The Smiley Smile Message Board

One thing that has always interested me about Brian Wilson was how curious he was about metaphysical things. I'm sure most of you have read the Esoteric Smile articles and the "Zen Interpretation of Smile" pages, which I have to admit are always interesting but perhaps a bit over-analytical (not to mention a bit over-reliant on his disowned "autobiography") but there's no doubt that Brian at one time was quite interested in and drew inspiration from that whole "let me use music as a medium for spiritual enlightenment" -thing. There's stories of him planning the release date of Heroes and Villains based on astrology and going to see mystics for guidance and such. Then there's the whole bookstore episode during his first acid trip that was vividly detailed in his autobiography, the intense experience he supposedly had while composing "Old Master Painter" where "God revealed Himself to him as a children's song." All of it is a whole side of Brian rarely discussed.

Let me say that I take a lot of it with a grain of salt. It seems when he was a young man he was really tripping out for a while on these things, and then more or less abandoned them--perhaps retaining what works and ditching the rest. "That stuff went out a long time ago."  He's usually quite dismissive of that whole scene. 

Anyone else find it interesting speculation?

The "Old Master Painter" thing is just an example of one of those times when you're stoned listening to something and you think you've figured out its inner meaning. He was probably playing "You Were My Sunshine" when it occurred to him in his ecstatic state that some deep, resonant spiritual meaning was reverberating through this children's song,  which he was feeling as played the chords and sung the melody, and then extended that philosophical style of reasoning to other children's songs. In other words, he was able to extrapolate broader meanings out of the song's symbolism, which for some reason moved him, as songs are apt to do. Any creative type can do that. Just listen to some songs really high one day. You'll think you're actually really understanding what the singer was trying to say for the very first time. Of course, it's probably nonsense. But, if you have some difficulty separating what is commonly referred to as reality from what is commonly referred to as spirituality, it's easy enough to believe wholeheartedly, especially when you get high again.

So much is made of drug use during SMiLE, and I wonder how much of it really played into it. Like, I don't believe that it was the work of a drugged-out guy who was dropping acid left and right; however, I think that a combination of uppers and hash can wreak havoc on you-especially if you're showing signs of paranoia. I think it made him less patient if anything; he couldn't get the sounds on tape that he had in his head.
Then again, during the 'IJWMFTT' doc, Brian says something about SMiLE that I always thought was spot-on; 'When you're high, 20 seconds of music can seem like 2 hours. We were REAL stoned'.

What regularly gets overlooked but is detailed very clearly in the Dave Marks bio (The Lost Beach Boy) is that Brian's interest in the metaphysical began at a very early age...pre-Beach Boys. The fact that Brian had a crush on a woman who lived directly across the street...a woman who was a born veiled psychic and who would become one of L.A.'s most sought after psychics to the stars, and who was an early seeker on the cusp of the 1960's metaphysical renaissance, and who introduced teenage Brian to a world of mysticism, and who happened to constantly use the term Good Vibrations starting in the 1950's...and is the same woman who introduced Brian to his personal psychic advisor J'nevelyn who influenced him heavily during the Smile period including the release date of Heroes and Villains etc... Somehow all of that never gets mentioned in these discussions of Brian's flirtations with cosmic, but his obsession with  psychic spiritualities obviously came from being influenced by David's mom Jo Ann Marks...who by the '60's and early '70's had a reputation as one of Hollywood's most in demand psychics.

Very interesting.

I remember in one of his "argument" recordings there's repeated references to some astrological phenomenon going on that Brian seems more fixated on... (He says something about how both of his dogs were pointed in a certain direction in his backyard...etc.).  I know it's been talked about here before.   

On that topic, let us not forget the astrological love song "Funky Pretty", the mystical overtones of "Marcella", which sounds vaguely like it's directed towards a spiritual/psychically inclined girl, and the bridge of "Let Us Go On This Way", with that girl that seems to have "extra-sensory perception", and which seems to be more autobiographical of Brian's teenage years than you might think at first. Didn't he go to college initially to become a psychologist, as well? All quite odd for the supposed 'suburban bumpkin' that his Pet Sounds/SMiLE era friends portray him as.

I don't know. Suburban kids--especially bright ones--exploring (pining for?) what is exotic to them is hardly unprecedented. (See: 90s gangsta rap popularity.)

Vegetable Arguments. Hal Blaine, Dave Anderle, and Mike Vosse are talking about the Leonid Meteor Shower, and how it was supposed to happen that night. It was supposed to be this real amazing scene, and Brian sort of freaks out about it and asks what direction it was going to happen in, and it just happens to be the direction that his dogs were pointed in earlier when they were laying on his bed. Whether this was sort of a put-on on Brian's part, I don't know.

Small problem with your theory - those lyrics were written by (respectively) Jack Rieley, Jack Rieley & Mike Love.

Before the backlash starts, I know that one doesn't necessarily have to frequent a church to worship, be religious, or be considered spiritual. But, I have often wondered how many times in his life that Brian Wilson has been in a church.

And, yes, I'm familiar with the "California Dreamin'" video. :-D

Used to go to Mesa Presbyterian every Sunday when he was younger (pre-BB).

A person could easily get into the sorts of spiritualism being described without ever setting foot in a church, too. Astrology is hardly practiced the same way as the church of my youth. (Though now I practice them both with equal vigor: none.)

I think that Brian worships God through music. I believe that he feels that God is Music. Look at all those quotes around Pet Sounds and SMiLE. And he's said before that he felt a higher power was with him during PS.

It was a highlight of his week, according to him, because Murry refused to go and he got to be with his mom and brothers and sing hymns.

AGD and TdHabib, not doubting your words, but where did you read that? I missed it somewhere along the line.

It's in "Catch A Wave."

Thanks, Chris. I'll have to get that one... :-[

Brian was into Subbud for a while in 1966. He makes a big point of that in an interview I read in Teen Set magazine. Strange place to go into it I guess but he does. It's the same thing that made Jim Mcguinn change his name to Roger.

... and the Leaf book.

I remember reading about how Brian got into a lot of the spiritualism and philosophy just by visiting bookstores and glancing around. After his first acid trip, he was intensely interested in coming to terms with what he'd experienced and trying to find out what it all meant, and supposedly, (according to the Zen Interpretation of Smile) found that the question was itself the answer. Then he set out to one-up his already "spiritual sound" and produce music that would provoke similar reactions in others. It's very common in the psychedelic/religious experience realms. 

As far as his glancing around, this is why I called his attention to this stuff a "curiosity"...because I don't think he was a devotee. I think he saw it as little more than an intellectual or artistic pursuit, rather than something fundamentally "life-changing"... like I don't think he was advocating people go out and do LSD to the same extent that Mike was advocating all that TM stuff. He seemed more interested in the effects than in the "practice."

Couldn't being involved in all of these different things have an adverse affect on someone? Like not taking the time to learn and digest everything about a certain religion or philosophy, and just taking bits and pieces of, say, 4 or 5 different ones? Brian was jumping in and out of these things rather quickly, wasn't he? If he took something from each one, without really understanding it, he could get easily confused. Especially if he was already starting to show signs of confusion with everyday life-such as, his music burning down buildings and movies made to mess with his mind.

I've often wondered if Brian has read probably the most famous of the Metaphysics books, "Seth Speaks" by Jane Roberts.
And since Jane's passing in 1984 you now have quite a few in the field of Metaphysics that have supplied invaluable information. Serge Grandbois who channels "Kris" and Mary Ennis who channels "Elias". 
But it was Jame Roberts and her channeling of Seth that laid the groundwork for what is now a huge movement in Metaphysics. Especially now as we all move thru "The Shift" in consciousness.

Bri

Booyah.

It seems Brian was more involved with TM than is really mentioned much. Not really a religion or anything but definitely a practice with spiritual and metaphysical overtones.

There's his songs (dating all the way back to Friends) but also during the 15 Big Ones he talked about it in interviews and such, i.e. the Mike Douglas appearance during that period. I know there was something in a magazine or two also.

Also, I'm not positive it's Brian, but there's a copy of the "TM in the AM and in the PM" song that has an introductory clip of someone who sounds very much like an early 70s Brian talking about TM and claiming he performs it in conjunction with self hypnosis.

According to what I read, Brian did read Timothy Leary (or one of those "Doors of Perception" kind of books that were prolific in the 60's), which is where he gets his ideas about the "ego death" (the subject of "Hang On To Your Ego), and supposedly carried over into his work with SMiLE (note the stylized "small i" ...meaning ego death). I can't remember what the title of the book was.

and I think he was right too.

As I understand it, the typography used on the Beach Boys Smile album cover was designed by someone in the Capitol Records art department, not Brian (who spells the name of the work "Smile" btw). Referring to the album as "SMiLE" is a creation of fans.