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Author Topic: Who was the most spiritual of the Beach Boys?  (Read 14622 times)
GoogaMooga
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« on: December 13, 2017, 06:08:00 AM »

As you know, they had prayer sessions during the recording of Pet Sounds. And Brian talked about his "pocket symphonies to God" in the press. And Mike had his TM, and sat with the Maharishi in Bangor. So who was the most spiritual? Who was most in touch with the powers that be?

I think we can narrow it down to Brian and Mike, and of those two, I think Mike was the more devoted, more in touch with his spiritual side.



1968: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi with Mike Love from the Beach Boys
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pixletwin
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« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2017, 06:26:06 AM »

It probably depends on how you define the word "spiritual".
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« Reply #2 on: December 13, 2017, 06:49:54 AM »

1967 - Live Sunshine

God Only Knows (Live In Hawaii - 8-25-67)

"Hey Carl Wilson, come on up here now and sing a very nice ballad. It's about as religious as we get."

~Mike Love

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« Reply #3 on: December 13, 2017, 07:24:08 AM »

mike love certainly got it wrong calling GOK about as religious as the beach boys get

that'd be Our Prayer (brian's smile composition & recording)
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« Reply #4 on: December 13, 2017, 07:53:02 AM »

If you define spiritual by who meditated the most to make himself feel better, then it's Mike.  If you define it as a way of being and living your life with love towards everyone, while always keeping in mind the big picture of life and the afterlife, then I would say Carl.  His son said when he got his cancer diagnosis his first words were "I'm not afraid to die."  Seems a likely response from a  'spiritual' person. 
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« Reply #5 on: December 13, 2017, 07:54:51 AM »

Well, that's impossible to know, but what I've understood and what I know, my guess would be Carl.
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« Reply #6 on: December 13, 2017, 08:11:17 AM »

It probably depends on how you define the word "spiritual".

It does indeed.

Dennis's music takes me to places I don't visit even when listening to Brian's music. Does this make Dennis more spiritual?
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« Reply #7 on: December 13, 2017, 08:19:01 AM »

If you define spiritual by who meditated the most to make himself feel better, then it's Mike.  If you define it as a way of being and living your life with love towards everyone, while always keeping in mind the big picture of life and the afterlife, then I would say Carl.  His son said when he got his cancer diagnosis his first words were "I'm not afraid to die."  Seems a likely response from a  'spiritual' person. 

Agree.  There are so many ways to define the term.  My criteria is simply based upon the vibes I got from Carl in his interviews and demeanor.  He appeared to be a gentle man with a gentle and sincere heart.  Brian does as well, but my vote tips slightly to Carl.  I never met him or knew him, but there was a sweetness about him that I can't describe in words.  I think his "spirituality", if you will, shone through.
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« Reply #8 on: December 13, 2017, 08:48:08 AM »

If you define spiritual by who meditated the most to make himself feel better, then it's Mike.  If you define it as a way of being and living your life with love towards everyone, while always keeping in mind the big picture of life and the afterlife, then I would say Carl.  His son said when he got his cancer diagnosis his first words were "I'm not afraid to die."  Seems a likely response from a  'spiritual' person. 

I'm inclined to agree.
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« Reply #9 on: December 13, 2017, 10:47:43 AM »

Depends om the definition of spirituality, but come on, Brian is a very strong contender. I mean, the music he wrote clearly shows he had some kind of connection to The Great Spirti, whatever you want to call it. Maybe he doesn't even know or realize it, but the proof is in the proverbial pudding.

One way to put it... I feel Dennis yearns to find that spirit, he longs for it, but cannot quite reach it, and that's what makes his music so heartbreakingly human and beautiful. Whereas Brian was born to it and thus doesn't even realize how spiritual he is... Does this make any sense? To me it does...
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« Reply #10 on: December 13, 2017, 12:43:16 PM »

I think the question is way too broad/generalized to reach anything even approaching an actual answer.

From the little we know of Carl, he certainly was active in *searching* for various forms of spirituality/religion. He supposedly/allegedly dabbled and/or looked into Scientology at some point, and of course is more known for his interest in whatever it is that the "MSIA" (Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness) was/is.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with those organizations, both have been labeled at various points by detractors as "cults", so it certainly at the very least makes me more interested to know more about Carl, even if we likely never will.
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« Reply #11 on: December 13, 2017, 01:06:24 PM »

Interesting replies, thank you all. By spiritual I meant some kind of awareness that there could be more between heaven and earth than what meets the eye, more than an organized faith, or righteous behavior, or inner peace.

I still think Mike comes out ahead here, a lifetime of TM, and at least an intention to live by certain teachings, even if he didn't succeed in that.

Brian has been mentioned as someone with a divine gift, his musical genius. I do think Brian is more conventionally religious, like most church-going folks.

Then there is Carl, I didn't know about his search for an answer to life, but certainly he was the most graceful of the three.

Sorry for being so vague, but at least it makes for an interesting variety of replies.
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« Reply #12 on: December 13, 2017, 06:46:07 PM »

Myke luHv is about as spiritual and deep as the plastic swimming pool with a palm tree I had for my first turtle which was 3" deep. All that TM crapola is a sideshow for him to run to and hide behind. Does anyone actually buy that façade when he dresses in robes, paints his face and eats that slop that my dog wouldn't look at let alone eat? And after all this play acting has the gonads to still call out Brian and Dennis about their drug use in each and every interview he does. The only god he really worships is The God Of Money which is his own personal deity of choice.
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« Reply #13 on: December 13, 2017, 06:55:31 PM »

OSD! LOL
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« Reply #14 on: December 13, 2017, 09:22:40 PM »

There is no gauge of who is most spiritual.

But going on some facts and revisiting some old history, during and just before "The Smile Era" there were numerous reports in the music and fan press that Brian was attending meditation sessions around LA. There was a report that Brian had been composing a musical prayer for a meditation/religious group called "The Subdubs" which was actually "Subud", the practice which counted Jim McGuinn and numerous musicians among its followers. There were reports and interviews done after the fact that said Brian would show up with various members of The Byrds as well as other Beach Boys when these groups would hold meetings. And on the Smile skit tapes, Van Dyke Parks cracks a joke about a Latihan, and it sounded like no one else in the studio except maybe Brian (who isn't heard commenting) knew what a Latihan was.

I wrote a ton about this a few years ago in a thread about TM and Brian's studying it in 1966 and the whole ball of wax, so I'm repeating myself but if anyone is interested in more info on that topic, search the archives and it's there.

What stuck out to me was that Mike often if not regularly speaks about meeting Maharishi at the UN event in Dec 1967, which is where he and the band "discovered" meditation, egged on by Dennis' recommendation (a point which Mike often leaves out just the same).

Meanwhile, "Crazy Brian" (while in his drugged-out Smile-Era stupor according to some idiots' revision of history) had been investigating meditation and even getting into offshoots if not direct predecessors of the TM movement and phenom at least a year before Mike says they were introduced to it.

And Brian was open about saying he and Carl held prayer sessions while recording Pet Sounds, while not naming a specific practice or denomination or organized religion. He also - according to Michael Vosse, David Anderle, and others, was reading and studying the I Ching, Buddhism, Eastern philosophy and mysticism, numerology, and other forms of spirituality during the time of Smile, 1966-67.

So sometimes the guy who wears the robes in a group isn't always the most spiritual, in other words "barba non facit philosophum".

I guess it's up to everyone to weigh the facts and reports and decide even though there really is no contest or way of determining which band member is most spiritual.  Smiley Just consider who was into all this stuff before the rest, took what he wanted to take, and got out.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2017, 09:56:58 PM by guitarfool2002 » Logged

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« Reply #15 on: December 13, 2017, 09:50:41 PM »

Pure gold. Most informative, thanks for weighing in! Smiley
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« Reply #16 on: December 13, 2017, 11:41:18 PM »

There is the guy who talks the talk, and the guy who walks the walk. IMO, the latter was Carl. He just exuded it in his demeanor. Mike talks about it a lot, but maybe he is too self conscious to let down his guard and unleash the love.
I think Brian is a guy who, in his inspired musical moments, has reached towards the heavens, sometimes he's gotten there, other times he has come very close. But he also has an agitated side to him - agitation, I am guessing, born out of the inability to sustain those occasional heavenly moments.
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« Reply #17 on: December 14, 2017, 08:54:12 AM »

Easy...Carl and Brian...although Brian's faith in the essential infinite was interrupted, to a noticeable degree, by the realities of his less than realistic medical issues...at least in terms of their lending themselves to reality...if ya know what I'm prattling about. 

Carl was NOT perfect.  Who is?  But he and Brian and, deep down inside, Dennis were all head, shoulders and obviously more spiritual than the 'great' pretender.  OSD nailed it.  Spiritual people don't do the things he's done...all his life.  Spiritual people don't LIE and take advantage of partners and family when they're incapacitated.  Spiritual people don't 'do' thumbs up pictures with a SCUM BUCKET/PIG like Donald Trump...'cause that sh*t rubs off on you directly and it pollutes your soul.

I sense a spiritual feel from Al...David too really.  And Blondie as well.  But the two current members of the Beached Boys?  I dunno...Maybe Bruce when he's surfing?  But chrome dome?  Not a chance.  No way.  No how.  He's a manikin at best.  Mike Love is to spirituality what rice dream is to desert.
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« Reply #18 on: December 14, 2017, 09:11:36 AM »

I think Brian is a guy who, in his inspired musical moments, has reached towards the heavens, sometimes he's gotten there, other times he has come very close. But he also has an agitated side to him - agitation, I am guessing, born out of the inability to sustain those occasional heavenly moments.

There is a very potent element to this notion. Maybe it is as much a pressure to repeat those moments as it is an inability to sustain them, as in having the burden of expectation and anticipation that such "divine inspiration" to use a heavy term can just be called on demand and applied to whatever is the next project being undertaken. It's a burden which a lot of musical artists have fallen victim to and which has led to some devastating results when the pursuit of such inspiration combined with the pressure to replicate them as if they're ordering fast food from a menu becomes a hurdle that cannot be leapt over.

Brian is the guy who - 40 years after the fact - said to the effect of "how do you top Good Vibrations? You don't." Yet look at how many wanted him and expected him to do just that. Even in that 1976 TV special, McCartney is there at Brian's birthday celebration saying "Brian, when are you going to give us another Pet Sounds?"...then in the mid-90's you had a label asking for Pet Sounds part 2...and the whole nature of divine inspiration (or just everyday run-of-the-mill sparks of creative juice and inspiration) is that you can try methods to facilitate it, but the very nature of inspiration is random and filled with chance. You cannot order it off a menu.

And sometimes that inspiration creates something so personal, so unique, and so definitive and strong that being asked to replicate it on demand can be taken as an insult, and the expectations that such inspiring works will flow in succession can cause that agitation that can lead to either a radical shift in scope and design (as with Smiley Smile and Wild Honey, perhaps?) or a complete creative shut-down as has happened with any number of artists, authors, musicians, and the like.

This may be one reason why for me as a fan, I would selfishly love to see something else presented around "Smile", but when BWPS did come out it was done at exactly the right moment with the right people and it had the effect which was enough to say Ok, it's been done, let's move on to something else...and not try to recreate what was a truly unique experience in time.

Trying to recreate divine inspiration is a fool's errand, and expecting someone to recreate it is as destructive as it is naive.

And keep in mind this is the same Brian Wilson who has often said "Music is God's voice" and who considers music and the creation of music as a spiritual element and experience. The highest forms of that inspiration cannot be recreated on demand.
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« Reply #19 on: December 14, 2017, 12:13:20 PM »

If you watch Billy Hinche's "Here and Now" about Carl Wilson, the main theme running throughout the two dvd's is his spirituality.  Almost everyone interviewed for the production mentioned it.  His ability to see the big picture of life and understand that everyone was 'doing the best they could, given their resources'.  His nephew said he had a way of 'soothing the air' when he was around.  But didn't really preach it.

I'm always a little suspect of people who feel the need to 'talk' constantly about how wonderful/spiritual they are.  To me, its something you witness based on the way a person behaves -- no need for talk.  I DO feel (from all I've read) that all three Wilson brothers were deep, soulful guys.....but Carl achieved a level of spirituality.
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« Reply #20 on: December 14, 2017, 12:49:38 PM »

Mike is an easy target, but I wouldn't denigrate him for making an honest effort to live a spiritual life, seek answers, and be in a state of healing. He never wrecked his life with drugs and fast living, but kept an even keel through the years, always supportive of The Beach Boys, even if he was at odds with some of the artier leanings of the Wilson brothers. Here is a man who saw his cousins' lives destroyed by drugs, and he is understandably affected by that. That is not the same as calling out the cousins on their destructive drug use in the many interviews he has given; I do think he is deeply saddened by the turn of events and needs to express that in interviews. He doesn't have the divine gift of Brian's, he is not as beatific and graceful as Carl, but he's been a solid anchor throughout, the bedrock of the band. Not many his age would be able to tour as hard as he is doing.
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« Reply #21 on: December 14, 2017, 12:53:31 PM »

Wise words, GM.
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« Reply #22 on: December 14, 2017, 05:04:18 PM »

I think Brian is a guy who, in his inspired musical moments, has reached towards the heavens, sometimes he's gotten there, other times he has come very close. But he also has an agitated side to him - agitation, I am guessing, born out of the inability to sustain those occasional heavenly moments.

There is a very potent element to this notion. Maybe it is as much a pressure to repeat those moments as it is an inability to sustain them, as in having the burden of expectation and anticipation that such "divine inspiration" to use a heavy term can just be called on demand and applied to whatever is the next project being undertaken. It's a burden which a lot of musical artists have fallen victim to and which has led to some devastating results when the pursuit of such inspiration combined with the pressure to replicate them as if they're ordering fast food from a menu becomes a hurdle that cannot be leapt over.

Brian is the guy who - 40 years after the fact - said to the effect of "how do you top Good Vibrations? You don't." Yet look at how many wanted him and expected him to do just that. Even in that 1976 TV special, McCartney is there at Brian's birthday celebration saying "Brian, when are you going to give us another Pet Sounds?"...then in the mid-90's you had a label asking for Pet Sounds part 2...and the whole nature of divine inspiration (or just everyday run-of-the-mill sparks of creative juice and inspiration) is that you can try methods to facilitate it, but the very nature of inspiration is random and filled with chance. You cannot order it off a menu.

And sometimes that inspiration creates something so personal, so unique, and so definitive and strong that being asked to replicate it on demand can be taken as an insult, and the expectations that such inspiring works will flow in succession can cause that agitation that can lead to either a radical shift in scope and design (as with Smiley Smile and Wild Honey, perhaps?) or a complete creative shut-down as has happened with any number of artists, authors, musicians, and the like.

This may be one reason why for me as a fan, I would selfishly love to see something else presented around "Smile", but when BWPS did come out it was done at exactly the right moment with the right people and it had the effect which was enough to say Ok, it's been done, let's move on to something else...and not try to recreate what was a truly unique experience in time.

Trying to recreate divine inspiration is a fool's errand, and expecting someone to recreate it is as destructive as it is naive.

And keep in mind this is the same Brian Wilson who has often said "Music is God's voice" and who considers music and the creation of music as a spiritual element and experience. The highest forms of that inspiration cannot be recreated on demand.

Good thread, in that it's impossible to answer - but I love the comment about attempting to create and recreate those magical/spiritual moments - and they are just moments that come when they do.

Brian one time tried to impress on me how much the "sense of longing" was important to his music.  Like everything else, I sort of got it, and get more of it at different times, and clearly Dennis knew it immediately, as noted in a post above.

Another moment was not long after Carl died (like GF in some of his previous posts, I probably noted this before somewhere), I mentioned that Carl was his "Angel Voice."  Brian's face lit up and he said, "yes, YES!"  Yeah, I hate when people try to paint Carl as a saint.  He was far too funny - but he gave spirituality quite a voice.

Al seems to really have gotten the connection to the earth and sky, and has remained a good man, connected to that energy, maintaining and voicing it.

Mike, I think, is doing the best he can with the Buddy/Murry heritage and temperament.  I applaud the fact that he tries, until $$ are involved.  I hope he can get past that in this lifetime, since he seems to believe in reincarnation.  Then he could be amazing in a future life.

Brian spoke so often in metaphors that I think he spends as much time as possible examining all aspects of spirituality and creativity.  Some things he said didn't give me that "aha" moment until decades later when it was in my face.  I'm not alone in that experience of him.

And let's not forget that doctors did a study in the late 2000's regarding what music actually healed people, including all genres.  "Whistle In" was the most effective.  Brian wrote it, all of them sang it, so...

Today?  Brian will enjoy his life and who he is (as he should) and if inspiration hits again, we'll hear it.

I once mentioned to a brilliant writer, after I'd studied many cultures, that Brian would have been a shaman in many of them: the psychological break/crisis, the creative brilliance and the healing ability.  He actually liked the idea before he was sidetracked by an overwhelming job.

If anyone can tell me what spirituality is, I'd appreciate the answer.  I think it's different for all of us.  We get different aspects of it at different times.  

Each guy was a part of the whole that is America's Band.  It's the creative version and the perfect reflection of the US in the late 20th/early 21st century, in all of it's contexts - the amazing, generous heights and the disturbing lows.  I'd throw in a little Marvin Gaye while I was at it, though, along with James Brown and Tina Turner.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2017, 05:05:49 PM by Debbie KL » Logged
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« Reply #23 on: December 14, 2017, 05:17:38 PM »

Amazing post! Grin
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« Reply #24 on: December 14, 2017, 07:49:54 PM »

That was beautiful Debbie
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