing him and his fans together. This phenomenon has been substantiated by several researchers in the field of humor. What we subjectively find funny is something that Brian intuitively grasped from the very first Beach Boy album, with its self-deprecating descriptions of the five band members in the song Chug-a Lug. Brian realized that in order to connect with his audience, he had to share humor with them in such a manner that they could find a universally common frame of reference in his music. The audience can picture themselves in The Beach Boys' place in Chug-a-Lug. His music transcended its immediate California locale to become something even teenagers in landlocked states and frosty foreign countries could understand. Humor in Brian's music had the quality of replacing mundane feelings of life with pleasurable experiences that everyone could feel were honest and truthful.
According to humor researchers, we experience humor in three ways...through our intellect, emotions, and physiology. Brian's music primarily connected with us emotionally in the early years. We felt the honesty in his records, and how they reflected our experiences in life. Smile began a shift from emotional humor, often called mirth, to cognitive humor, called wit.
For the first time, Brian's idea in Smile was to make humor a central motif of the album. He had started out with the idea of writing a "Teenage Symphony to God" which was not well received by his father or his record company. Brian had been influenced by the creative work of Jan Berry throughout his career, and at the same time Pet Sounds had been recorded, Jan had issued an album designed to piggyback the mid Sixties Batman television show craze. Undoubtedly, Brian admired Jan's ability to express humor on Jan & Dean records dating back to Schlock Rod Parts 1 & 2 on their Drag City album. Brian heard the Jan & Dean Meet Batman Album, and decided perhaps there were some ideas to develop there on Smile.
Brian had the advantage of working for the first time with a musician whose abilities equaled his own. Van Dyke Parks brought a literate sense of word play in the writing of lyrics, hearkening back to the 1930s and 40s in American Popular Music when brilliant songwriters like Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and the Gershwin Brothers dominated music with snappy wit and beautiful melodies. If Brian were aiming for a new American Musical Form, he had found his match.
Parks’ lyrics present the listener with the challenge of deciding whether to take them somewhat literally or at levels of deeper meaning. There are multiple options for interpretation in each tune, and the lyrics to songs such as Surfs Up and Wonderful offer puns, double entendres, and whimsy, often quoting other American classics and favorite children's' songs. Brian's musical tracks continued to connect on an emotional basis. What is so fascinating is that for the first time, we consistently experience a multi-modal attack using humor on Smile. In Vegetables, for example, we hear funny sound effects and listen to puns and whimsical lyrics at the same time. In Surfs Up, we hear lyrics such as "while at port adieu or die" and "canvass the town and brush the backdrop" while keys imitating the decadent rattling of jewelry are heard in the background and trombones sound a loud whoop that corresponds in an contradictory manner to "a muted trumpeter swan" reference in the lyrics.
It is ironic that in the recording of Smile in 1966, an album intended to celebrate humor and its healing properties, that Brian became so anxious and out of self-control that his ability to see the big picture became narrower and narrower, to the point to where he had to scrap the album to save his life, his sanity, and his emotional perspective. For 37 years, our understanding of Smile - including, of course, its use of humor - was based largely on fragments and reworked/re-recorded material. Now, with the recent world premiere of Smile in London, we finally have the opportunity to appreciate and understand the role of humor in the work as a whole.
It is ironic that in the recording of Smile in 1966, an album intended to celebrate humor and its healing properties, that Brian became so anxious and out of self-control that his ability to see the big picture became narrower and narrower, to the point to where he had to scrap the album to save his life, his sanity, and his emotional perspective. For 37 years, our understanding of Smile - including, of course, its use of humor - was based largely on fragments and reworked/re-recorded material. Now, with the recent world premiere of Smile in London, we finally have the opportunity to appreciate and understand the role of humor in the work as a whole.
Smile, as presented in London, has begun to take on the added dimension of visual performance, giving us the chance to interpret some of the nuances heard in the 1966-67 recordings. In 2004, live in London, the intellectual and emotional connecting experience was compounded by a third approach, which is slapstick and visual humor, often evoking deep laughter, the physiological component. We see the Stockholm Strings and Horns doing silly movements to the music, catch Nicky Wonder with a Jolly Roger flag on his guitar during Holiday, or ponder the incongruity of power tools as musical instruments on I Wanna Be Around. Why did Smile Live leave us so emotionally spent? Because, in addition to the miracle of it being performed after 37 years, it connected with us on every possible level, and deftly applied humor in all its various uses to reel us into the music and hold us there. Brian has succeeded, with Van Dyke, in creating a true multi-modal approach to humor that transcends the limitations of Smile as a recorded work, concert work, or visual comedy. Smile uses and blends parts of all three media to create a new form of art. Dr. Sultanoff, in a 1994 article entitled "Exploring the Land of Mirth and Funny" makes the following important observation..."the fullest, and most powerful experience of humor is one that is experienced with all three components (wit, mirth, and laughter) simultaneously."
We are left to wonder how Brian knew intuitively that this sort of concert would connect with his audience in the manner of a peak humor experience. Perhaps it is the very resilience of Brian Wilson himself and his ability to see the humor in the most tragic of circumstances that enabled him to create a work of art so powerful that it meets us on all possible planes of human levity.
If resilience is the ability of people to bounce back from the most deadening of experiences in life, it is no coincidence that Smile would be the most resilient of Brian Wilson musical works. We are left with a few thoughts from people about humor....
If resilience is the ability of people to bounce back from the most deadening of experiences in life, it is no coincidence that Smile would be the most resilient of Brian Wilson musical works. We are left with a few thoughts from people about humor....
"Tragedy plus time equals humor." Carol Burnett
"Humor is a great, the great thing, the saving thing, after all. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place." Mark Twain
"Humor is sacred, a gift from God." Brian Wilson
Dr. Sultanoff's ground breaking work may be found at his website: HumorMatters
Chris: "Humor is sacred, a gift from God." Brian Wilson You could easily substitute the word "music" for "humor" in Brian's quote. In the short film Alan Boyd put together for his first tour, Brian said, "I can be like a flute, and God plays me", implying that it isn't really him doing it, but the Spirit flowing through him - that he's been given that gift of being a pure channel. In talking about harmony to Paul Zollo he said: "I don't really know how the process works, I just know it's magic. And it works." He's being humble, but also truthful. He's almost saying "I just have a gift." His mother, Audree, said that when he was a baby he could hum the tunes of certain songs. Do you think gifted people are born with a God-given talent, or does their environment and upbringing contribute significantly to their ability to create? Can you talk about that mysterious relationship between music and spirituality?
Peter: In talking with people who know Brian, it is apparent that he has always accepted that part of himself which composes as being something which is a talent given by God. A talent is a part of how God designs us, and is different to me than a Gift of the Spirit, which is a Gift which God develops in us to help us witness to His holiness and authority.
Brian is someone who I think has known he was different from very early in life.
The literature on exceptional children and adults indicates that many talented people grow up being aware of certain traits that distinguish them from others. Mary-Elaine Jacobsen in her excellent overview of gifted adults called "The Gifted Adult"(pp27-28) presents a list of characteristics many gifted people seem to share. All gifted people may not have all traits, but here are some commonly cited in the literature…An extraordinary capacity for concentration and being focused. There is an indication many gifted people are and feel misunderstood and under supported. Still another is an unusual sense of humor not always comprehended by others. Gifted adults are cited as having a playful attitude and childlike sense of wonder about life. Another seems to be a highly intuitive and sensitive nature which is easily prone to emotional upheaval and discomfort. Another is an intense curiosity about the world or certain aspects of it involving asking continuous questions of our families, especially our parents. There is a tendency to have a strong moral sense toward those who are underprivileged or those whom we might term the "underdogs" in life. Some people who are exceptional can be prone to perfectionism, and some seem to often have a need for being left alone to allow themselves to be very self-directed and autonomous to be able to perfect whatever vision or idea they might be working on. Still another is feelings of urgency about spiritual matters, and a deep concern about universal issues and nature, and a reverence for the inter-connectedness of things. There is, also, a tendency to hop from topic to topic of interest with a strong passion for absorbing as much as he or she can about the subject in a short time. Many exceptional children are documented as having a sense of spiritual or higher moral purpose that drives them in their lives.
In Michael Card's book on spiritual creativity, Scribbling in the Sand, he cites certain people as being prophetic, or having the capacity for prophecy. We tend to think of prophets in a sense of foretelling God's plans for the future, but their far more important role was historically calling people back to God by showing them how they needed to conduct their lives and how to grow closer to God. There is a parallel track in holy scriptures detailing how certain people are chosen for a Divine purpose which they may realize early in life they are destined to follow, or another in which they may not discover until it is their time to perform whatever they are supposed to accomplish. It is clear to me that Brian seems to be one of the former rather than the latter. It is also apparent in reading anecdotal summaries of peoples' experiences with Brian's music that it has provided in many cases a form of spiritual comfort or healing which is unusual for a musician from the Rock Era. Over and over again we read letters people write to Brian on the internet or hear stories talking with others at concerts about how Brian's music sustained them or helped them heal emotionally during a rough time in their personal lives. Clearly, there is an effect that Brian's music has had upon many people which goes beyond casual enjoyment.
What is the essence of talent? It seems to be the use of abilities given us by nature or by God which we apply to give our lives structure, purpose, and meaning. Can someone be talented, yet not have Gifts of the Spirit? In my mind definitely….history is replete with evidence of people who, having many talents, misused them or squandered them for amoral or evil purposes.
Brian's talents have seemed to have been constant since he was a small child. It is apparent, that as an exceptional child, his talents were not completely recognized by his parents until his high school years. The literature on exceptional children seems to reflect a period in late elementary, junior and then senior high school where the exceptional child is somehow taught to hide his or her talents, or even to pretend to be typical in order to avoid social ostracism. We have all heard of people labeled in a derogatory manner as "geeks," "nerds," or "brains." More often than not the definition of success and talent shifts as we grow older in life, and we judge peoples' talents by the wealth, fame, or influence they have had in their lives. By this measure, Brian has certainly been successful.
It is also clear that there is a type of parent who lives vicariously through the talents of his or her children, and using this paradigm, well documented in the literature on exceptional children, we find the examples of dads who want their boys or girls to be super athletes, and moms who notoriously become stage mothers for the sons and daughters. There was a program on cable television, which in a reality tv format followed these stage parents around as they try to make their kids' careers take off, often looking and sounding verbally abusive and ultimately almost setting up unrealistic conditions for their children which can never be fulfilled. The damage they are doing to their childrens' emotional inner life is toxic and long term.
Did God intend for talents to be used to excel by being a type of person who rose above others in a competitive process by vanquishing all comers? No, but nature seems to favor the fastest, strongest, most beautiful, and so forth. In Brian's case, being the oldest son in his family, I think Brian was probably subject to some misguided expectations which were passed down from his dad's family which were very toxic for his emotional health. We have seen above that kids who are exceptional tend to be extremely emotionally sensitive, prone to hear criticism as far more critical than it might be offered, and have high degrees of perfectionism and need for self-direction and autonomy. This is the exact opposite of the way parents often termed "stage mothers and fathers" behave. These parents are driven, desire success at any price for their exceptional children on their own terms, not their childrens', and can be prone to have both unrealistic expectations and very controlling attitudes toward their kids.
These kids, in turn, come to resent the talents they have, because they are demanded to perform for their parent's satisfaction, instead of their own inner standard. In essence, the gifted child and young adult comes to feel ambivalent about his or her talent, and may feel angry at God or the parents for making him different than typical people. This can lead to a resentment of using the talent, and almost a passive aggressive resistance to performing. We see that the gifted young adult and adult yearns to be "normal", but if he or she understands the talent, may be able to spiritually make a leap of understanding, that with an embarrassing abundance of talent, comes a certain sense of honor, responsibility, and duty to use such talent wisely for other peoples' good.
It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the Murry/Brian relationship was destined for trouble from the beginning. The history of The Wilsons' bouts with mental illness and Murry's own brutal childhood is very well documented in Timothy White's The Nearest Faraway Place. Murry seemed to be a father who truly wanted to be different, but because of his own personal memories and terrible childhood could not escape the cycle of abuse that plagued the Wilson family for at least 3 generations. Like many men from the Depression Era, Murry definitely wanted something better for his family. He worked hard to provide for them, and expected total compliance from the kids and Audree to his wishes at home. It is likely that Murry realized Brian was exceptional, and it is also likely that he believed that if he praised Brian too often, that it would distort Brian's sense of reality and make him weaker as a man. For a child like Brian, nothing was more important to him than his dad's approval, which was rarely, if ever forthcoming. There is some intuitive similarity in this relationship between Murry and Brian to the well documented rivalry between Salieri and Mozart.
Where does spirituality fit into this scenario? It is also apparent that at least during some of Brian's childhood, he was exposed to Christian teachings and music, and it was at church where Brian's vocal talents first began to be recognized. He is documented as having sung a lead in a Christmas play, and has been mentioned singing in a youth church choir as a child as well. The Wilson family is documented as having gotten together with the Loves at holiday time, and both families sang favorite Christmas hymns and music at these gatherings. Why would this information be valuable? Because Brian appears to have found some comfort in music as an outlet for his spirituality in the face of few other positive forms of recognition he received for talents he had, whether athletic, academic, or musical.
The creative process is described by Christian musician, author, and teacher Michael Card in Scribbling in the Sand is as a dialogue between Man and God in the form of allowing God to empty us of our fallen nature, and correspondingly allow what is spiritual to enter the void that is left empty. This ongoing process of humbling ourselves, being ruthlessly truthful about ourselves, and letting God work with our lives is what Card calls "allowing God to pour The Spirit into us." It is this dialogue between ourselves and our God which inspires us to write, compose, paint, sculpt, or do whatever our God given purpose inspires us to do. Brian recently described the process of creating his music as "a miracle," and said he would eventually like to write a book about it. When we are in harmony with God, it seems that we are more prone to be able to sustain the dialogue with Him which bears the fruit of allowing us to create whatever He would deign us to create.
I find it interesting that Card hypothesizes that in his opinion, the prophets of the Old Testament delivered their divinely inspired prophecies using song and music. He describes the process of creating from giftedness as: "In most cases an integral part of giftedness from God is not only the mechanical ability to paint or sing or dance but a deeper call (emphasis mine). This call can be seen as part of an aesthetic value system, a system that helps determine what is beautiful and what is not. An artist paints by means of listening to this deep interior voice. A musician writes or performs in hopes of portraying the dimensions of this call. The vision provided by the call of God gives them eyes to see, ears to hear. It demands a response of obedience." When we are obediently following this inner voice our life is simple, in harmony, and it is easier to discern what our purpose for living is to become. When we are angry, disappointed, hurt, lonely, forlorn, abused, or misunderstood, we will have a tendency to want to take life into our own hands and try to solve our problems ourselves rather than listen to that inner voice.
The literature on exceptional children and adults also advocates that we become honest with ourselves about our talents, and stop trying to deny them in the effort to be accepted by our peers and not stand out from the rest of humanity. The literature indicates that gifted adults who deny their giftedness or try to stop the flow of talent they possess seem to implode inward upon themselves and become very withdrawn, depressed, angry, unwilling to make decisions about their lives, unwilling to take responsibility for their actions, prone to addictive behavior to replace the energy squandered on not being creative, blocked in their efforts to live happily, and often are passive aggressive in their approach to life. They are seemingly stuck in neutral, and unable to proceed forward with the God given purpose for their lives.
It seems that by using our talents to the best of our ability, we are able to avoid this state of implosion, adopting somewhat of an altruistic approach to life by using our talents for the betterment of humanity. This state of altruism seems to lead to a state of what Abraham Maslow termed "peak experiences" leading to self-fulfillment or actualization.
In this sense, there seems to be some confluence between the spiritual creative process described by Card and the literature on exceptional adults and children. There is a strong need for talented people to live in harmony with their exceptionality and spirituality, a strong need for regular, honest self-examination and ruthless honesty, and for those who are religious, a regular need for prayer and consultation with one's God of One's Understanding, adopting a servant's attitude toward the world, what Michael Card calls "a call to servanthood." He says "the call to servanthood causes the creative gift to come alive. It gives it color and tone and direction and purpose. The art that naturally flows out of our obedient response to the call of God on our lives, as a result of the imprint of the creative mandate, can, by grace, become water to wash the feet of sisters and brothers, cold water to quench the thirst of an unbelieving world (p.86 )." It seems that Brian has perfectly captured this moment with his Water Chant or Prayer near the end of the Third (Spiritual Rebirth) Movement. The person praying at this moment in Smile is desperately in need of "a drop to drink."
It seems to me that this is the very imperative that Brian states he is responding to when he says he is "sending out a love message to everyone." It has been clear that the experience of spiritual transformation that Brian endured during the period from the abandonment of Smile in 1967 until the rebirth of Smile in 2004 has been a long and arduous form of spiritual trial by fire which Brian had to go through to be able to offer us the beautiful music he is creating today, and to be able to finish Smile. Brian has stated that he felt spiritually abandoned during the latter part of the making of Smile and that the experience got him into a state of mind he considered unhealthy and self-destructive. I would submit that what happened is that he became overwhelmed by the circumstances of his life...the abuse, the fame, the talent, the money, the responsibility, and slowly retreated from the burden because it was too much, too quickly, too soon. His illness overwhelmed him as well, causing him to withdraw to try to simplify his life. He stopped creating regularly, and eventually imploded.
Mary-Elaine Jacobsen in The Gifted Adult states that people who are talented who do not know how to stay true to their own inner truth reinvent themselves falsely to try to better cope and fit in with society. The cognitive dissonance between true self and false self causes the personality implosion described earlier. The gifted adult becomes what Jacobsen calls a "collapsed personality." Reading through her descriptions of collapsed personality traits in The Gifted Adult (pp. 257-286) is like reading a description of many of Brian's reactions as an adult to his giftedness. The interesting thing is that this experience is far more prevalent than previously thought, and the literature on gifted adults is full of stories like Brian's in a variety of situations and occupations.
The good news is that people who are gifted adults can reemerge from such collapses, and with proper support and by learning appropriate boundary setting can lead lives leading to self-actualization and inner truth. One way in which several authors suggest to address this feeling of isolation is through the seeking of support from peers with similar backgrounds. I do not think it is any coincidence that Brian has sought out support from peers who have had similar successes recently - like Paul McCartney, Elton John, and Eric Clapton. These individuals have known the heartache, excesses, triumphs, tragedies, and exhilaration that come with being a creative person at the height of popular music. It appears that Smile, in its completed form, is the clearest sign that Brian is on the road to recovery from a state of being collapsed.
Furthermore, there is a clear parallel between the need for people who are led by The Spirit to regularly meet with each other for mutual support and worship, and for those who are talented to seek out peers who have similar creative drives to seek out and find others whose support and honest feedback can be counted upon for reliable reality testing and having dialogue about how to solve "life problems." This leads to the question, what is a talent and what is a Gift of the Spirit?
When we discuss Gifts of the Spirit, we enter a realm of dialogue which while mostly Christian in nature, can be generalized to include anyone who senses a divine purpose for their talent. Most Christian authors cite Gifts of the Spirit as being divinely ordained for God's redemptive purpose, and "to bring people back to God's purpose for their lives or to move them along in God's plan." There is a lack of consensus as to how many Gifts of the Spirit are named in the New Testament, but most people agree on at least nine. David Ireland, in his wonderful book Activating the Gifts of the Spirit, mentions healing as one of the primary gifts. Ireland also mentions prophecy, and quotes Abraham Herschel in his book The Prophet saying "The prophet is not only a prophet. He is also a poet, preacher, patriot, statesman, social critic, moralist….The prophet is not only a mouthpiece, but a person; not an instrument, but a partner, an associate of God (pp 97-98)."
It is easy to see modern day popular musicians like Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen in this role…but Brian Wilson???? Yes, because of all modern musicians, he has been the most deeply truthful, the most unflinchingly honest in his expression of his experiences, his emotions, his loss of faith, his regaining of faith, and his own redemption. The very word prophecy means "to speak or sing under divine inspiration." According to David Ireland "Prophecy is an inspirational gift, as is implied by its definition. A theological meaning of the word inspiration is "divine guidance or influence exerted directly upon the mind and soul of man." Another author, Dr. David Blomgren as cited in Ireland is quoted as saying the word "prophecy" in Hebrew has the meaning to "bubble up, to gush forth, to pour forth from the anointed prophet as water from a fountain (p109)." Brian seems to be describing this very phenomenon in his "Blue Hawaii" section of Smile with its description of a waterfall.
It is no coincidence that Brian describes his Gift as "pouring through me from a place I can't put into words." He described his inspiration during Smile as "feeling like angels were next to me whispering in my ear." One can only conclude that judging by the unhappy lives many prophets in the Bible had, that being a prophet, while being an incredible calling, is not exactly an easy life to lead. Jesus laments Jerusalem as "the City that killed its prophets" in the New Testament.
Smile as a spiritual experience described by Brian Wilson certainly qualifies as a work designed to bring us closer to God, to reinforce the values which we seem to have forsaken in modern living, and to rebuild the kinship we used to feel with our Earth, our families, and our own inner spiritual lives. Is Smile a work of musical "forthtelling?" By forthtelling, we are speaking of a type of statement inviting us to rethink our life styles and grow closer to God. I would certainly contend that it seems to meet nearly all of the criteria set forth by authors and spiritual elders in many faiths for being a Word and a work from the God of Our Understanding about what we need to do to grow closer to Him, to Nature, to our families and neighbors, and to our inner Spiritual voice. Will we listen this time? God only knows…..
I will conclude with an anecdote from a friend of Brian's describing how Brian created one of the songs on his album "Getting In Over My Head." The song's title is "Don't Let Her Know She's An Angel."
… "after I played Brian, "Dear Brian" by Chris Rainbow and "Thank You for the Music" by Abba one evening, he was moved to tears and headed straight for the piano, politely excusing himself from me. He had a little wooden Christmas angel that I gave him that he placed on his piano to inspire him when he wrote it. It was a very spiritual piece. Brian's sweet, romantic lyrics (seemingly to the women of his life at the time) were pretty clearly, an eternal love song to the spirit and the love that flowed through others to him, whoever they might be. No wonder his love songs are so clear and sweet and inspiring."
Copyright-Peter Reum 2004, all rights reserved
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