WEBVTT - Brian Wilson: Love and Mercy, Murder, Theft, and Manipulation 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:17.840 Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:22.040 story about the quiet One, the genius, and the bathrobe, 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:26.239 the savant, the ghost. And it's a story about murder, 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:31.520 about theft, about manipulation. It's a story about the cost 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.320 of music and the way a sound can save a 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:38.080 person and the way it can drown them too. It's 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.640 about the beach Boys, yes, but it's also about the 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:45.879 wave that never stops pulling. And this is a story 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:51.200 about love and mercy and about family and the violent 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:54.840 cracks that split these things apart. It's about the man 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:57.840 who made pet sounds, and it's about the people who 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:02.360 nearly destroyed him for it, people who medicated him, isolated him, 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:07.000 rewrote his contracts, manipulated his mind, and stole his future. 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:11.119 It's about a murder that marked his descent, a theft 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:15.080 that changed his legacy, and a manipulation so complete it 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:19.280 turned a fragile artist into a legal hostage. It's a 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:23.800 story about beach Boy Brian Wilson, a man who made 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:28.000 great music. Unlike that loop I played for you at 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:31.920 the top of the show that wasn't great music. That 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:35.480 was a preset loop from my melotron called pick in 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:39.759 Cass forever. I played you that loop because I can't 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:42.480 afford the rights to Monday Monday by the Mamas and 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:46.440 the Papas. And why would I play you that specific 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:50.320 slice of your mother's Laurel Canyon Cheese. Could I afford it? 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:54.720 Because that was the number one song in America on 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.760 May sixteenth, nineteen sixty six, And that was the day 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:03.040 Brian Wilson's Beach Boys released Pet Sounds and changed the 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:10.080 course of pop music forever. On this episode Murder, Theft, Manipulation, 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:14.840 Love and Mercy and the Broken Beauty of Brian Wilson, 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:39.240 I'm Jake Brennan, and this this disgraceland and the surfboard 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:42.040 hit Brian Wilson's head so hard that it brought on 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.640 total blackness. But when he opened his eyes under the wave, 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:50.000 the salt brought a sharp sting. The pins and needles 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.560 that bit at his hands and feet brought fear, and 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.600 a voice in his head not his own, told him 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:58.240 it was going to be all right. He was young, 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:02.040 not much older than ten, but he was physically strong. 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.280 Soon he'd be a high school athlete. He'd survive this 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:09.200 scary incident off the beach a couple miles from his 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:13.040 family home in Hawthorne, California, but he'd never serve again. 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:18.480 The hits kept on coming back in the Hawthorn home 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:23.000 throughout Brian's childhood. Hits to the head, close fist, hits 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:26.720 to the face, to the stomach so hard his knees buckled, 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:30.920 and down he went. Above him, he heard his father's 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:35.360 voice screaming at him. Whatever Brian had done, Murray Wilson 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:40.240 believed it justified the beating his sons, especially his oldest son. 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:43.120 Brian needed to be tough if Brian was going to 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:45.200 survive in this world, if he was going to make 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:50.240 something of himself like Murray had, and Brian Wilson was tough. 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:57.680 Brian Wilson, the songwriter, producer, composer, singer and beach boy, 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:01.160 passed away in twenty twenty five at the age of 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:04.800 eighty two, and much has been said and written about him. 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:09.560 When it comes to twentieth century musicians, Brian Wilson stands 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:13.920 among a small group of giants Paul McCartney, Miles Davis, 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:18.800 George Gershwin in The list pretty much ends there. In 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:21.680 the first paragraph of Brian Wilson's Wikipedia entry, and in 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:25.200 the first paragraph of his New York Times obituary, you'll 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:30.119 see the word genius, which is entirely justified. But Brian 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:35.120 Wilson was, of course, much more than that. He was, 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:39.159 as the Times oh Bit points out, damaged. He was 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:43.280 mentally ill. He abused drugs, the kind of drugs that 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:49.280 exacerbated his mental illness. He was also partially deaf and creatively, 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:53.600 he was as controlling as he was collaborative, as focused 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:57.400 as he was untethered. He was a son, a brother, 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:00.960 a cousin, a friend, a husband, an ex husband, a 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:05.920 husband again, a father, a dad, both loving and unintentionally unloving. 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:10.440 He was also a forever child who, like a kid, 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.960 found it difficult to rein in his impulses, and that 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:19.040 childlike quality persisted throughout his life, and it was, in 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:23.400 my opinion, part of what contributed to his genius. That 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.159 ability to see around creative corners other musical geniuses hadn't 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:31.200 yet approached, and other so called professionals were too grown 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:36.200 up to even notice. That childlike quality helped Brian Wilson 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:40.880 create America's band, The Beach Boys with his family, his 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.000 two little brothers and his cousin Mike, as well as 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:46.720 a couple of kids from the neighborhood, all under the 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:51.000 guidance of his domineering father and loving mother. The Beach 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:54.120 Boys gave the world. I'll repeat that, The Beach Boys 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:58.200 gave the world a glimpse at what the best of 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:03.839 America could be. Son, surf, young love, fast cars and 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:08.599 all the rest. And then Brian Wilson reached deep down 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:11.880 inside of himself and largely of his own creative volition, 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:15.680 gave the music world the greatest pop record of all 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:20.880 time up to that point, Pet Sounds, and later on 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:24.839 in life, it was also that same childlike quality that somehow, 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:29.000 perhaps ironically, helped Brian re emerge from his madness as 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:32.000 not only a survivor, but to regain his position in 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.839 pop music as a unique voice capable of penning one 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:39.279 of the most poignant and inspiring pop songs that I've 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:43.560 ever heard, Love and Mercy, and then becoming the literal 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:48.280 embodiment of what that song offered to the world. To 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:52.400 do all that, however, Brian Wilson had to endure three 0:06:52.760 --> 0:07:01.159 devastating crimes murder, theft, and manipulation Ian Wilson's life. To 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:05.760 put it mildly was an incredible life, and this is 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:13.440 an incredibly brief look at his story. Chapter one love. 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:18.800 Families are built on love, and families, as we all know, 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:23.040 are messy. By now, we've learned that there are different 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:26.720 ways of building a family. Families in the past, back 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:30.600 in the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties, weren't that different. 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:33.240 I have two young kids, and I was a kid 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:35.200 back in the eighties and the nineties. So I try 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:37.800 to raise my kids with some of the same gen X, 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:40.920 independence and grit that I grew up with, but it's 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:45.280 very difficult. The world is a different place. During summers, 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:47.760 when I was my eleven year old son's age, I 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:50.200 left the house in the morning on my mom was BMX, 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:52.920 mostly without a plan, maybe came home for launch if 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:55.920 I wasn't scarfing down food at my friend's house, and 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:59.640 otherwise didn't return until the street lights came on. Nowadays, 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:01.800 my son leaves the house to walk the dog for 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:04.280 twenty minutes with an Apple watch on his wrist, which 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:06.680 I can track on my phone, and he walks to 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.040 the edge of the neighborhood and back again on time. 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.800 Thank god, because if he doesn't, my mind starts imagining 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:15.560 kidnapping and child trafficking rings, and worse, God forbid he 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:18.080 should go into a friend's house without checking with me first, 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:21.200 and visiting a friend's home means my wife and I 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.560 will be googling his friend's parents like amateur detectives to 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:27.720 make sure they're not lunatics. Like I said, it's a 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:31.160 different world and my kid's a different kid. But back 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:33.560 in the fifties it was a little closer to what 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:35.560 it was like when I was a kid. In the eighties, 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:39.559 families had more of an open door policy in their neighborhoods, 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:44.240 and kids came and went with less oversight. That was America, 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:48.000 and that was the America in which Brian Wilson formed 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.160 The Beach Boys with his little brother Dennis and his 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:54.520 youngest brother Karl, and their cousin from the neighborhood, Mike Love, 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:58.480 and their buddy from school, Al Jardine, And when the 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:01.120 band took off and learned part due to the Wilson 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:04.480 Boys Dad Murray helping steer them toward a recording contract 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:06.760 while they were still in their teens, and when the 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.880 band started to tour, Al quit the group to get 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:12.679 his college degree it was a sensible thing to do, 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:15.320 with rock and roll not being anybody's idea of a 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:19.079 stable career choice. And when Al quit, Carl's buddy from 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:22.240 across the street, David Marx took his place, and there 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:26.200 were new auditions. It was that simple. After the band 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:29.200 took off, after they'd spent nineteen sixty four jockeying with 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:31.400 the Beatles at the top of the charts with incredible 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:35.600 singles like I Get Around, Fun, Fun, Fun, a year 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:39.160 in which the Beach Boys would release four full length albums, 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.320 when all the pressure caught up with Brian Wilson and 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:45.280 brought for the first time his mental illness to the 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.320 forefront of the band after he suffered a massive anxiety 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:51.719 attack on an airplane flight, Brian simply decided that he 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:55.120 wouldn't tour anymore, and he was quickly replaced by a friend, 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:58.920 a burgeoning singer songwriter named Glenn Campbell. And when Glenn's 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:02.360 own solo career took off, requiring him to leave the 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.920 Beach Boys, the Wilsons and their cousin Mike turned to 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:09.400 their buddy Bruce Johnston to replace Glenn as Brian's replacement 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:13.640 on the road. Shortly after David Marks quit, but that 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:17.160 was no sweat. By then Al Jardine was ready to rejoin. 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:21.880 It sounds complicated, but it wasn't. The Beach Boys. Their 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:25.880 revolving personnel door reminds me of a neighborhood pickup game 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.959 of football. Oh, Stax has to go home early for dinner, 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:30.800 but the game's not over. No sweat. Just go knock 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:32.120 on Mike's door and get them to come out and 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:34.760 replace Stacks. Wait a minute, Barney has to leave too. 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:36.560 Grabs Seth from over on the other side of the park, 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:40.120 and let's keep playing. There were no egos, no her feelings, 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:45.400 just boys being boys, just beach boys. And the brothers 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.720 Wilson and their cousin Mike loved the music they were 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.320 making with the Beach Boys, and they loved the music 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:54.520 they'd grown up on, the Four Freshmen, the Everly Brothers, 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:58.360 the Ronettes, the Ventures Link Ray, and they loved channeling 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:00.719 that music into a vision of America that they were 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:06.120 almost solely responsible for exporting across the world. But despite 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:09.200 the subject matter of so many of their songs, the 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:13.400 Beach Boys did not love to surf. With the exception 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.440 of Dennis Wilson, the Beach Boys, they spent little time 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.520 at the beach. We covered this in our previous two 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:22.160 Beach Boys episodes, which you can revisit if you like. 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:25.959 But the point here is that the Beach Boys from 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:29.160 their earliest days were less of a band and more 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:32.640 of an idea, an idea of what America could be, 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:35.720 and that came from their love of what their lives 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:38.880 and family had been up to that point. The same 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.080 love drove the bands one for all and all for 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:43.880 one approach to making music at home, in the studio 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.800 and on the road. It didn't really matter who was 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:48.880 in the Beach Boys at the time, as long as 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:53.560 the train kept on chugging. The band, Mike, Dennis, Carl 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:57.400 Al and Bruce toured incessantly to sell the songs that 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:02.760 Brian stayed home to write. Eventually, Brian would begin recording 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:05.640 on his own with an incredible group of LA Studio 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:09.160 musicians known as the Wrecking Crew, who worked with superstars 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.760 arranging from Frank Sinatra to Elvis Presley. The idea was 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.320 that the boys in the band, upon returning to LA 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:18.880 would help Brian finish the songs by laying down their patented, 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:23.720 tight knit vocal harmonies by nineteen sixty six. The result was, 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:28.840 to Paul McCartney anyway, undeniable. Pet Sounds, the Beach Boys 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:33.320 nineteen sixty six album, was a masterpiece. Brian created a 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.560 technicolor version of what his hero, the producer Phil Spector, 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:40.800 had established before her. Pet Sounds took Phil's layered wall 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.280 of sound technique and raced it towards the Summer of 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:45.080 Love in a way that no one at the time 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:50.120 thought was possible. Few Paul McCartney aside even understood it, 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:53.239 and even some of the Beach Boys themselves were skeptical, 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:56.800 notably Mike Love, who lobbied for a return to what 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:00.400 had always worked for the group, songs about sun girls 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:03.880 and fast cars. But over the years Mike Love has 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:07.000 become known as the Pet Sounds boogeyman. But that's not 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:12.480 quite fair. Pet Sounds was a commercial flop. Hardly anyone 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:15.880 got it at the time. Be honest, when you first 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:19.720 heard Pet Sounds, did you love it? Did you really? 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.520 I didn't. I didn't pay attention to it. I didn't 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:25.800 pay attention to whatever Pet Sounds single I heard first 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:28.320 as a kid. But I did pay attention to Barbara 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:31.199 Ann and help me. Ronda, like I said, was a 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:34.800 little kid after all, not sophisticated enough to understand the 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:38.160 genius of Pet Sounds. And that's pretty much what the 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:41.040 world was like, with few exceptions in nineteen sixty six, 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:46.040 not sophisticated enough to understand Brian Wilson's genius. Just yet. 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:49.960 He was breaking the mold with Pet Sounds. There was 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:54.760 no comparison, no roadmap. I don't blame Mike Love whatever 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:57.560 his ignorance or lack of understanding was for Pet Sounds. 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:00.840 The dude wrote the lyrics to Good Vibration, so he 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:05.199 gets a pass. But Brian Wilson's genius wouldn't let him 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:09.319 off the hook. Fragile as he was increasingly running off 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:12.840 the rails with LSD and marijuana and alcohol, all of 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:16.360 which were echoing the literal voices in his head. With dread, 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:20.560 Brian was unable to complete the Beach Boys' next record, Smile, 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:23.280 and from there he was in and out of the 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.720 band for a string of records Smiley, Smile, Wild Honey 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:29.520 and Friends. And in this period of the Beach Boys 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:33.240 had some incredible moments like the aforementioned Good Vibration single 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:36.680 and Heroes and Villains from Smiley Smile, the title track 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:39.640 from Wild Honey, and Little Bird from Friends among them. 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:43.200 But these moments were mostly about a group trying to 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:45.320 find their place and a culture that had left them 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:50.000 where it thought the Beach Boys belonged in the past. 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:55.760 By nineteen sixty nine, Brian Wilson was back underwater figuratively, yes, 0:14:55.840 --> 0:15:00.640 but sinking nonetheless. Smacked down by endless waves of addiction, 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:04.880 self doubt and growing mental illness, he was down under 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:09.320 the surface, his chest filled with dread. He couldn't breathe 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:13.520 never mind create, and by the end of the decade, 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:15.600 the love that Brian Wilson had used to fuel the 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:19.240 Beach Boy's rise, the love for his family, for his brothers, 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.680 for rock and roll, for an idealized version of the America. 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:25.400 He was lucky enough to grow up in his love 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:29.000 of Phil Spector, for the Four Freshmen, the everleas Gershwin, 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:31.640 his love of harmony so tight they made Lennon and 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:35.440 McCartney burn with jealousy of melodies nobody, but he was 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:39.200 able to hear of sounds and arrangements that made Box 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:44.040 Ghost smile. All that love, by nineteen sixty nine was 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:47.880 being drowned out. It was no match for the drugs 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:51.920 in alcohol and the growing mental illness. By the end 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:54.720 of the decade, a darkness like the dead of the 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:58.280 ocean had consumed Brian Wilson, just as it had the 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:02.800 rest of sixties culture, and for America, all that love 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:30.240 had curdled into something worse than hate. Chapter two murder 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:35.360 by nineteen sixty nine, with the culture turning its collective 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:39.480 back on the decidedly unhipped Beach Boys, with Brian Wilson 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:43.400 increasingly isolated and unavailable creatively to the point of being 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:46.480 admitted into a psychiatric hospital in nineteen sixty nine to 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:50.240 address his growing mental illness, specifically the voices in his 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:53.440 head that he was hearing alongside all those great harmonies 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:57.800 that were driving a mad The Beach Boys needed songs, 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.160 songs that would resonate with a record buying public that 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:06.520 the band now felt disconnected from. Dennis Wilson had an idea. 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:10.119 His little guru friend, the one who had all the 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:13.240 young girls following him around, the girls that Dennis and 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:17.360 his friend Terry Melcher were sleeping with. That little dude, Charlie. 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:21.600 He had songs. Now Terry didn't hear it, but Dennis 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:28.080 did so Dennis brought Charles Manson into the studio. The 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:31.199 knife flashed out of Charlie's pocket in an instant, and 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:33.560 Charlie waved it all around the room crazy, like a 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:36.600 shithouse rat. He aimed it at the vocal booth and 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:38.920 then wheeled it towards Dennis, right next to him in 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:41.879 the control room, and pressed it to his throat. The 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.399 blade was warm on his neck and the fear was 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:47.479 cold in his veins, and Dennis froze and felt that 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:51.840 now familiar Charlie chill ride his spine if I hear 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:54.400 one more fucking note from you, I swear man respect 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:59.000 the prism fuckers. He then put the knife away. Everyone 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:04.479 acted as if this was somehow cool. Dennis included. Things 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:07.600 in the studio were not going well for Brian Wilson's 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:14.399 brother Dennis with Charles Manson, but Dennis wasn't so easily dissuaded. 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:17.600 In the summer of nineteen sixty eight, he went back 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.359 and forth between wanting to do right by Charlie to 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.840 getting Charlie and the girls out of his life. Nis 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:26.520 to the throat aside, no pussy was worth one hundred 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:30.480 grand in a rotting package. He brought Charlie and the 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:33.440 girls into the studio to try to get something down himself. 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.040 It was nothing short of a nightmare. The recording session 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:40.600 devolved into an orgy, the results of which were captured 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.680 on tape and to this day have never been heard, 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:47.399 and aside from occupying a rather large swath of music 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:51.080 history's collective imagination, they are buried somewhere deep in the 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:55.439 Beach Boys vault. They ceased to Exist, which was the 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:58.680 title of the Charles Manson song Ceased to Exist that 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:02.040 Dennis Wilson decided to purchase off of his wild eyed 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:05.399 guru friend in one last desperate attempt to propel the 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:08.560 grifter prophet out of his life of hippie squalor and 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:13.200 into music industry stardom. Cease to Exist, a simple folk 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:16.800 blues number that Manson penned about well who the fuck 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:20.320 really Knows, was purchased by Dennis Wilson for one hundred 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:24.159 thousand dollars in a BSA motorcycle that Charlie coveted for 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:27.879 use at Spawn Ranch. Dennis brought the track into record 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:30.440 with the Beach Boys, passing it off as an original 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:32.919 song that he'd written. Once they had the track in 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:37.320 the studio, Dennis, unusually engaged in the process, got down 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:40.879 to arranging and producing the track with his brothers Brian 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:43.560 and Carl and the rest of the group. They modified 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:46.639 the feel from a traditional blues to something more pop, 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:49.919 more of a psychedelic ballad that only the Beach Boys, 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.880 in their tremendous harmony singing, along with Brian's arrangement prowess, 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:58.000 could pull off. They altered Charlie's lyrics cease to Exist 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:01.760 became cease to Resist, and a bridge was added to 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:05.720 avoid the monotony of Manson's original. Finally, the title was 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.000 changed from the bleak Ceased to Exist to the hippie 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:13.160 Zeitgei's sounding never Learn Not to Love, and the results 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.960 were pretty stellar. The track is, in a couple of words, 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:19.520 fucking awesome. It was featured as a B side to 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:23.320 the December nineteen sixty eight Beach Boys single Bluebirds Over 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:25.760 the Mountain. It was later featured on the Beach Boys 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:28.960 album twenty twenty. The A side charted and the B 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:33.720 side was met with positive reviews, but Charles Manson was 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:39.480 not impressed. In fact, Charles Manson was pretty pissed off. 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:44.280 Pissed off at Brian Wilson's brother Dennis, and Dennis who 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:47.600 Charlie believes screwed him over, screwed him over by messing 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:50.080 with his song, and screwed him over by not working 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:53.000 hard enough to get his friend, producer Terry Melcher, to 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:56.320 help Charlie launch his career. As one version of the 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.560 story goes, this is why Manson directed his followers to 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:02.760 the house Dennis and Bryan's friend Terry Melcher once lived 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:06.119 in and where director Roman Polanski and his pregnant wife, 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:09.560 the actress Sharon Tate now lived the house that was 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:12.960 in nineteen sixty nine. All over the news on Brian 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:17.159 Wilson's television set, We. 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:23.160 Have a weird homicide. Later last night, another bizarre murder 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:25.800 in Los Angeles, the second in two days. 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:29.400 Roland Polanski, the film director and husband of Sharon Tate, 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:32.760 Paul Newsman to a hotel in Hollywood today, and there 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:35.840 he made a long emotional statement total a good deal 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:37.960 of what had been on his mind since his pregnant 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:40.119 wife and four others were killed at their home on 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:44.600 August eighth. Twenty one year old Susan Atkins is involved 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:46.159 in still another murder case. 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:49.600 She appeared in the Santa Monica City courtroom this morning 0:21:49.960 --> 0:21:52.560 to enter a plea in a trial stemming from the 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:56.520 July thirty first murder of thirty four year old Gary Tinman. 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:00.960 Los Angeles police have placed miss Atkins on his saty 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:04.920 gluts at the scene of the Tate murder, taking into 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:07.919 account the published report in the Los Angeles Times, the 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:11.919 story that Susan Atkins told about what allegedly happened that 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:14.879 night after the murder at the Tate house. We drove 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:18.560 from Clo Drive at the base of Benedict Canyon. Up 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:24.240 here we found some trousers and some shirts appeared to 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:26.200 be turtleneck shirts or something. 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:27.480 Dark in color. 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:29.760 Did they appear to have any stains on them? 0:22:30.720 --> 0:22:33.960 This is where they lived, among the stables, barns, and 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:37.800 tony buildings of an old rundown movie location twenty. 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:39.080 Miles from Los Angeles. 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:40.960 They called themselves the Family. 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:44.280 Five members are now in jail on. 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:48.440 Other churches in the Desert John of Independence. The family's leader, 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:51.960 Charles Manson, is jailed here. It is expected that he 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:53.920 will be charged on the Tate murders. 0:22:54.960 --> 0:23:05.240 Weird say it was Dennis Wilson, who brought the Manson 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:08.840 family into the Beach Boys family, and the guilt he 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:12.159 felt for his involvement, no matter how unintentional, in the 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:16.320 Manson murders, would drive Dennis harder into drugs and alcohol 0:23:16.760 --> 0:23:19.359 and further away from his brothers in the creative center 0:23:19.400 --> 0:23:23.000 of the band. Brian Wilson and the rest of the 0:23:23.000 --> 0:23:25.520 Beach Boys did what they could to distance themselves from 0:23:25.520 --> 0:23:28.080 what was about to become known as Helter Skelter, the 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:32.320 Crime of the Century. But in nineteen sixty nine, the 0:23:32.359 --> 0:23:36.800 bottomless blackwater that Charles Manson left in his wake flooded 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:41.000 the band, nearly drowning Brian, and the worst thing to 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:50.960 come that year hadn't even happened yet. We'll be right 0:23:51.000 --> 0:24:01.960 back after this. We're We're where, Chapter three, Theft. It 0:24:02.000 --> 0:24:05.199 was November in nineteen sixty nine and Brian Wilson was 0:24:05.200 --> 0:24:07.560 alone with his father Murray, in the house he grew 0:24:07.640 --> 0:24:11.040 up in. But his and his father's voices were not 0:24:11.119 --> 0:24:14.760 the only voices Brian was hearing. Brian heard his father 0:24:14.880 --> 0:24:19.000 shouting above all the rest, and Brian exploded in anger, fear, 0:24:19.040 --> 0:24:22.680 and disappointment. Trying to quiet the sounds that were consuming him. 0:24:23.560 --> 0:24:27.159 Brian grabbed plates, glasses, silverware, whatever he could get his 0:24:27.200 --> 0:24:30.439 hands on. They're rocking again with his father. His father's 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:34.080 voice only grew louder, and Brian cried out in response, 0:24:34.359 --> 0:24:38.400 a cry of anguish, of deep pain, so deep, so painful, 0:24:38.480 --> 0:24:42.320 so dark. He didn't recognize it. It only made his 0:24:42.320 --> 0:24:45.800 father raise his voice more, and Brian pinned himself to 0:24:45.840 --> 0:24:49.320 the kitchen wall and exploded in tears, a grown man 0:24:49.800 --> 0:24:53.080 twenty seven years old, crying for his father to stop yelling. 0:24:54.080 --> 0:24:57.320 But the pain kept coming. It rose up from his feet, 0:24:57.720 --> 0:25:00.840 passed his ankles, above his knees. He was waiting in 0:25:00.920 --> 0:25:03.800 it now, and the only thing stronger than the rising 0:25:03.840 --> 0:25:07.199 anguish was the power of his father's voice screaming at Brian. 0:25:07.880 --> 0:25:09.960 And the pain rose up into his chest and filled 0:25:10.000 --> 0:25:15.239 his lungs, and Brian began hyperventilating. His father explained that 0:25:15.240 --> 0:25:18.520 there was no other way. Brian was no good, he 0:25:18.640 --> 0:25:22.119 was washed up. He'd never write hit songs again. The 0:25:22.160 --> 0:25:25.240 public had moved on from the Beach Boys, from Brian Wilson. 0:25:25.720 --> 0:25:29.120 He wasn't back, for God's sake. He wasn't Phil Specter either. 0:25:29.440 --> 0:25:32.560 He wasn't even Lawrence Welk. Brian would be lucky to 0:25:32.560 --> 0:25:34.920 get a job fetching coffee for Burt Bacharack at the 0:25:35.000 --> 0:25:37.639 rate he was going and the pain was up to 0:25:37.680 --> 0:25:40.960