Wasn't the selling of the catalogue for peanuts an event that was pivotal in the further deteriorating mental health of Brian Wilson. That his catalogue was sold for so little by his own father must've been a terrible period. It was a rejection of his musical value not only by the industry but by his own father, who he had looked up to during their rise to fame.
What a brutal action by a brute who failed miserably as a father and empathetic human being.
Absolutely... and this whole event is made much weirder, to me at least, by Murry *just* having written the song Breakaway, which lyrically references a guy who is hearing voices and is trying to get away from stuff that haunts him. (Although who knows when exactly it was written, but release date-wise, it came out right around the time of the selling of the catalog).
That timing is very odd to me, and it's just baffling to try and figure out if there's any kind of connection between the things that Murry was speaking about (through his son singing) on that song, as they could perhaps apply to the emotions that went into Murry's selling of the catalog.
I had always heard it was the general assumption that the selling of the catalog was partially a vindictive move by Murry against his ungrateful sons who'd fired him. Yet if Murry was in a vindictive state of mind in 1969, why were they working with him so much all of a sudden right around (just before?) the time he sold the catalog? Or did they work with him after all this time, and it got ugly again, and that was the final straw? The action of the band consciously including Murry in a number of capacities in BB-ville was unprecedented since the very early days of the band, and even in those early years, Murry wasn't writing lyrics for whole BB songs nor singing backing vocals on them.
If one is to try to extrapolate meaning from the lyrics to Breakaway and possibly apply them to Murry's state of mind when selling the catalog, one could almost walk away thinking that he truly (however shortsightedly) believed he was doing his sons a favor (in a non-vindictive manner), and that the band would be free of the chains of emotions that were holding them back once they were dissociated with the catalog.
If Murry truly believed that Brian's mental illness was solely due to Brian having the albatross of the past-its-prime band around his (Brian's) neck, then maybe he thought having that gone (via the catalog being sold) could help Brian and the Boys break away from all that was holding them back/down (that being trying to beat a dead horse by keeping the faded brand name alive circa 1969). Not trying to have an overly-sympathetic view of Murry, since I think there's no denying he was a sick and twisted dude, and of course if Murry did indeed hold this view, it would additionally be a despicable way of Murry absolving himself of any responsibility for contributing to Brian's mental illness.
Anyway, I just can't help but think that there's some connection to all this late '60s Murry activity with the band and the sale of the catalog. I just don't know the specifics, but it's interesting to speculate, and curious to know what others think.
Also - there's got to be a reason why Murry chose the Reggie Dunbar credit, too. Or perhaps was that Brian's idea? In any event, odd things like that don't just "happen"; I'm sure there was a reason for it. It baffles.
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