Smile: A Case Study in Things Falling Apart...Then Restructuring by Peter Reum

Smile: A Case Study in Things Falling Apart...Then Restructuring by Peter Reum

The Wilsons were a family swept up in alcohol dependence on both parent's sides. With his early musical success, Brian shouldered lots of the earning responsibility for the family and took over Murry's role as breadwinner. That had to be hard for Murry. It showed in the way he criticized Brian throughout their time together as Brian's music publisher. Brian could never be the man Murry wanted him to be, because Murry wasn't the man Murry wanted to be, a songwriter of endless hits. No man wants to live off his son's success while in the prime of his work life with his son excelling at what dad always wanted to do. What people don't understand is that in an alcohol dependent family, what is expedient during a time of difficulty is what is done. The Beach Boys as a group tended to be short sighted in their making of business and artistic decisions, and their history is replete with the expedient decisions they made through the years.

Dennis's family role in the Wilsons was scapegoat, that is, when something went wrong, Dennis got blamed. Brian took lots of abuse Murry originally intended for Dennis. It is common and documented in the chemical dependence literature that the oldest child will often take abuse from an agitated parent to protect younger siblings. In his teenage years, Dennis as the scapegoat became the badboy in The Beach Boys as well. For awhile, based on the notes of Earl Leaf from the Sixties, it appears that Dennis and Mike were buddies based on their mutual disgust for Murry's authority. Later on, Mike began to assume more of a leadership role in the band with Carl, and it is likely that Dennis probably transferred lots of his anti-authoritarian attitudes for Murry toward Mike. Dennis, on the other hand, was the troublemaker made good. His solo album, Pacific Ocean Blue, outsold any non hits compilation Beach Boys album after 15 Big Ones, all the way until Still Cruisin'. The success was too much for him and he didn't know what to do with it. He tried throughout his career to support his brothers, and truly cared about what The Beach Boys would release musically to the public. He tried to break free several times, and always ended up having to give some of his best music to The Beach Boys. It was love/hate at its best.

Carl, as youngest, escaped much of the physical side, and patterned himself after his mom's passivity. He was the peacemaker. Brian groomed Carl to take over as The Beach Boys’ producer.  It happened more quickly than Brian anticipated, and not for the reasons he wanted. Peacemaking is a function Carl fulfilled in the family as well as the Beach Boys. As peacemaker, he became the moral authority in the band in Brian's absence, which is why his reported chemical use in the 70s was so hard on the band as a whole. They were virtually rudderless from 1977 until Carl recovered in 1980. By this time, control of the band had turned into Alan and Mike with a proxy vote from Brian to keep Mike off his back. This is why Carl left the group, as Mike and Al’s vision for the band did not fit his. He tried going solo, but his albums did not sell that well. Carl then returned to the fold, playing with the band, but in his heart wanted to make significant new music until his recordings with Beckley and Lamm fulfilled his wishes just before his death.

Carl was more caught up in Brian's role shift from leader to mental illness than Dennis. Carl as peacemaker, had to approach Brian with many of the band's ideas. He was usually the "messenger" and as such, in the Eighties and Nineties had a wedge driven between himself and Brian that was heavily "watered" by Eugene Landy. It was Carl who had to tell Brian they wanted Time To Get Alone and Darlin' for Beach Boys use instead of for Redwood. It was him who grabbed Cabinessence and Prayer for 20/20. It was Carl with Dennis who told Brian that Surfs Up would have to be put on a Beach Boys’ album. Carl was a man who did not like conflict, yet ironically was put in the lifelong position of dealing with differences between Murry and Brian and later Mike and Brian. Carl grew very tired of being the middleman between the strongmen in the family-Murry, Mike, and Brian. He had a few lapses in diplomacy from time to time.  He did the best he could in an very bad situation.

The Beach Boys were a very emotionally unhealthy family. Families with chemical dependence develop unusual patterns of coping. It was family protectiveness for Carl to testify he never saw Brian or Dennis get beaten by Murry, when a half dozen high school friends say they saw the evidence. It was shrewd business wise for the group to make people think Brian was more active in Beach Boy music making than he really was. The Beach Boys fooled record executives for years. It was also codependent to make it look like Brian was far more active than he was. The Wilsons, like many families with chemical dependence, told Brian as the ill family member everything that was wrong with him, all the while at the same time,  covering for his illness to the outside world. What typically happens is that families with chemical dependence believe there is never enough of ________, and therefore believe they have to do whatever they can in order to hoard whatever is the valued commodity.  In this case, it was Brian Wilson's musical talent.

The valued commodity was Brian Wilson music and production. Instead of working with Brian to help him regain his artistic equilibrium, The Beach Boys and Murry removed his artisitic motivation to create to grow as an artist when they told him he couldn't use Brother Records funds to write and produce other acts besides The Beach Boys. Given the amount expended for recording Smile,with its nonappearance, this was somewhat predictable. His music had to be first refused by The Beach Boys before he could record.

For Brian, the process of mental illness produced a combination of self-medicating to get the creative high found in the false energy created by whatever stimulants he used, along with frequent breaks with reality to go to "safe-world," where Brian didn't have to deal with his life as it was. The combination is profound, because it explains why the escapes from reality were ineffective. Brian was comforted emotionally from terrible memories from Murry’s physical and mental abuse by making music. It relieved his anxiety, and when he made music, he calmed down and did not enter his imaginary world where he heard voices in his head. After Smile, the music demands produced anxiety rather than relieved it.

There are many ways to deal with depression, and there are times when people actually have creative surges that can last a few weeks. Strictly speaking, Brian is not just depressed. This means, back in the 60s, before he was medicated for his illness, he could have periods when he was feeling almost normal or even a bit hyper. This was probably also aggravated by his self-medicating with stimulants.  Brian later sought cocaine and other stimulants to chase or recreate the feelings of creativity he felt when in the original phase of his illness before he was given medication.  Sadly, stimulants' highs get lower and lower, requiring an ever increasing dosage to generate the high. What was once a condition with highs and lows turned into a condition with very low lows countered by dysthymia (slightly depressed but almost normal highs) '

Brian was like most abuse victims, almost chameleon-like in his ability to "act normal." Hence, the Beach Boys, Marilyn, and his parents would have seen him as very withdrawn, depressed, and uncommunicative. No one in the family had an inkling how ill Brian was. That is why it would be very unfair of people in the current day to accuse the first extended family of not getting Brian treated.

Like many people who are "dually-diagnosed" Chemical Dependent/Mentally Ill, Brian in the 60s and 70s was gifted at portraying normal for brief periods of time. Hence, even in the immediate post Smile Era, he could keep his behavior together for a 3 hour recording session once in awhile. He just couldn't maintain it for a whole day, day after day. This is why these people with conditions like Brian's are so hard to treat. They deny their illness, try to self-medicate, and refuse to trust the people who can really help them. Brian had to be in milieu therapy for years with Landy before he came to the realization he couldn't save himself, and then tragically, Landy took advantage of him. It took years for him to accept his new treatment team. This is what happened in a Dutch interview for Smile in July 2004, in that Brian was tired, weary, and questioned his own perceptions of reality. It is hard giving your "self" up to allow others to support you.

Brian Wilson became accustomed to Mike Love's emotional and musical support during the first 5 years of the band's existence in his struggles with Murry. Mike showed tremendous support for Brian's artistry during that time, helping Brian to have the courage to produce, write, and emancipate himself emotionally from Murry's sick influence. Mike functioned as Brian's partner and emotional "bodyguard." Murry found this action of Mike’s infuriating, and did his best to have revenge on Mike the only way he could, which was to leave his name off of songs Mike and Brian wrote.

Mike's emotional support was most critical in 1964-5, when Brian and the group fired Murry, and then Murry was discovered by the Wilson boys to be having an extramarital affair on their mother. Murry had his revenge on Mike by leaving Mike's name off songs Mike collaborated on with Brian.

Brian in late 1965, artistically set Mike aside as a major songwriting partner after all this support Mike gave him,  hurting Mike's feelings deeply. It made it all the more painful when after getting screwed over by Murry, Brian left Mike, and started writing with new partners. Mike could understand Roger Christian or Jan Berry, but Tony Asher and Van Dyke Parks were unproven, and just too different and emotionally foreign to Mike. Up to that time, Brian had made the sound of the music more important than its potential commerciality. As many would say, the integrity was in the grooves.

Mike's not functioning as Brian's emotional bodyguard during Murry's abusive emotional assaults during Smile in turn deeply rattled Brian's shaky confidence. Brian felt let down by Mike for not "bodyguarding" him from Murry during Smile. It was the last card that caused the whole card house to fall in on itself. It certainly doesn't seem like Mike's fault, given what happened. 

Why say this? Because there is a side of the story Mike has which has not been well articulated. When Mike did not feel Brian kept the agreement between them for making only one album with "arty sensitive" lyrics, he felt Brian reneged on their agreement, which Brian admitted that he did later (refer to his comments on the Pet Sound dvd). That ignored agreement, on top of having Brian ask Van Dyke Parks to write lyrics for another "arty sensitive" album after Pet Sounds was too much for Mike to stomach. Mike never really understood that Brian could only be commanding and strong and daring as long as Cousin Mike was his emotional bodyguard. When he wasn't, Brian imploded.

Meanwhile, Van Dyke Parks had nothing directly to do with Brian breaking down.  People with mental illness behave erratically. That Brian did so throughout the Pet Sounds and Smile periods is well documented. That Van Dyke would feel uncomfortable with Brian's erratic behavior is not surprising. Most people would. Van Dyke has stated he should have stayed and supported Brian. He does not understand that he couldn't have made any difference.

Brian did postpone his promise to Mike because he created the MOST important music done by an American composer in the Rock Era, Smile. Brian's artistic judgement was vindicated some 45 years later when The Smile Sessions Boxed Set won The Beach Boys first Grammy. How was Mike to know that the music was that great? Mike just wanted Brian to keep their agreement...and he wanted Brian to write with him, and missed their close artistic collaboraions. His emotional support of Brian from 1962-66 had cost him plenty, because of Murry screwing him over on songwriting royalties and credits. Mike's reservations with Smile and Pet Sounds had more to do that he was not writing with Brian than with the content of the lyrics. His income from Murry had stopped dead and he was unhappy about that. Mike’s commercial concerns turned out to be immaterial, because by the time the Beach Boys understood what Brian was trying to do, it was too late.

Mike and some of the other Beach Boys had families by this time, and groups disappeared in the 60s after one stiff single or album. An example of this phenomenon would be The Dave Clark 5. So--Brian did not keep his agreement about only doing one "arty sensitive" album with Mike. Mike was unhappy about that, and all of them were worried because they had new families, wives, and mortgages. Brian made an agreement, and then didn't keep it, because he knew he had a window of creativity unmatched at any time in his musical career. Mike was Brian's emotional bodyguard, double teaming Murry, and during Smile, Mike stopped, feeling financially and artistically wronged by Murry and set aside by Brian.

Meantime, their family costs and spending had drastically increased as they acquired homes, cars, and other trappings of rock star life. No one should begrudge them the trappings their work provided. Their devotion to that lifestyle is what caused the artistic side to get thrown out and commerciality of music to come to the front. Too much fame, too quickly for their own good.

These people in The Beach Boys and Brian’s hip entourage are humans and they made mistakes, Mike did, Brian did, Van Dyke did, Carl did, and they shouldn't be vilified for decisions they made as young adults, some of them being from families with chemical dependence, and really not knowing any better. Mike did do great things in emotionally supporting Brian. During Smile, he sang loyally, doing his best to try to understand the erratic behavior Cousin Brian was exhibiting.

Michael Vosse was there for many of Brian's thoughts during Smile. He brought up two points in David Leaf’s Film on Smile, Beautiful Dreamer, that filled in lost parts of the story. The first was that Murry was bugging Brian's home and having him followed by a PI. The second is that The Beatles single, Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever, the "returned fire' in The Beatles' response to Good Vibrations, really scared Brian. He felt that The Beatles had bested him the the quest for the "New Sound."

Brian turned up the heat on the project to find a single to get it finished, and in his own intensity drove the Beach Boys to distraction over the vocals. That is, his sense of perfectionism and self-imposed quality finally drove them to the point that they said, "we can't fathom what you want!" Brian was growing more and more frantic and pressured to do “the next big thing.” As he stated in Beautiful Dreamer, he could see that he by himself as Smile's producer, using modular production, had another year of work to assemble the album with guys in the Beach Boys that not understanding the project. After the Surfs Up vocal session, he recorded the tune himself. and at the next  Brother Records business meeting, things got very negative. Brian told The Beach Boys "it'll be a year before the album is done." Based on David Anderle's advice about cash flow and needing a single but , the Beach Boys  heard the message from Mr. Anderle as "we need product, a single" NOW", and Brian said "okay, let's pull the plug on the album for now and concentrate on a single." They never realized Brian's growing self-doubt was strengthening his intention to shelve the album permanently.  In early January, 1967, the Search for a Single began, and Smile was dead on arrival as a Beach Boy album.

The Beach Boys' reaction to Brian's growing self-doubt about Smile material did not provide needed artistic or emotional support to Brian. In fact, their concerns about Brian had the opposite effect, eroding Brian's' confidence, shutting down production, and leading to long business meetings filled with stress and uncertainty.

The Beach Boys' doubts about their writer and producer did not affect their willingness to record or do what Brian asked them to do. David Anderle had said that a single was needed, so they worked on "the single" with little progress due to Brian's growing doubts about his artistic judgement. Then all bets were off. Brian came back, said "I don't wanna do Heroes, I want to do Vegetables." They all loyally went off and did Vegetables. In this part of the process, The Beach Boys were supportive, loyal, and followed Brian. However,  Brian was emotionally leveled.  No single emerged in April. The Beach Boys toured in May, Brian was inactive. He finally told them in May 1967 the decision he was reluctant to tell them he made back in February 1967. "Game over, Beatles win, I lose, and so do you guys for not supporting my vision and Van Dyke's lyrics." The Beach Boys had set Smile aside in February. Brian told them in May they wouldn't finish it. The Beach Boys were unhappy with the fact that they had put in all this work and here was Smile being shelved. Their doubts and concern about Brian pushed Brian's doubts to the point of no return. Brian’s decision to put Smile on the shelf permanently at this time nearly broke up the group. The Beach Boys never realized that their own complaints and doubts earlier led to Brian’s canning of Smile. They then complained to Brian about it being canned. The Beach Boys had made themselves irrelevant to Smile. Brian junked Smile, as a decision based upon his own lack of confidence, Murry's doubts and nagging, his fears about the music's commerciality, and the group's doubts based on behavior they did not know were symptoms of Brian's growing mental health issues and nervous exhaustion. The ultimate reason was probably his own illness, but his role as main writer and producer was being questioned, and he lost control of the band. In a word, there was little to no confidence. 

The Beach Boys came back off tour in June 1967, and told Brian that they need simpler music to play, and off they all marched to make Smiley Smile in modular production fashion after finally cobbling together Heroes and Villains from Smile remnants and new vocals. They released Heroes, with Brian getting emotionally leveled by a dj at Los Angeles station KHJ telling him he couldn’t play Brian’s newest single in a world exclusive.

The wear from the whole experience caused Brian to have a mental exhaustion collapse after Smiley Smile was done. The “long slow slide into insanity” as Brian calls it, began in earnest. The Beach Boys, without Bruce and with Brian, shipped off to Hawaii in August 1967 for a working vacation and an effort to record and release a live album and catch up on albums due at Capitol, but the concert tapes stunk, and Brian was further mentally and emotionally deteriorating. The other drainer on the short term was the Capitol lawsuit, although ultimately, it was settled in The Beach Boys' favor. In the long run, Capitol deleted all their albums from 1970 to 1973, rumored as a tactic to recoup the costs of losing the suit.

The Beach Boys probably had an inkling that Brian's mental health was deteriorating. Mike says as much during his interviews for The Smile Session Boxed Set. They had no clue how serious the deterioration was. Readers are referred to the David Dalton article in Fishwrap magazine or Carl's interview in Back to the Beach 2nd edition. It should be noted that Brian's brother Carl, when informed of the severity of Brian's condition, stepped up and did what he had to do when I sounded the alarm over Brian's medications in 1989 and 1990.

As mentioned, Brian had emotional collapses in 1967. One occurred in August, and the other in November. This is especially true because Brian had a collapse shortly after Smiley Smile.  So, at that point, Brian was being expected to pick up leading again right after he wiped out emotionally after doing Smiley Smile. He was working in studios for Redwood. The bottom line is Brian was told that his family needed the songs he wrote, and The Beach Boys needed to have first refusal of such songs. They did not think there enough Brian creativity  to go around. This is again a type of thinking employed by families with chemical dependence without realizing it.  Brian threw in the towel after Time To Get Alone and Darlin' got taken by The Beach Boys from Redwood for their own use. Brian liked Wally Heider, and did not like his home studio (under construction at the time). Brian was probably coaxed or cajoled to go down there to record. This is the same thing that happened at many different sessions through the years. In essence, let's take Brian to (insert studio name here) and see if he'll feel good about recording there. The studio at home was makeshift until just before Friends per Marilyn, Brian first wife. A wife remembers these things, especially when the studio is built in her living room and turns her home into Grand Central Station. Marilyn also said in the Biography tv film on Brian that "the guys just wore Brian down."

After the collapses, Carl stepped up and finished Wild Honey. Carl was doing sessions. The Beach Boys as a unit were in somewhat of a flux and the transition to Carl as the new producer as well as road leader had begun. People from that era who were there say that Brian was not firing on even half of his cylinders. It only got worse, and was the beginning of what Brian called in the Beautiful Dreamer "the long slow slide into illness." One reason he was working in professional studios again is that construction on the home studio was ongoing, and critical equipment was taken from the home studio on the road when concerts were scheduled (per Stephen Desper). Brian was not happy with the sounds he was getting  in the home studio. Brian continued to question his own instincts, and when the Beach Boys "watered" that fear, it exploded in self-doubt. Brian was under pressure to be and do the "next big thing," the stakes become overblown, Brian’s internal doubts become louder, and his instincts got somewhat dulled. This trend continued into Friends, when Brian started a track and then one of the other guys would have to finish it. In one case, they just left it as is. This track was Passing By.  Shortly thereafter, Brian had his most serious nervous collapse, shortly after Old Man River in late 1968, and was hospitalized for the first time and given first generation psychotropic medications.

When The Beach Boys later used Smile music for new album commitments, it felt to Brian that their use of Smile pieces was the equivalent of a Viking raid like was shown on television in those credit card ads without the special Visa card to stop the plunder and pillage. Their taking of Brian’s Smile music felt abusive to him and he felt disrespected. In Brian's mind, this was Brian’s most personal, most creative music, not theirs, and they had no right to put together Frankenstein versions of Brian’s Smile music using Smile fragments on later albums. Those actions, more than any others are what caused Brian to withhold his music from The Beach Boys and to decide he was no longer a Beach Boy. As Van Dyke Parks said in Beautiful Dreamer..."what happened to Brian's music should not have happened to any artist." 

The Beach Boys kept going because they had too much to lose to quit. That was the story after Smile, and the family business rolled on because it had to. Brian left, finished Smile as a piece for live performance, and flourished. It is not that his mental health situation was suddenly cured, it was because the fields of mental health and chemical dependence developed important technology and best practices to help him live with his disability, like cochlear implants for people with hearing impairments, or sip and puff wheelchair technology for people with quadriplegia. For the Beach Boys, it is the supreme irony that their first Grammy would come from Brian's Smile Sessions with them. 

Copyright 2013 by Peter Reum-All Rights Reserved