Brian has passed away!!!!

[pixletwin]

I have heard "Southern California" twice since Brian's passing and darnit if I am not getting teary eyes with each listen.

[Rocker]

Looks like Bennett has posted a couple of things on his facebook page (voice messages from Brian, unused mixes):


https://www.facebook.com/scott.montgomery.16503

[Angela Jones]

Looks like Bennett has posted a couple of things on his facebook page (voice messages from Brian, unused mixes):


https://www.facebook.com/scott.montgomery.16503

Indeed and he also posted a beautiful very Brianesque piece for which he requested lyrics. I replied that it worked well as an instrumental (there are some vocal adornments too)  and suggested the title Lost for Words which is an apt title for our reaction to Brian's passing.

Scott also was on a radio show and played an unreleased piece. This was a rock and roll interpretation of I Just Got My Pay - not just that track but it was in there. Wonderful! Brian really rocked  and in good voice! It was his birthday but we got a present as I keep writing!

Scott made some really sensible comments about Brian - how Brian was too sensitive to handle drugs, how Brian's fellow BBs couldn't handle his talent (the problems of being family - IMO a bit like getting a relative to teach you to drive!), how Sloop John B didn't fit on Pet Sounds - he thought Let Him Run Wild would have been better. A friend of mine suggested Guess I'm Dumb which I think would have been better still and fits into the deveoping narrative of the album.

[MyDrKnowsItKeepsMeCalm]

The Beach Boys, “Please Let Me Wonder”

This reminds me that Brian and band played Please Let Me Wonder when I saw them in 2015, and it was *spectacular.* It's one of my favorite deeper cuts from that mid-60s era, and it was perfect for Brian's later/mature voice. Every word rung with emotion. I'm sure there are similar clips on YouTube if you dig for them.

I agree, that song always resonated with me and has been a favorite going back to when my dad got an 8-track cartridge of "Best Of Vol. 2" and I used to play it all the time as a kid. And it resonated with Brian too, I think he was very proud of what he accomplished with that song in particular and how it turned out and enjoyed playing it for the fans.

And that's why I think this clip at the link I'm posting is so damn special, and one of my favorite Brian moments of all time. I was not at this show, but someone thankfully captured it aiming their camera at the video screen to get the close-ups of Brian singing it, and the texture that the lo-fi video creates visually makes it even more of an experience. Besides the band simply nailing it that night, watch as Brian "conducts" the band during that glorious instrumental break, and you can tell how much he's digging hearing them play it and hearing that arrangement come together. And...(for those who get the reference here)...that instrumental break is PERFECT as-is, one of the best things he ever wrote and arranged, and it absolutely DID NOT need lyrics added to it decades later to make it 25% better.

But the most sublime moment in that performance is at the very end, please watch this until the last note! Brian for whatever reason that night - maybe he was just inspired in that moment, maybe with the 50th tour coming to a close he wanted to do something extra - well, he rears back at the end and lets go with a high falsetto note that sounds like 1964 Brian hitting that note. It's amazing for fans who thought that particular voice of Brian's, one of the best and most identifiable sounds in the last 75 years of popular music, would not be heard again. But there it is. And the whole thing came full circle for me with this short clip when it appeared.

Please Let Me Wonder, live from the 50th anniversary tour, September 27, 2012 at Royal Albert Hall. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsB3s9xDzRI

Thanks so much for this. Awesome!

It jogged my memory of a similar "going for it" moment from 2013 -- Brian does his falsetto on I'm Waiting for the Day (Pet Sounds Live), just before the 2-minute mark. This clip is from an LA show, but he did the same song a few days earlier at the NYC show I attended and this is just how I remember it. Brian conducting the whole song with his hands and super into it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCyH3nZkw_U&list=RDyCyH3nZkw_U&start_radio=1

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

I’m getting extremely angry about the AI generated click bait content we’re getting on YouTube … I just had a really tacky one show up in my feed showing “Brian” in a coffin (and the AI was modeled on a photo from about 2011 on top of that ). Fucking sick.


On a brighter note, my daughter reminded me of the show she went to in 2015 with us when she was going on 8 and we talked with the band after the show (we still have the setlist Paul gave her) . It occurred to us that both Brian and Rodriguez (who opened for him on that tour) are no longer with us , along with Nicky Wonder as well.

[Angela Jones]

Someone on FB posted  'The carillon of the highest church tower in the Netherlands de Dom in Utrecht played God Only Knows today.'

[Dan Lega]

For a long time I've said "Please Let Me Wonder" was my favorite Beach Boys/Brian Wilson song!  At one point in that video Brian smiles with the most genuine smile I may have ever seen him give!  Priceless!


(And this is hilarious, while I was writing "smile" above, spell check changed it to "SMiLE!"  When did spell check learn to do that!?)

[Summer_Days]

I have heard "Southern California" twice since Brian's passing and darnit if I am not getting teary eyes with each listen.

sh*t, that song has filled my eyes with tears since this one day in 2011 when it just really hit me that the song worked so beautifully as an ideal finale to Brian’s musical life. I said then on these forums that it felt like the scene at the end of the movie where the guy walks into the sunset. I haven't listened to 'Southern California' since Brian’s passing and I know I'm going to cry like a goshdarn relentless rainstorm when I do. But that song has almost always brought on the waterworks in me.

[Zenobi]

For a long time I've said "Please Let Me Wonder" was my favorite Beach Boys/Brian Wilson song!  At one point in that video Brian smiles with the most genuine smile I may have ever seen him give!  Priceless!


(And this is hilarious, while I was writing "smile" above, spell check changed it to "SMiLE!"  When did spell check learn to do that!?)

Smile autocorrected to SMiLE... that is fantastic Dan! You have the best spell checker ever!

[Zenobi]

I have heard "Southern California" twice since Brian's passing and darnit if I am not getting teary eyes with each listen.

sh*t, that song has filled my eyes with tears since this one day in 2011 when it just really hit me that the song worked so beautifully as an ideal finale to Brian’s musical life. I said then on these forums that it felt like the scene at the end of the movie where the guy walks into the sunset. I haven't listened to 'Southern California' since Brian’s passing and I know I'm going to cry like a goshdarn relentless rainstorm when I do. But that song has almost always brought on the waterworks in me.

Totally agree about Southern California. The end of the movie where our hero walks into the sunset... and the sublime end of a sublime album.

[Don Malcolm]

Looks like Bennett has posted a couple of things on his facebook page (voice messages from Brian, unused mixes):


https://www.facebook.com/scott.montgomery.16503

Indeed and he also posted a beautiful very Brianesque piece for which he requested lyrics. I replied that it worked well as an instrumental (there are some vocal adornments too)  and suggested the title Lost for Words which is an apt title for our reaction to Brian's passing.

Scott also was on a radio show and played an unreleased piece. This was a rock and roll interpretation of I Just Got My Pay - not just that track but it was in there. Wonderful! Brian really rocked  and in good voice! It was his birthday but we got a present as I keep writing!

Scott made some really sensible comments about Brian - how Brian was too sensitive to handle drugs, how Brian's fellow BBs couldn't handle his talent (the problems of being family - IMO a bit like getting a relative to teach you to drive!), how Sloop John B didn't fit on Pet Sounds - he thought Let Him Run Wild would have been better. A friend of mine suggested Guess I'm Dumb which I think would have been better still and fits into the developing narrative of the album.

I know that some folks think "Sloop John B." doesn't fit the theme, but two thoughts: 1) it is such a gorgeous production that not to have it on an LP would be criminal; 2) if we take the title "Let's Go Away For Awhile" literally, one could argue that Sloop functions in just that way--a side trip (or the memory of same) that ends in an analogous state of disillusion.

I too think it's a bit of a stretch, but I think it works as a "gestalt" better than either "Let Him Run Wild" or "Guess I'm Dumb," neither of which would really fit the arc of the theme. "Let Him Run Wild" is a variant of "I'm Waiting For The Day" (the love triangle) and would really be redundant in the sequence. "Guess I'm Dumb" has the couple broken up and the guy unable to shake his desire to be with the girl. But if "Waiting for the Day" is more backstory in the way that "You Still Believe In Me" adds depth/context to the relationship established in "Wouldn't It Be Nice", "Waiting" suggesting that the romantic evening in "Don't Talk" was not quite the clincher for the girl--who's maybe still gun-shy because of what's revealed in "You Still Believe In Me" (the guy's waywardness and immaturity)--then "Guess I'm Dumb" takes us too far for the arc to work. We're better off with a certain hopeful ambiguity in their status, as is present in "I'm Waiting For The Day," which echoes the yearning hope of "Wouldn't It Be Nice." With "Let's Go Away for Awhile," we have the sinuous soundtrack of a romantic getaway that ends with orchestral sounds that conjure up images of seagulls on a misty beach...which leads to a remembrance of a different, much less romantic seaside adventure in "Sloop John B."

Side 2 also moves around a lot, shifting from romantic consummation "God Only Knows" to interpersonal alienation ("I Know There's An Answer") to romantic uncertainty and resignation ("Here Today") which shifts into a striking autobiographical depiction of feeling entrapped and stifled by others ("I Just Wasn't Made for These Times," which eschews romance in favor of a more encompassing frustration and sadness). Then "Pet Sounds" shows us what our protagonist is capable of when he pushes all that aside and focuses on his talent to one-up everyone who'd been making Tiki Lounge-style tracks. (We really need a respite after the three preceding songs!!) But finally, he can't escape the shattering disillusionment that envelops him when he sees that love--even one that he tried hard to rescue and nurture--can turn sour and die ("Caroline, No").

The thing is that the logic of the music itself is more "consistent" and "linear" than the actual themes--but because the music keeps evolving, getting more muscular and elaborate as the situations occurring in the lyrics do a kind of figure-eight, the "gestalt" in the sequence works. And it's this musical evolution, particularly on Side 2 (as we used to call it!) that cements it all together.

That musical evolution is also what makes the two proposed songs problematic for inclusion on Pet Sounds: as good as they both are, they're clearly a notch or two below the level Brian achieved in his post SD&SN phase; "California Girls" is the pinnacle of mid-'65, but Brian (arguably) goes past it with "The Little Girl I Once Knew" and "Sloop John B."--the former upping the ante on the up-tempo orchestration, the latter pushing us closer and closer to that "teen-age symphony." The progression is palpable--and either "Guess I'm Dumb" or "Let Him Run Wild" clearly pre-date it. Lots of folks have thought that "Guess I'm Dumb" would fit on the Today! LP, and i think it could work well on Side 2--and it would be an interesting thread to see how people decided to arrange the track order with it in the mix (with the motivating result of allowing us to jettison "Bull Session with the Big Daddy"!!). Of course, there's also the question of who's going to sing lead on it...

In short, the anomalies and peregrinations in Pet Sounds are what make it a whole greater than the sum of its parts. I remember making tapes of Beach Boys songs for a friend a number of years ago, and putting tracks from Pet Sounds on in what we'd now call a "shuffle" mode. Though grateful for the gesture, my friend was offput by not hearing the songs in the order they appear on the LP. As time has gone on, I've come to fully appreciate that point of view...

[Pretty Funky]

Not confirmed but looks genuine. Brian to join Carl and Audree at Westwood.

About 18:40 mark. Plot being prepared.

https://youtu.be/_jeae3bIcJI?si=OgZJ6n73aW4z4LJc

[Angela Jones]

Looks like Bennett has posted a couple of things on his facebook page (voice messages from Brian, unused mixes):


https://www.facebook.com/scott.montgomery.16503

Indeed and he also posted a beautiful very Brianesque piece for which he requested lyrics. I replied that it worked well as an instrumental (there are some vocal adornments too)  and suggested the title Lost for Words which is an apt title for our reaction to Brian's passing.

Scott also was on a radio show and played an unreleased piece. This was a rock and roll interpretation of I Just Got My Pay - not just that track but it was in there. Wonderful! Brian really rocked  and in good voice! It was his birthday but we got a present as I keep writing!

Scott made some really sensible comments about Brian - how Brian was too sensitive to handle drugs, how Brian's fellow BBs couldn't handle his talent (the problems of being family - IMO a bit like getting a relative to teach you to drive!), how Sloop John B didn't fit on Pet Sounds - he thought Let Him Run Wild would have been better. A friend of mine suggested Guess I'm Dumb which I think would have been better still and fits into the developing narrative of the album.

I know that some folks think "Sloop John B." doesn't fit the theme, but two thoughts: 1) it is such a gorgeous production that not to have it on an LP would be criminal; 2) if we take the title "Let's Go Away For Awhile" literally, one could argue that Sloop functions in just that way--a side trip (or the memory of same) that ends in an analogous state of disillusion.

I too think it's a bit of a stretch, but I think it works as a "gestalt" better than either "Let Him Run Wild" or "Guess I'm Dumb," neither of which would really fit the arc of the theme. "Let Him Run Wild" is a variant of "I'm Waiting For The Day" (the love triangle) and would really be redundant in the sequence. "Guess I'm Dumb" has the couple broken up and the guy unable to shake his desire to be with the girl. But if "Waiting for the Day" is more backstory in the way that "You Still Believe In Me" adds depth/context to the relationship established in "Wouldn't It Be Nice", "Waiting" suggesting that the romantic evening in "Don't Talk" was not quite the clincher for the girl--who's maybe still gun-shy because of what's revealed in "You Still Believe In Me" (the guy's waywardness and immaturity)--then "Guess I'm Dumb" takes us too far for the arc to work. We're better off with a certain hopeful ambiguity in their status, as is present in "I'm Waiting For The Day," which echoes the yearning hope of "Wouldn't It Be Nice." With "Let's Go Away for Awhile," we have the sinuous soundtrack of a romantic getaway that ends with orchestral sounds that conjure up images of seagulls on a misty beach...which leads to a remembrance of a different, much less romantic seaside adventure in "Sloop John B."

Side 2 also moves around a lot, shifting from romantic consummation "God Only Knows" to interpersonal alienation ("I Know There's An Answer") to romantic uncertainty and resignation ("Here Today") which shifts into a striking autobiographical depiction of feeling entrapped and stifled by others ("I Just Wasn't Made for These Times," which eschews romance in favor of a more encompassing frustration and sadness). Then "Pet Sounds" shows us what our protagonist is capable of when he pushes all that aside and focuses on his talent to one-up everyone who'd been making Tiki Lounge-style tracks. (We really need a respite after the three preceding songs!!) But finally, he can't escape the shattering disillusionment that envelops him when he sees that love--even one that he tried hard to rescue and nurture--can turn sour and die ("Caroline, No").

The thing is that the logic of the music itself is more "consistent" and "linear" than the actual themes--but because the music keeps evolving, getting more muscular and elaborate as the situations occurring in the lyrics do a kind of figure-eight, the "gestalt" in the sequence works. And it's this musical evolution, particularly on Side 2 (as we used to call it!) that cements it all together.

That musical evolution is also what makes the two proposed songs problematic for inclusion on Pet Sounds: as good as they both are, they're clearly a notch or two below the level Brian achieved in his post SD&SN phase; "California Girls" is the pinnacle of mid-'65, but Brian (arguably) goes past it with "The Little Girl I Once Knew" and "Sloop John B."--the former upping the ante on the up-tempo orchestration, the latter pushing us closer and closer to that "teen-age symphony." The progression is palpable--and either "Guess I'm Dumb" or "Let Him Run Wild" clearly pre-date it. Lots of folks have thought that "Guess I'm Dumb" would fit on the Today! LP, and i think it could work well on Side 2--and it would be an interesting thread to see how people decided to arrange the track order with it in the mix (with the motivating result of allowing us to jettison "Bull Session with the Big Daddy"!!). Of course, there's also the question of who's going to sing lead on it...

In short, the anomalies and peregrinations in Pet Sounds are what make it a whole greater than the sum of its parts. I remember making tapes of Beach Boys songs for a friend a number of years ago, and putting tracks from Pet Sounds on in what we'd now call a "shuffle" mode. Though grateful for the gesture, my friend was offput by not hearing the songs in the order they appear on the LP. As time has gone on, I've come to fully appreciate that point of view...

All good points. I've taken Sloop John B as a sort of interlude. As for the suggested alternatives, maybe Guess I'm Dumb could fit after That's Not Me but it's too late to change it. We're used to Pet Sounds as it is. Even in real life, the narrative is not necessarily consistent after all! The one thing I would change is having Caroline No at the original speed. Having it in mono? I just wish Brian could have heard in true stereo but it's hard to imagine how he could have improved on most of what he did.

[guitarfool2002]

Re: Don Malcom's excellent and insightful thoughts - Here we have the conundrum of what many describe as an album that is perfect as-is and speculation about what could have made it even better. The album has existed since 1966 with a sequence that all devoted fans know by heart, and which has a great flow from side to side both musically and lyrically, yet those same devoted fans know about Sloop and how it was a single that the label wanted on the album perhaps against Brian's own wishes and plans. But I don't think suggesting another track would have been a better fit serves much of a purpose other than for expressing opinions any more than someone suggesting the Sistine Chapel art would have been better if a 2-foot square panel on that work had been changed to include something other than what has been there for centuries.

I think - and Brian has said something similar to this as well - that the focus was on the sounds, via the production, arrangement, and overall texture of these songs as the point of cohesion of this album project. The lyrics do follow a definite arc and storyline if you follow the lyrical narrative through the track sequencing, but ultimately was that planned in advance or did it just happen to fall into place as these songs were being developed?

I think the real glue that holds it together is in fact the production and arranging, and the overall "aura" that the production techniques created. The fact the lyrics of these songs somehow congealed and fell into place in order to create a sequential narrative could be one of the greatest happy accidents in modern pop music, not the least point of which is that they were able to sequence that storyline and develop the narrative while also having two of the album's singles appearing as Side 1 track 1 and side 2 track 1...standard practice of the day for labels sequencing albums.

And as a further point to consider, take a look at "I'm Waiting For The Day". Here's a song that was written by Brian in early 1964, when the Beatles were the hottest thing in music and ruling the charts, and Beach Boys album covers still showed images of cars and the beach. Yet, does that track sound like it was written in early 1964 as it appears on Pet Sounds? Absolutely not, and as much as the lyrical content fits well into the story arc and sequence of the album, it's the production and arranging Brian used on the song that makes it fit, and erases any thoughts about what a song Brian wrote in early 1964 would sound like versus something he wrote specifically for Pet Sounds. That's where the music, and the musical headspace Brian was in during this time in late 65-early 66, makes these songs "fit" into the bigger picture of a cohesive album. I think more than the lyrics, both Guess I'm Dumb and Let Him Run Wild as the two cited examples just don't carry that same sonic texture and weight, and therefore no matter what the lyrics say or suggest, they existed as separate productions designed for other projects when Brian was in a different headspace in terms of creating an overall "sound" for a project.

Having said that...where's the love for "Trombone Dixie"? Since that first Pet Sounds reissue that included Trombone Dixie as a bonus track, it's hard not to want to hear that as part of the album experience, at least for me. I just listened to it this morning, and it's a terrific track. Whether it was a throwaway track or Brian just playing around with the musicians or something more that never developed, it works so well as an instrumental, yet I think perhaps it could have been intended for lyrics at some point because it does follow something of a pop song form, whereas the "released" PS instrumentals really do not. Would Trombone Dixie as it exists in the state we all know have fit on Pet Sounds? I'd say yes, again more due to the overall sound and production than anything else. But again, I'm not going to say that little swatch of the Sistine Chapel would have been better serving the overall work if there was something other than what has existed and celebrated as the finished work.

[MyDrKnowsItKeepsMeCalm]

Great posts guys. Agree 100% that the production and arrangements on Pet Sounds are really Brian's unique signature from that time period.

It's been fascinating to experience Pet Sounds performed live... by Brian and his band, but it's even true of the three PS numbers that Mike's Beach Boys always deliver. In either case you see a dozen musicians on stage pushing themselves to their limits. Wonderful textures and instruments and cascading vocals.

That's wild that I'm Waiting For the Day was written in 1964, I never would have guessed that. The arrangement on that one absolutely cooks live (and again, last decade I was lucky to have seen both camps perform it).

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/articles/brian-wilson-cause-death-revealed-175854173.html

🥺

[HeyJude]

Ironically, it's TMZ that has put the situation more succinctly:

"Basically, Brian was an older individual who wasn't in great health ... and, he died of natural causes."

https://www.tmz.com/2025/06/26/brian-wilson-cause-of-death/

[SMiLE-addict]

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/articles/brian-wilson-cause-death-revealed-175854173.html

🥺

Wow, he was in really bad shape! :-(

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/articles/brian-wilson-cause-death-revealed-175854173.html

🥺

Wow, he was in really bad shape! :-(

Yeah that was very hard to read. Seems like a fair bit of it stemmed from his kidneys , and that he’d been sick for longer than we knew.

Just occurred to me we still don’t know what happened to Melinda.

My heart goes out to their kids…I lost both my parents about the same length apart

[Sound of Free]

If I had ever met Brian, I would thank him for all the music, but especially for the two shows my brother and I took our mother to. She was in her 70s and loved both shows.

I think I'm like a lot of folks here: Ask me on 20 days what my favorite Brian/BB song and you might get 20 different answers.

I think we all know that when Brian heard "Rubber Soul" he wanted to make an album of all good songs. Brian "album filler" was better than most people's best. Think of "We'll Run Away." It never is talked about, it doesn't appear on compilations and most probably probably don't know it, but it's absolutely amazing.

[rab2591]

If I had ever met Brian, I would thank him for all the music, but especially for the two shows my brother and I took our mother to. She was in her 70s and loved both shows.

I think I'm like a lot of folks here: Ask me on 20 days what my favorite Brian/BB song and you might get 20 different answers.

I think we all know that when Brian heard "Rubber Soul" he wanted to make an album of all good songs. Brian "album filler" was better than most people's best. Think of "We'll Run Away." It never is talked about, it doesn't appear on compilations and most probably probably don't know it, but it's absolutely amazing.

Yes!! My first couple introductions to Beach Boys music were Greatest Hits compilations. And I think that's what made my musical journey so special with them: I went into listening to their albums thinking that I'd already heard the best of their music (from the Greatest Hits), and I was quickly jolted from that mindset upon finding songs like 'We'll Run Away', 'The Lonely Sea', 'Spirit of America', 'Cherry Cherry Coupe', the list really goes on and on. To this day we're still finding little unknown gems that make us fall in love with the music all over again.

[bossaroo]

Having said that...where's the love for "Trombone Dixie"?

funny you should ask.. I’ve been listening to a lot of Brian’s music the past couple weeks and really flipped for Trombone Dixie this past weekend. the 12-string guitar in particular on the intro is so magical.

years ago I uploaded a mash-up of TD and Had To Phone Ya from 15 Big Ones but they’re in such wildly different keys it just didn’t work. thought I’d try again with the Spring version which is much closer in key and I was surprised just how well they fit together

https://youtu.be/oXTh-PJDhLM

[Wirestone]

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/articles/brian-wilson-cause-death-revealed-175854173.html

🥺

Wow, he was in really bad shape! :-(

Yeah that was very hard to read. Seems like a fair bit of it stemmed from his kidneys , and that he’d been sick for longer than we knew.

Just occurred to me we still don’t know what happened to Melinda.

My heart goes out to their kids…I lost both my parents about the same length apart

I think Melinda’s passing has been surprisingly undiscussed. There are a lot of mysteries.

— Why wasn’t she seen in public after 2015?
— What role did or didn’t she have in BW’s career after that point?
— What actually happened with BW’s bad back surgery in 2018/19?
— Did BW face challenges a lot earlier than anyone suspected?

I suspect a lot of things went on over these final years that we may learn in times to come. And some will likely be really challenging to take.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/articles/brian-wilson-cause-death-revealed-175854173.html

🥺

Wow, he was in really bad shape! :-(

Yeah that was very hard to read. Seems like a fair bit of it stemmed from his kidneys , and that he’d been sick for longer than we knew.

Just occurred to me we still don’t know what happened to Melinda.

My heart goes out to their kids…I lost both my parents about the same length apart

I think Melinda’s passing has been surprisingly undiscussed. There are a lot of mysteries.

— Why wasn’t she seen in public after 2015?
— What role did or didn’t she have in BW’s career after that point?
— What actually happened with BW’s bad back surgery in 2018/19?
— Did BW face challenges a lot earlier than anyone suspected?

I suspect a lot of things went on over these final years that we may learn in times to come. And some will likely be really challenging to take.

I noticed that Melinda disappearing from the public eye , so to speak, coincided with Brian’s decline in live performance. After 2015 (which was an AMAZING tour), things seemed different.

The other thing, and I thought about this when it was announced Brian had dementia and I just thought about it again today… I’m wondering if that time when Brian had to stop a tour because he was having mental issues…I’m seriously wondering if that was when he was first diagnosed. I think that might explain why in Long Promised Road he didn’t remember Jack Rieley passing away, or having listened to Pacific Ocean Blue before.

[Wirestone]

It’s not uncommon for older folks to receive dementia diagnoses after back surgery.

Anyway, I think a lot of unhappy stuff started to snowball after 2015, and accelerated after the back surgery. And I strongly suspect Melinda was dealing with her own challenges in one way or another.