Speaker 1: Double Elvis. Blood on the Tracks is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Double Elvis. Brian Wilson was a
Speaker 1: musical genius and one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
Speaker 1: He caught melodies like they were waves. He bottled good
Speaker 1: vibrations like no one else, and he picked up bad
Speaker 1: vibrations too. He broke down, he tripped hard. He didn't
Speaker 1: just hear music, he heard voices. He tried to lose
Speaker 1: those voices by making a teenage symphony to God called Smile.
Speaker 1: But somewhere along the way, Brian Wilson lost his mind instead.
Speaker 1: This is his story. Hello, this is Rhonda Masson again.
Speaker 1: I'm still compiling these Brian Wilson tapes, and the more
Speaker 1: I listened, the more varied these tapes seemed to be.
Speaker 1: There are so many recordings here. I mean, here is
Speaker 1: one that's just labeled vegetables. It goes on for ages
Speaker 1: like that. But this is what I really wanted to
Speaker 1: show you. I've just stumbled across something pretty incredible. It
Speaker 1: was just labeled with the doodle of the sun. From
Speaker 1: what I can hear, it's just one session, but it
Speaker 1: seems to be around ninety hours of tape. I haven't
Speaker 1: got through it all yet as it's so you know long,
Speaker 1: but it looks to be all of the parts of
Speaker 1: the Beach Boys classic Good Vibrations. Let me play the
Speaker 1: bit I've just found. This is from in between some takes.
Speaker 1: Sorry for the pause, everyone, I just need to make
Speaker 1: sure that this room is right. It has to be right.
Speaker 1: The vibrations need to be perfect. Okay, listen, listen with me.
Speaker 1: Do you hear that? God, this whole thing isn't right.
Speaker 1: This place is tainted? Can anyone else feel that? Wait? No, no,
Speaker 1: this won't work. I'm canceling the session. I'm sorry everyone,
Speaker 1: pack up. This isn't right. The vibrations aren't They aren't right.
Speaker 1: If the vibrations aren't right, we can't get the music.
Speaker 1: And if we can't get the music, we'll just put it.
Speaker 1: We'll just put with blood on the tracks. Chapter two,
Speaker 1: Brian Wilson is seeing vibrations one oh five point four
Speaker 1: b r I a n FM. Good morning, the sun
Speaker 1: is rising on another day and we're feeling good, good good.
Speaker 1: Let's stay healthy out there today. Don't forget to eat
Speaker 1: your vegetables and catch those rays. There's just one remember please,
Speaker 1: and if you You'll be just fine. That little arrangement
Speaker 1: we had where the Beach Boys toured and I stayed
Speaker 1: behind the studio was really paying off. We were making hits.
Speaker 1: The music sounded great, but it was about to get
Speaker 1: a whole lot better. We were about to release our
Speaker 1: best album to date. We began making Pet Sounds in
Speaker 1: the middle of and by February sixty six, we were
Speaker 1: pretty much done with the music. Geez. I loved making
Speaker 1: those songs. The studio had become a place where I
Speaker 1: felt safe, happy, even down know, I didn't feel like
Speaker 1: that outside the studio. While I was making those songs.
Speaker 1: The guy who had that whatever it was, that that
Speaker 1: breakdown on the plane, he felt like he was a
Speaker 1: completely different person. It was like I didn't even know him.
Speaker 1: One time, we were cutting a track called That's Not Me,
Speaker 1: and one of the musicians, a guy called Steve, turned
Speaker 1: to me and said, you're nothing like I thought you
Speaker 1: would be. I asked him what he meant. He said
Speaker 1: he thought I might be a bit more out there.
Speaker 1: That kind of exchange hasn't really stopped over the years.
Speaker 1: People think of me as some sort of volatile or
Speaker 1: unstable person, but that's not really true, there's just some
Speaker 1: uneven parts of my brain that can get the better
Speaker 1: of me. But when I was in the studio recording
Speaker 1: those tracks, I really felt at ease. The serene studio
Speaker 1: atmosphere would eventually be shattered. Of course, everything delicate in
Speaker 1: this world manages to get crushed one way or another.
Speaker 1: The vibrations need to be perfect. Okay, Yeah. When the
Speaker 1: band returned for touring, things didn't go so well. Mike,
Speaker 1: al Carl, and Dennis had just played Asia. They were
Speaker 1: all in good spirits, but it was kind of awkward
Speaker 1: having them come back into this environment where I had
Speaker 1: been in charge for so long. We said about recording
Speaker 1: some of the vocals, and it was going fine at first,
Speaker 1: but we hit a roadblock when it came to the song.
Speaker 1: I know there's an answer. Mike Love didn't like the lyrics.
Speaker 1: He read them through once and then threw the paper down.
Speaker 1: I thought he was mad because I've been working with
Speaker 1: other people on the words for the songs. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you know, but I enlisted Tony Asher, who
Speaker 1: worked in advertising. He joined me in writing this song,
Speaker 1: as did our road manager Terry Satchin. But that's not
Speaker 1: what Mike was annoyed about at least he said it
Speaker 1: wasn't He was actually mad about the content of the lyrics.
Speaker 1: Do you hear that? You see? The song was originally
Speaker 1: titled hang On to Your Ego, and well it was
Speaker 1: about taking LSD. Mike didn't like that, not one bit.
Speaker 1: What the funk are these words? He yelled. I was
Speaker 1: just about to reply, but he launched into his rant.
Speaker 1: He screamed that every night on tour they see audiences
Speaker 1: go wild for the normal beach boy material, and then
Speaker 1: if we change, the fans will abandon us. This whole
Speaker 1: thing isn't right. I told him it was just a
Speaker 1: few different words. It's the words, the music, everything, He replied.
Speaker 1: Someone told me you were recording dogs in here the
Speaker 1: other day. Dogs we don't funk with the formula? Is
Speaker 1: that really how you want to make a hit record?
Speaker 1: I told him I didn't care, and then I don't
Speaker 1: know why, but I just went for him. I guess
Speaker 1: I was frustrated because I had poured my heart into
Speaker 1: these songs. Maybe there's another problem here, I said, just
Speaker 1: loud enough for Mike to hear. Can anyone else feel that?
Speaker 1: I watched this puzzled look drip to cross his face
Speaker 1: as my brothers and Al became even more uncomfortable. Aren't right?
Speaker 1: I tried to sound off hand, but I knew my
Speaker 1: next comment would land hard. I said, I don't think
Speaker 1: you guys can hack this. You're not cut out for this.
Speaker 1: Mike erupted and leapt towards me. Carl grabbed him. Fuck you,
Speaker 1: He shouted, We're out here every single day playing to
Speaker 1: our fans and you're in here doing god knows what
Speaker 1: with fucking dogs and l s D. These are the songs.
Speaker 1: I said, take them or leave them. We didn't speak
Speaker 1: for the rest of the session. Carl eventually calmed Mike down,
Speaker 1: but he was still angry. The last thing he said
Speaker 1: to me that day was I've got a title for
Speaker 1: the album, Brian's Ego Music. How does that sound. Eventually
Speaker 1: we got the track down and it turned out pretty good,
Speaker 1: even with the lyrics altered from the original. Maybe maybe
Speaker 1: tension and pressure has its place in creativity. Years later,
Speaker 1: Mike would say he liked the music, but he didn't
Speaker 1: feel it was the right sound for the band at
Speaker 1: the time, which is fair enough. We'll have to agree
Speaker 1: to disagree. Mike's not stupid. You know, he was right
Speaker 1: about one thing. Drugs. Drugs are at the center of
Speaker 1: these songs, in fact, for right or wrong, or at
Speaker 1: the center of my story. And it all started with
Speaker 1: one trip that changed everything. It's so vast in here,
Speaker 1: it's so vast. I guess you're wondering how my brain
Speaker 1: got like this. Man, That was a long time ago.
Speaker 1: Now things got a little bigger in here. When I
Speaker 1: smoked grass and listened to the Beatles album Rubber Soul
Speaker 1: Norwegian would Michelle Man. The songs blew my mind. They
Speaker 1: literally took my mind away. I felt so competitive in
Speaker 1: that moment. I thought, God, I want to do something
Speaker 1: good like that. You know. I felt like music could
Speaker 1: be more than it was. I felt like I could
Speaker 1: be more than I was. I just needed some inspiration.
Speaker 1: The grass and Rubber Soul gave me a good idea.
Speaker 1: But the real change that came later. That happened the
Speaker 1: first time I took acid. My life change forever. Lauren Daro,
Speaker 1: a talent agent I knew, introduced me to acid. Everyone
Speaker 1: was doing it, and I was interested to see what
Speaker 1: it could do for me, how it could help me.
Speaker 1: I still remember taking the acid and putting it on
Speaker 1: my tongue. It was like my life had been a
Speaker 1: black and white movie and now everything was in technicolor.
Speaker 1: It felt so vivid and crisp, like I'd been seeing
Speaker 1: the world in a blur this whole time. I remember
Speaker 1: instantly feeling thirsty and going to get a glass of water.
Speaker 1: After I poured it, I found myself just staring at it.
Speaker 1: It looked like the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: The way the light caught it, the way it moved
Speaker 1: in the glass just incredible. I brought it to my
Speaker 1: mouth and tasted water for the first time. High God,
Speaker 1: it tasted so fresh. I felt like it was my
Speaker 1: first drink of water ever, water water water. I gulped
Speaker 1: it down and then immediately had another glass water water bottom.
Speaker 1: It was like it had fallen from heaven, like I've
Speaker 1: been in the desert for years, or dried it out,
Speaker 1: and someone had dumped the Pacific Ocean on my head.
Speaker 1: As I was drinking, something else caught my eye. It
Speaker 1: was the strangest thing in the air before me. I
Speaker 1: saw staffs and notes fly by, actual musical notation and
Speaker 1: just hanging there interrupt your scheduled programming. But this just
Speaker 1: is the sky's orange black and the grass of light
Speaker 1: have a break day. Now I was floating. I felt great,
Speaker 1: But then it all changed. There was this rising feeling
Speaker 1: of anxiety. It had been there since the start, but
Speaker 1: I hadn't noticed it until the walls began to move.
Speaker 1: It was like they were this uh. They were huge
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, like everything was getting bigger and
Speaker 1: I was getting smaller. I was suffocating under the pressure
Speaker 1: of the room. The vibrations aren't there. I ran into
Speaker 1: my bedroom and put my head under the pillow. I
Speaker 1: don't know why, but I kept thinking of my mom
Speaker 1: and dad, then just my dad. No. I closed my
Speaker 1: eyes and saw myself as a younger person, like everything
Speaker 1: was going backwards faster and faster than I was getting
Speaker 1: younger and younger. Suddenly I was just a baby sitting
Speaker 1: there in a diaper, small little, fragile baby. And then
Speaker 1: I was in the womb, and then I was an egg,
Speaker 1: and then I was gone, just nothing. I didn't exist,
Speaker 1: I was no longer there. It wasn't sad. I just
Speaker 1: didn't exist. I thought of how strange that was, How
Speaker 1: you couldn't be sad about being gone if you'd never
Speaker 1: existed in the first place. But at the same time
Speaker 1: I was there, I was thinking all of these things,
Speaker 1: so I existed in some form. I couldn't get my
Speaker 1: head around it. I felt separate from myself, like I
Speaker 1: had a subjective sense of my life. I didn't know
Speaker 1: it then, but I clung onto that idea and it
Speaker 1: found itself in the song I Know there's an answer.
Speaker 1: That's what the whole trip was like. Scary but compelling.
Speaker 1: I experienced so much in a short amount of time.
Speaker 1: I felt like I had seen the entire universe in
Speaker 1: a matter of hours. Sponsor from reality? Do you have
Speaker 1: to face the real world? I want to feel closer
Speaker 1: to God. Where what you need is acid? Acid, which
Speaker 1: is not illegal yet anyway, so it must be doctor recommended.
Speaker 1: It's the eper only way to escape the day troubling
Speaker 1: upbringing acid, pressuring your professional life, ascid problems at home
Speaker 1: with your wife. Acid it's the only way to escape
Speaker 1: the day. Acid make our hallucinations like being on flyveryliving
Speaker 1: your birth and non existence. It also could result in
Speaker 1: a flashback. You're not consult your doctor. Oh man, sorry,
Speaker 1: I drifted off there Where was I? Oh? Yeah? Later
Speaker 1: and still tripping I stumbled around until I found my
Speaker 1: way back into the living room. Time was meaningless. I
Speaker 1: saw my piano, so I sat on the bench and
Speaker 1: started to play. Played a B, than a in F sharp,
Speaker 1: than a G sharp, before going back to F sharp.
Speaker 1: I played all those notes again in the in and
Speaker 1: again for maybe an hour. I just went round and
Speaker 1: round and round with it. I must have fallen asleep
Speaker 1: at the piano, because when I woke up, a whole
Speaker 1: day had passed. I still felt a little dizzy, and
Speaker 1: everything looked a little bright, but I knew I was
Speaker 1: coming back down to earth. I sipped the same glass
Speaker 1: of water from before, but it didn't taste like it
Speaker 1: did before. I figured I was finally back to normal.
Speaker 1: But that's the funny thing with drugs. You're never sure
Speaker 1: when they're done with you. Things were far from being
Speaker 1: back to normal. In fact, things were about to change forever.
Speaker 1: Can anyone else feel that? At the piano I started
Speaker 1: to play something straight away. My hand was possessed, like
Speaker 1: it had been taken over by God or something. More likely,
Speaker 1: it was the muscle memory from the trip. I started
Speaker 1: playing those same notes from before again, to B, the
Speaker 1: F sharp, the G sharp. I then started mumbling over it.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, I saw the melody. I didn't
Speaker 1: hear it, I actually saw it just hovering over the keys,
Speaker 1: suspended in mid air. I grabbed it, but not with
Speaker 1: my hands, but with my mind, and I started singing
Speaker 1: it as loud as I could. Thirty minutes later and
Speaker 1: I had the song that would go on to be
Speaker 1: California Girls done and dusted in half an hour. That's
Speaker 1: the moment I realized how powerful LSD could be. But
Speaker 1: you know, stuff like that, songs like California Girls, you
Speaker 1: have to pay for it. The universe or God or
Speaker 1: whoever just doesn't give you stuff like that on a plate.
Speaker 1: You have to pay for it. And I wasn't an exception.
Speaker 1: Just a week after that first trip, the voices began
Speaker 1: to speak inside my head. Hello, Brian, your father, and
Speaker 1: they'd never ever leave. We'll be right back after this.
Speaker 1: We were were. There's things we can't see, things will
Speaker 1: never see, things we shouldn't see. Vibrations, Vibrations are everywhere.
Speaker 1: Ignore them at your peril. Vibrations need to be perfect. Okay,
Speaker 1: they scare me because they're moving around us, dictating how
Speaker 1: things are all without us being able to see them?
Speaker 1: Can anyone else feel that? When I wrote good Vibrations,
Speaker 1: I was thinking about how people sense instinctively if something
Speaker 1: is good news or bad news. You know, like when
Speaker 1: the telephone rings. Sometimes you just know what type of
Speaker 1: news is waiting for you at the other end. We
Speaker 1: can sense those vibrations, but we often aren't open to them.
Speaker 1: This idea first came to me a long time ago,
Speaker 1: back when I was just a child. I was walking
Speaker 1: with my mother near our house. Across the street was
Speaker 1: this huge German shepherd. I had seen him around the
Speaker 1: neighborhood many times, and on this day he was dozing
Speaker 1: in someone's front yard, basking in the morning heat. There
Speaker 1: was a man walking on the sidewalk right past the dog.
Speaker 1: He seemed nervous, but kind of angry too. Without warning,
Speaker 1: the dog leapt up from its slumber ran towards the fence. No, no,
Speaker 1: this won't work. It jumped up, but it couldn't clear it,
Speaker 1: so it just stood and barked wildly at this guy.
Speaker 1: Rather than move on or pacify the dog, he hit
Speaker 1: the fence aggressively and just taunted the dog. The German
Speaker 1: shepherd was furious. This whole thing isn't right. It buttered
Speaker 1: against the wire fence, growling. It's spit was all over
Speaker 1: the hot ground. The man laughed as he walked away
Speaker 1: and disappeared around the corner. My mother made me cross
Speaker 1: the road, and slowly we made our way towards the
Speaker 1: angry beast. I didn't want to go anywhere near it.
Speaker 1: I couldn't have nderstand why she would want to put
Speaker 1: us in danger like that. She tapped the fence lightly
Speaker 1: and bent down to the dog's level. Tentative at first,
Speaker 1: but eventually the dog stopped barking came over to my mother.
Speaker 1: It pushed its head into the fence and my mother
Speaker 1: rubbed its head. She turned to me and she said, Brian,
Speaker 1: would you like to pat him? Only moments ago this
Speaker 1: thing looked like it would feast on my blood. Now
Speaker 1: it was relaxed, docile, and before I could stop myself,
Speaker 1: my hand was moving toward it. Right before I touched
Speaker 1: the dog's fur, my ears buzzed with the tension, and
Speaker 1: then the dog was resting its head on the fence,
Speaker 1: pushing against my forearm. You see, my mother said, dogs
Speaker 1: can pick up on vibrations. It could read a situation
Speaker 1: or a person immediately. She had a hard job tearing
Speaker 1: me away from that dog. I wanted to stay there forever.
Speaker 1: It was all I could see in my mind eyes.
Speaker 1: I stood in gold Star Studios years later. It was
Speaker 1: the day of the Beach boys were cutting my song
Speaker 1: good Vibrations. It was completely silent in the studio. I
Speaker 1: walked around. Eight or nine musicians stood there watching me,
Speaker 1: hardly breathing. Do you hear that? I asked that. No
Speaker 1: one replied, it's not it's not right. I said, it's
Speaker 1: just not right. No, no, this won't work. I moved
Speaker 1: to the wall and touched the paneling nothing. Then I
Speaker 1: put my ear to the wall. All I heard was dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb,
Speaker 1: dumb dumb, dumb, dumb dumb. I pulled my head off
Speaker 1: the wall quickly and turned to face everyone that They
Speaker 1: were all looking at me with white eyes full of expectation. No, no,
Speaker 1: this won't work, I said, I'm canceling this session. I'm sorry, everyone,
Speaker 1: pack up. This isn't right. The vibrations aren't right, the
Speaker 1: vibrations aren't right, and we can't hit the music in
Speaker 1: Chuck Britts my recording engineer begged me to reconsider. He
Speaker 1: told me I had wasted fifty dollars already wasted. I
Speaker 1: said to him, wasted. We're making a pocket symphony here.
Speaker 1: Stuff like this takes time. I explained to him that
Speaker 1: everything had to be just right in these sessions, how
Speaker 1: we were creating something we've never made before, something that
Speaker 1: no one had ever made before. I told him how
Speaker 1: I wanted this to be like a Beach Boys Gershwin movement,
Speaker 1: but with Phil Specter's production. No better than Phil Specter.
Speaker 1: You hear that Phil. I wanted this to be something
Speaker 1: that would challenge the Beatles to be better. I wanted
Speaker 1: those lads in Liverpool to hear and feel how I
Speaker 1: felt when I heard Robert Soul for the first time.
Speaker 1: It took a while to get the song right. Of course.
Speaker 1: I stitched together a lot of ideas feels as I
Speaker 1: called them together, you know, to make a song. We
Speaker 1: recorded it like that too, all in blocks. It took
Speaker 1: months and yes, a lot of money. I guess Check
Speaker 1: was right about that, but I didn't mind. I knew
Speaker 1: we were onto something. Can anyone else feel that everything
Speaker 1: came together on that track? It's full of good ideas,
Speaker 1: and not just from me. My brother Carl suggested the cello,
Speaker 1: and we had the inventor of the electro thereman Paul Tanner,
Speaker 1: playing his instrument on the track. The music came together slowly,
Speaker 1: but it was like being born. It was a process.
Speaker 1: It had to be the lyrics, though they were even harder.
Speaker 1: Tony Asher had written some good words to go with mine,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't that happy with them. To be honest,
Speaker 1: this whole thing isn't right. We had the good, good,
Speaker 1: good vibration and bit, but not a whole lot else.
Speaker 1: It needed something, but I didn't know what it. Turns out,
Speaker 1: I didn't have far to look. I was at the
Speaker 1: piano again in the studio one day, a little high again.
Speaker 1: I was just playing the song on the keys, thinking
Speaker 1: of all its different moving parts, singing what little lyrics
Speaker 1: I had that I liked. And that's when Mike Love
Speaker 1: came in. Is this the song you were talking about?
Speaker 1: He asked, Sure, I answered, Vibrations, he asked. I told
Speaker 1: him about the encounter with the dog and what it
Speaker 1: meant to me, And as I did, his whole face
Speaker 1: started to change. He got so excited. You're right, he said,
Speaker 1: there's vibrations everywhere. This is what's happening down in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: the peace and love movement down there. This is it, Brian.
Speaker 1: It's all about vibrations, the feelings in the air. It
Speaker 1: has to be right. He grabbed a pen from the
Speaker 1: top of the piano scribbled something on his arm. I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen him like that. Ages so creatively inspired. We
Speaker 1: didn't really discuss it after that. He kind of kept
Speaker 1: me in the dark until we were all in CBS
Speaker 1: Columbia Square ready to record the vocals. I was a
Speaker 1: bit anxious, thinking maybe he'd given up on it, But
Speaker 1: something incredible happened when we all got together. We were
Speaker 1: all standing around at the microphone. Then Mike finally walked in.
Speaker 1: Are we ready, he asked, holding up a legal pad.
Speaker 1: He later told me he'd written the final draft of
Speaker 1: the lyrics in the car on the way to the studio.
Speaker 1: I should have guessed they were so fresh. When I
Speaker 1: heard the vocals that day, complete with Mike's new words,
Speaker 1: my mind raised. If this was how the next album
Speaker 1: was going to sound, it was going to blow everyone's minds.
Speaker 1: I was wrong, though, I wouldn't blow everyone's mind just mine.
Speaker 1: Louis Epstein walks down Hollywood Boulevard, gazing up at the
Speaker 1: street lamps adorned with multicolored Christmas lights. He stops and
Speaker 1: looks up at them properly before catching himself. He cannot
Speaker 1: be late today. He has to be at work on time.
Speaker 1: Today one of his regulars is coming in, and this
Speaker 1: one is a V I P. He sees the huge
Speaker 1: sign come into view as he briskly navigates the sidewalk.
Speaker 1: The words Pickwick Books dominate this section of the street.
Speaker 1: Louis feels a sense of pride when he sees them,
Speaker 1: and moments later he's unlocking the front door and stepping
Speaker 1: into the shop, with a familiar fragrance of old books
Speaker 1: greets him, as it does every day. It smells like home.
Speaker 1: Epstein turns on the shops radio and the sound of
Speaker 1: kf w B filsy air. He sits behind the counter
Speaker 1: and waits. He doesn't know what time it will happen,
Speaker 1: but he knows it will happen. It's not until the
Speaker 1: afternoon that he hears the corvette pull up outside, and
Speaker 1: as if by design, when the man steps out of
Speaker 1: the car, kf w B begins to play a California Girls.
Speaker 1: As the man enters the shop, he shoots Epstein a smile.
Speaker 1: That's a great song, he says, you should know. Epstein replies,
Speaker 1: he watches as Brian Wilson heads for the health section.
Speaker 1: Almost every week Brian visits the store, and almost every
Speaker 1: week he goes straight to that section. He's always buying
Speaker 1: books on physiology, which Epstein never knows how to take.
Speaker 1: Is this a joke? Is it a cry for help?
Speaker 1: The rumors of Wilson's drug taking and radical behavior have
Speaker 1: made l a showbiz gossip groups, and there's also talk
Speaker 1: that Brian is turning his famous group into a psychedelic
Speaker 1: rock band. Epstein can believe it because today Brian holds
Speaker 1: a copy of Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, which he
Speaker 1: clutches tightly to his chest. Epstein usually leaves his special
Speaker 1: guests alone, but today he can't help it. With the
Speaker 1: Beach Boys song still playing on the radio, he feels
Speaker 1: he can do what he never does. Engaged, the star
Speaker 1: Jeezy says, instantly regretting his choice of words, I just
Speaker 1: love California Girls. It's swell you like that one? Brian replies,
Speaker 1: They all like that one, Epstein babbles on about pianos,
Speaker 1: chords and harmonies, and Brian doesn't reply. Epstein changes the
Speaker 1: subject starts talking about the Beatles, the Birds, Dylan, but
Speaker 1: Brian seems even less engaged. What Louis Epstein mistakes in
Speaker 1: that moment as rudeness from his famous customer is actually
Speaker 1: a chemical reaction in the brain. The moment Epstein mentions
Speaker 1: California girls, Brian gets a feeling. It starts small at
Speaker 1: the back of his head, but it grows like a fire,
Speaker 1: spreading to his whole brain. Epstein talks and talks, but
Speaker 1: Brian's mind can't process what's being said. At first, it's
Speaker 1: just dizziness, but after a few seconds, Brian feels his
Speaker 1: eyes blur. He looks at the copy of Psycho Cybernetics
Speaker 1: in his hands, and the letters begin to move around
Speaker 1: the page. Seconds later, the book feels like it's vibrating
Speaker 1: in his hands. He blinks quickly to try to snap
Speaker 1: out of it, but it only makes it worse. As
Speaker 1: he looks up to the rows of books from the
Speaker 1: floor to the ceiling, they all start to melt like
Speaker 1: candle wax, and the spines merge together. The colors running,
Speaker 1: a sludgy mass of blue, red, green, and orange that
Speaker 1: slides down the walls. He flashes back to writing California
Speaker 1: Girls at the piano, he hears the notes ring in
Speaker 1: his ears b F sharp, G sharn. He doesn't know
Speaker 1: what is happening. He just knows he's terrified. California Girls
Speaker 1: is no longer playing on the raid you, but it
Speaker 1: continues to ring in his ears. He smashes his hand
Speaker 1: against his head, trying to get rid of the sound,
Speaker 1: and as he does, he knocks himself off balance. He
Speaker 1: stumbles and falls into a bookshelf. He's sinking in the
Speaker 1: dripping colors of wax, like he's surrounded by thick water.
Speaker 1: California Girl sounds distant now. Brian struggles to breathe. He thinks,
Speaker 1: this is it? What is it? A heart attack, a stroke,
Speaker 1: a brain aneurysm. He closes his eyes and accepts his fate.
Speaker 1: But when he opens his eyes, Epstein is standing over him.
Speaker 1: The shop owner's face looks jumbled and elongated. It reminds
Speaker 1: him of his favorite Edward Monk painting. The words coming
Speaker 1: from Epstein's mouth are delayed, and Brian watches his lips move,
Speaker 1: but it's a few seconds before the sound comes through.
Speaker 1: Are you okay? Epstein as Brian tries to nod but
Speaker 1: doesn't know if he manages it. Are you on something, man?
Speaker 1: We can get a doctor. Brian manages to say no,
Speaker 1: and he hears the word reverbery, adding to a faint
Speaker 1: sound of California girls in his mind. Epstein lowers his
Speaker 1: voice a little. Are you sure you haven't taken any acid?
Speaker 1: Not for a while? Brian responds, somehow, managing to form
Speaker 1: the words. Epstein asked if he's ever had a flashback,
Speaker 1: but it's too late. Brian's eyes are closing, and then
Speaker 1: his body shuts down. When he wakes up, he's at
Speaker 1: home in bed. The melting colors from the shop are
Speaker 1: blurred in his eyes still, but as he slowly regains focus,
Speaker 1: he realizes it's the Christmas lights on the tree in
Speaker 1: front of him. He looks to his right on the nightstand.
Speaker 1: It's that copy of Psycho Cybernetics. Inside the front cover
Speaker 1: has written a note that reads, this one's on the house,
Speaker 1: Louis Epstein. Brian lays back down and watches the Christmas
Speaker 1: lights twinkle. He thinks of the things he saw on
Speaker 1: the bookstore. Worried I'll have a similar experience again. He
Speaker 1: pulls the duvet cover up over his face. The funk
Speaker 1: is going on. He doesn't know the answer to his
Speaker 1: own question, but he suspects it's about to put a
Speaker 1: whole lot of blood on the tracks. Blood on the
Speaker 1: Tracks is produced by Double Elvis in partnership with I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. It's hosted an executive produced by me Jake Brennan,
Speaker 1: also executive produced by Brady Sadly. Zeth Lundy is lead
Speaker 1: editor and producer. This episode was written by Ben Burrow,
Speaker 1: mixing and sound designed by Colin Fleming. Additional music and
Speaker 1: score elements by Ryan Spraaker. This season features Chris Anzaloni
Speaker 1: is the voice of Brian Wilson. Sources for this episode
Speaker 1: are available at Double Elvis dot com on the Blood
Speaker 1: in the Tracks series page. Follow Double Elvis on Instagram
Speaker 1: at double Elvis and on Twitch at Graceland Talks, and
Speaker 1: you can talk to me per Usual on Instagram and
Speaker 1: Twitter at disgrace Land Pod, Rock and Roll, Dike Crazy,
Speaker 1: her Dad,