Brian Wilson Is Seeing Vibrations (The Brian Wilson Story, Chapter 2)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Double Elvis. Blood on the Tracks is a production of
I Heart Radio and Double Elvis. Brian Wilson was a
musical genius and one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
He caught melodies like they were waves. He bottled good
vibrations like no one else, and he picked up bad
vibrations too. He broke down, he tripped hard. He didn't

(00:28):
just hear music, he heard voices. He tried to lose
those voices by making a teenage symphony to God called Smile.
But somewhere along the way, Brian Wilson lost his mind instead.
This is his story. Hello, this is Rhonda Masson again.

(00:50):
I'm still compiling these Brian Wilson tapes, and the more
I listened, the more varied these tapes seemed to be.
There are so many recordings here. I mean, here is
one that's just labeled vegetables. It goes on for ages
like that. But this is what I really wanted to

(01:13):
show you. I've just stumbled across something pretty incredible. It
was just labeled with the doodle of the sun. From
what I can hear, it's just one session, but it
seems to be around ninety hours of tape. I haven't
got through it all yet as it's so you know long,
but it looks to be all of the parts of
the Beach Boys classic Good Vibrations. Let me play the

(01:36):
bit I've just found. This is from in between some takes.
Sorry for the pause, everyone, I just need to make
sure that this room is right. It has to be right.
The vibrations need to be perfect. Okay, listen, listen with me.

(01:59):
Do you hear that? God, this whole thing isn't right.
This place is tainted? Can anyone else feel that? Wait? No, no,
this won't work. I'm canceling the session. I'm sorry everyone,
pack up. This isn't right. The vibrations aren't They aren't right.

(02:20):
If the vibrations aren't right, we can't get the music.
And if we can't get the music, we'll just put it.
We'll just put with blood on the tracks. Chapter two,

(02:50):
Brian Wilson is seeing vibrations one oh five point four
b r I a n FM. Good morning, the sun

(03:11):
is rising on another day and we're feeling good, good good.
Let's stay healthy out there today. Don't forget to eat
your vegetables and catch those rays. There's just one remember please,
and if you You'll be just fine. That little arrangement

(03:31):
we had where the Beach Boys toured and I stayed
behind the studio was really paying off. We were making hits.
The music sounded great, but it was about to get
a whole lot better. We were about to release our
best album to date. We began making Pet Sounds in
the middle of and by February sixty six, we were
pretty much done with the music. Geez. I loved making

(03:54):
those songs. The studio had become a place where I
felt safe, happy, even down know, I didn't feel like
that outside the studio. While I was making those songs.
The guy who had that whatever it was, that that
breakdown on the plane, he felt like he was a
completely different person. It was like I didn't even know him.

(04:15):
One time, we were cutting a track called That's Not Me,
and one of the musicians, a guy called Steve, turned
to me and said, you're nothing like I thought you
would be. I asked him what he meant. He said
he thought I might be a bit more out there.
That kind of exchange hasn't really stopped over the years.
People think of me as some sort of volatile or

(04:36):
unstable person, but that's not really true, there's just some
uneven parts of my brain that can get the better
of me. But when I was in the studio recording
those tracks, I really felt at ease. The serene studio
atmosphere would eventually be shattered. Of course, everything delicate in
this world manages to get crushed one way or another.

(04:57):
The vibrations need to be perfect. Okay, Yeah. When the
band returned for touring, things didn't go so well. Mike,
al Carl, and Dennis had just played Asia. They were
all in good spirits, but it was kind of awkward
having them come back into this environment where I had
been in charge for so long. We said about recording

(05:18):
some of the vocals, and it was going fine at first,
but we hit a roadblock when it came to the song.
I know there's an answer. Mike Love didn't like the lyrics.
He read them through once and then threw the paper down.
I thought he was mad because I've been working with
other people on the words for the songs. I don't
know if you know, but I enlisted Tony Asher, who

(05:40):
worked in advertising. He joined me in writing this song,
as did our road manager Terry Satchin. But that's not
what Mike was annoyed about at least he said it
wasn't He was actually mad about the content of the lyrics.
Do you hear that? You see? The song was originally
titled hang On to Your Ego, and well it was

(06:02):
about taking LSD. Mike didn't like that, not one bit.
What the funk are these words? He yelled. I was
just about to reply, but he launched into his rant.
He screamed that every night on tour they see audiences
go wild for the normal beach boy material, and then
if we change, the fans will abandon us. This whole

(06:22):
thing isn't right. I told him it was just a
few different words. It's the words, the music, everything, He replied.
Someone told me you were recording dogs in here the
other day. Dogs we don't funk with the formula? Is
that really how you want to make a hit record?
I told him I didn't care, and then I don't

(06:43):
know why, but I just went for him. I guess
I was frustrated because I had poured my heart into
these songs. Maybe there's another problem here, I said, just
loud enough for Mike to hear. Can anyone else feel that?
I watched this puzzled look drip to cross his face
as my brothers and Al became even more uncomfortable. Aren't right?

(07:06):
I tried to sound off hand, but I knew my
next comment would land hard. I said, I don't think
you guys can hack this. You're not cut out for this.
Mike erupted and leapt towards me. Carl grabbed him. Fuck you,
He shouted, We're out here every single day playing to
our fans and you're in here doing god knows what

(07:28):
with fucking dogs and l s D. These are the songs.
I said, take them or leave them. We didn't speak
for the rest of the session. Carl eventually calmed Mike down,
but he was still angry. The last thing he said
to me that day was I've got a title for
the album, Brian's Ego Music. How does that sound. Eventually

(07:50):
we got the track down and it turned out pretty good,
even with the lyrics altered from the original. Maybe maybe
tension and pressure has its place in creativity. Years later,
Mike would say he liked the music, but he didn't
feel it was the right sound for the band at
the time, which is fair enough. We'll have to agree
to disagree. Mike's not stupid. You know, he was right

(08:13):
about one thing. Drugs. Drugs are at the center of
these songs, in fact, for right or wrong, or at
the center of my story. And it all started with
one trip that changed everything. It's so vast in here,

(08:56):
it's so vast. I guess you're wondering how my brain
got like this. Man, That was a long time ago.
Now things got a little bigger in here. When I
smoked grass and listened to the Beatles album Rubber Soul
Norwegian would Michelle Man. The songs blew my mind. They

(09:17):
literally took my mind away. I felt so competitive in
that moment. I thought, God, I want to do something
good like that. You know. I felt like music could
be more than it was. I felt like I could
be more than I was. I just needed some inspiration.
The grass and Rubber Soul gave me a good idea.
But the real change that came later. That happened the

(09:39):
first time I took acid. My life change forever. Lauren Daro,
a talent agent I knew, introduced me to acid. Everyone
was doing it, and I was interested to see what
it could do for me, how it could help me.
I still remember taking the acid and putting it on
my tongue. It was like my life had been a
black and white movie and now everything was in technicolor.

(10:00):
It felt so vivid and crisp, like I'd been seeing
the world in a blur this whole time. I remember
instantly feeling thirsty and going to get a glass of water.
After I poured it, I found myself just staring at it.
It looked like the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
The way the light caught it, the way it moved
in the glass just incredible. I brought it to my

(10:21):
mouth and tasted water for the first time. High God,
it tasted so fresh. I felt like it was my
first drink of water ever, water water water. I gulped
it down and then immediately had another glass water water bottom.

(10:43):
It was like it had fallen from heaven, like I've
been in the desert for years, or dried it out,
and someone had dumped the Pacific Ocean on my head.
As I was drinking, something else caught my eye. It
was the strangest thing in the air before me. I
saw staffs and notes fly by, actual musical notation and
just hanging there interrupt your scheduled programming. But this just

(11:05):
is the sky's orange black and the grass of light
have a break day. Now I was floating. I felt great,
But then it all changed. There was this rising feeling
of anxiety. It had been there since the start, but
I hadn't noticed it until the walls began to move.
It was like they were this uh. They were huge

(11:27):
all of a sudden, like everything was getting bigger and
I was getting smaller. I was suffocating under the pressure
of the room. The vibrations aren't there. I ran into
my bedroom and put my head under the pillow. I
don't know why, but I kept thinking of my mom
and dad, then just my dad. No. I closed my

(11:48):
eyes and saw myself as a younger person, like everything
was going backwards faster and faster than I was getting
younger and younger. Suddenly I was just a baby sitting
there in a diaper, small little, fragile baby. And then
I was in the womb, and then I was an egg,
and then I was gone, just nothing. I didn't exist,

(12:11):
I was no longer there. It wasn't sad. I just
didn't exist. I thought of how strange that was, How
you couldn't be sad about being gone if you'd never
existed in the first place. But at the same time
I was there, I was thinking all of these things,
so I existed in some form. I couldn't get my
head around it. I felt separate from myself, like I

(12:34):
had a subjective sense of my life. I didn't know
it then, but I clung onto that idea and it
found itself in the song I Know there's an answer.
That's what the whole trip was like. Scary but compelling.
I experienced so much in a short amount of time.
I felt like I had seen the entire universe in
a matter of hours. Sponsor from reality? Do you have

(13:01):
to face the real world? I want to feel closer
to God. Where what you need is acid? Acid, which
is not illegal yet anyway, so it must be doctor recommended.
It's the eper only way to escape the day troubling
upbringing acid, pressuring your professional life, ascid problems at home

(13:23):
with your wife. Acid it's the only way to escape
the day. Acid make our hallucinations like being on flyveryliving
your birth and non existence. It also could result in
a flashback. You're not consult your doctor. Oh man, sorry,
I drifted off there Where was I? Oh? Yeah? Later
and still tripping I stumbled around until I found my

(13:45):
way back into the living room. Time was meaningless. I
saw my piano, so I sat on the bench and
started to play. Played a B, than a in F sharp,
than a G sharp, before going back to F sharp.
I played all those notes again in the in and
again for maybe an hour. I just went round and
round and round with it. I must have fallen asleep

(14:07):
at the piano, because when I woke up, a whole
day had passed. I still felt a little dizzy, and
everything looked a little bright, but I knew I was
coming back down to earth. I sipped the same glass
of water from before, but it didn't taste like it
did before. I figured I was finally back to normal.
But that's the funny thing with drugs. You're never sure

(14:28):
when they're done with you. Things were far from being
back to normal. In fact, things were about to change forever.
Can anyone else feel that? At the piano I started
to play something straight away. My hand was possessed, like
it had been taken over by God or something. More likely,
it was the muscle memory from the trip. I started

(14:49):
playing those same notes from before again, to B, the
F sharp, the G sharp. I then started mumbling over it.
All of a sudden, I saw the melody. I didn't
hear it, I actually saw it just hovering over the keys,
suspended in mid air. I grabbed it, but not with
my hands, but with my mind, and I started singing

(15:11):
it as loud as I could. Thirty minutes later and
I had the song that would go on to be
California Girls done and dusted in half an hour. That's
the moment I realized how powerful LSD could be. But
you know, stuff like that, songs like California Girls, you
have to pay for it. The universe or God or

(15:33):
whoever just doesn't give you stuff like that on a plate.
You have to pay for it. And I wasn't an exception.
Just a week after that first trip, the voices began
to speak inside my head. Hello, Brian, your father, and
they'd never ever leave. We'll be right back after this.

(16:01):
We were were. There's things we can't see, things will
never see, things we shouldn't see. Vibrations, Vibrations are everywhere.

(16:21):
Ignore them at your peril. Vibrations need to be perfect. Okay,
they scare me because they're moving around us, dictating how
things are all without us being able to see them?
Can anyone else feel that? When I wrote good Vibrations,
I was thinking about how people sense instinctively if something

(16:41):
is good news or bad news. You know, like when
the telephone rings. Sometimes you just know what type of
news is waiting for you at the other end. We
can sense those vibrations, but we often aren't open to them.
This idea first came to me a long time ago,
back when I was just a child. I was walking
with my mother near our house. Across the street was

(17:02):
this huge German shepherd. I had seen him around the
neighborhood many times, and on this day he was dozing
in someone's front yard, basking in the morning heat. There
was a man walking on the sidewalk right past the dog.
He seemed nervous, but kind of angry too. Without warning,
the dog leapt up from its slumber ran towards the fence. No, no,

(17:22):
this won't work. It jumped up, but it couldn't clear it,
so it just stood and barked wildly at this guy.
Rather than move on or pacify the dog, he hit
the fence aggressively and just taunted the dog. The German
shepherd was furious. This whole thing isn't right. It buttered
against the wire fence, growling. It's spit was all over

(17:44):
the hot ground. The man laughed as he walked away
and disappeared around the corner. My mother made me cross
the road, and slowly we made our way towards the
angry beast. I didn't want to go anywhere near it.
I couldn't have nderstand why she would want to put
us in danger like that. She tapped the fence lightly

(18:05):
and bent down to the dog's level. Tentative at first,
but eventually the dog stopped barking came over to my mother.
It pushed its head into the fence and my mother
rubbed its head. She turned to me and she said, Brian,
would you like to pat him? Only moments ago this
thing looked like it would feast on my blood. Now

(18:25):
it was relaxed, docile, and before I could stop myself,
my hand was moving toward it. Right before I touched
the dog's fur, my ears buzzed with the tension, and
then the dog was resting its head on the fence,
pushing against my forearm. You see, my mother said, dogs
can pick up on vibrations. It could read a situation

(18:49):
or a person immediately. She had a hard job tearing
me away from that dog. I wanted to stay there forever.
It was all I could see in my mind eyes.
I stood in gold Star Studios years later. It was
the day of the Beach boys were cutting my song
good Vibrations. It was completely silent in the studio. I

(19:10):
walked around. Eight or nine musicians stood there watching me,
hardly breathing. Do you hear that? I asked that. No
one replied, it's not it's not right. I said, it's
just not right. No, no, this won't work. I moved
to the wall and touched the paneling nothing. Then I

(19:33):
put my ear to the wall. All I heard was dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb,
dumb dumb, dumb, dumb dumb. I pulled my head off
the wall quickly and turned to face everyone that They

(19:53):
were all looking at me with white eyes full of expectation. No, no,
this won't work, I said, I'm canceling this session. I'm sorry, everyone,
pack up. This isn't right. The vibrations aren't right, the
vibrations aren't right, and we can't hit the music in
Chuck Britts my recording engineer begged me to reconsider. He

(20:15):
told me I had wasted fifty dollars already wasted. I
said to him, wasted. We're making a pocket symphony here.
Stuff like this takes time. I explained to him that
everything had to be just right in these sessions, how
we were creating something we've never made before, something that
no one had ever made before. I told him how

(20:37):
I wanted this to be like a Beach Boys Gershwin movement,
but with Phil Specter's production. No better than Phil Specter.
You hear that Phil. I wanted this to be something
that would challenge the Beatles to be better. I wanted
those lads in Liverpool to hear and feel how I
felt when I heard Robert Soul for the first time.

(21:00):
It took a while to get the song right. Of course.
I stitched together a lot of ideas feels as I
called them together, you know, to make a song. We
recorded it like that too, all in blocks. It took
months and yes, a lot of money. I guess Check
was right about that, but I didn't mind. I knew

(21:20):
we were onto something. Can anyone else feel that everything
came together on that track? It's full of good ideas,
and not just from me. My brother Carl suggested the cello,
and we had the inventor of the electro thereman Paul Tanner,
playing his instrument on the track. The music came together slowly,
but it was like being born. It was a process.

(21:44):
It had to be the lyrics, though they were even harder.
Tony Asher had written some good words to go with mine,
but I wasn't that happy with them. To be honest,
this whole thing isn't right. We had the good, good,
good vibration and bit, but not a whole lot else.
It needed something, but I didn't know what it. Turns out,

(22:07):
I didn't have far to look. I was at the
piano again in the studio one day, a little high again.
I was just playing the song on the keys, thinking
of all its different moving parts, singing what little lyrics
I had that I liked. And that's when Mike Love
came in. Is this the song you were talking about?
He asked, Sure, I answered, Vibrations, he asked. I told

(22:30):
him about the encounter with the dog and what it
meant to me, And as I did, his whole face
started to change. He got so excited. You're right, he said,
there's vibrations everywhere. This is what's happening down in San Francisco,
the peace and love movement down there. This is it, Brian.
It's all about vibrations, the feelings in the air. It

(22:51):
has to be right. He grabbed a pen from the
top of the piano scribbled something on his arm. I
hadn't seen him like that. Ages so creatively inspired. We
didn't really discuss it after that. He kind of kept
me in the dark until we were all in CBS
Columbia Square ready to record the vocals. I was a

(23:12):
bit anxious, thinking maybe he'd given up on it, But
something incredible happened when we all got together. We were
all standing around at the microphone. Then Mike finally walked in.
Are we ready, he asked, holding up a legal pad.
He later told me he'd written the final draft of
the lyrics in the car on the way to the studio.
I should have guessed they were so fresh. When I

(23:34):
heard the vocals that day, complete with Mike's new words,
my mind raised. If this was how the next album
was going to sound, it was going to blow everyone's minds.
I was wrong, though, I wouldn't blow everyone's mind just mine.

(24:19):
Louis Epstein walks down Hollywood Boulevard, gazing up at the
street lamps adorned with multicolored Christmas lights. He stops and
looks up at them properly before catching himself. He cannot
be late today. He has to be at work on time.
Today one of his regulars is coming in, and this
one is a V I P. He sees the huge

(24:41):
sign come into view as he briskly navigates the sidewalk.
The words Pickwick Books dominate this section of the street.
Louis feels a sense of pride when he sees them,
and moments later he's unlocking the front door and stepping
into the shop, with a familiar fragrance of old books
greets him, as it does every day. It smells like home.

(25:01):
Epstein turns on the shops radio and the sound of
kf w B filsy air. He sits behind the counter
and waits. He doesn't know what time it will happen,
but he knows it will happen. It's not until the
afternoon that he hears the corvette pull up outside, and
as if by design, when the man steps out of
the car, kf w B begins to play a California Girls.

(25:24):
As the man enters the shop, he shoots Epstein a smile.
That's a great song, he says, you should know. Epstein replies,
he watches as Brian Wilson heads for the health section.
Almost every week Brian visits the store, and almost every
week he goes straight to that section. He's always buying
books on physiology, which Epstein never knows how to take.

(25:47):
Is this a joke? Is it a cry for help?
The rumors of Wilson's drug taking and radical behavior have
made l a showbiz gossip groups, and there's also talk
that Brian is turning his famous group into a psychedelic
rock band. Epstein can believe it because today Brian holds
a copy of Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, which he
clutches tightly to his chest. Epstein usually leaves his special

(26:13):
guests alone, but today he can't help it. With the
Beach Boys song still playing on the radio, he feels
he can do what he never does. Engaged, the star
Jeezy says, instantly regretting his choice of words, I just
love California Girls. It's swell you like that one? Brian replies,
They all like that one, Epstein babbles on about pianos,

(26:35):
chords and harmonies, and Brian doesn't reply. Epstein changes the
subject starts talking about the Beatles, the Birds, Dylan, but
Brian seems even less engaged. What Louis Epstein mistakes in
that moment as rudeness from his famous customer is actually
a chemical reaction in the brain. The moment Epstein mentions
California girls, Brian gets a feeling. It starts small at

(26:59):
the back of his head, but it grows like a fire,
spreading to his whole brain. Epstein talks and talks, but
Brian's mind can't process what's being said. At first, it's
just dizziness, but after a few seconds, Brian feels his
eyes blur. He looks at the copy of Psycho Cybernetics
in his hands, and the letters begin to move around

(27:20):
the page. Seconds later, the book feels like it's vibrating
in his hands. He blinks quickly to try to snap
out of it, but it only makes it worse. As
he looks up to the rows of books from the
floor to the ceiling, they all start to melt like
candle wax, and the spines merge together. The colors running,
a sludgy mass of blue, red, green, and orange that

(27:41):
slides down the walls. He flashes back to writing California
Girls at the piano, he hears the notes ring in
his ears b F sharp, G sharn. He doesn't know
what is happening. He just knows he's terrified. California Girls
is no longer playing on the raid you, but it
continues to ring in his ears. He smashes his hand

(28:03):
against his head, trying to get rid of the sound,
and as he does, he knocks himself off balance. He
stumbles and falls into a bookshelf. He's sinking in the
dripping colors of wax, like he's surrounded by thick water.
California Girl sounds distant now. Brian struggles to breathe. He thinks,
this is it? What is it? A heart attack, a stroke,

(28:24):
a brain aneurysm. He closes his eyes and accepts his fate.
But when he opens his eyes, Epstein is standing over him.
The shop owner's face looks jumbled and elongated. It reminds
him of his favorite Edward Monk painting. The words coming
from Epstein's mouth are delayed, and Brian watches his lips move,
but it's a few seconds before the sound comes through.

(28:46):
Are you okay? Epstein as Brian tries to nod but
doesn't know if he manages it. Are you on something, man?
We can get a doctor. Brian manages to say no,
and he hears the word reverbery, adding to a faint
sound of California girls in his mind. Epstein lowers his
voice a little. Are you sure you haven't taken any acid?

(29:08):
Not for a while? Brian responds, somehow, managing to form
the words. Epstein asked if he's ever had a flashback,
but it's too late. Brian's eyes are closing, and then
his body shuts down. When he wakes up, he's at
home in bed. The melting colors from the shop are

(29:28):
blurred in his eyes still, but as he slowly regains focus,
he realizes it's the Christmas lights on the tree in
front of him. He looks to his right on the nightstand.
It's that copy of Psycho Cybernetics. Inside the front cover
has written a note that reads, this one's on the house,
Louis Epstein. Brian lays back down and watches the Christmas

(29:50):
lights twinkle. He thinks of the things he saw on
the bookstore. Worried I'll have a similar experience again. He
pulls the duvet cover up over his face. The funk
is going on. He doesn't know the answer to his
own question, but he suspects it's about to put a
whole lot of blood on the tracks. Blood on the

(30:25):
Tracks is produced by Double Elvis in partnership with I
Heart Radio. It's hosted an executive produced by me Jake Brennan,
also executive produced by Brady Sadly. Zeth Lundy is lead
editor and producer. This episode was written by Ben Burrow,
mixing and sound designed by Colin Fleming. Additional music and
score elements by Ryan Spraaker. This season features Chris Anzaloni

(30:49):
is the voice of Brian Wilson. Sources for this episode
are available at Double Elvis dot com on the Blood
in the Tracks series page. Follow Double Elvis on Instagram
at double Elvis and on Twitch at Graceland Talks, and
you can talk to me per Usual on Instagram and
Twitter at disgrace Land Pod, Rock and Roll, Dike Crazy,

(31:22):
her Dad,

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Brian Wilson Is Seeing Vibrations (The Brian Wilson Story, Chapter 2)

1. Stuff You Should Know