BRIAN WILSON: I JUST WASN'T MADE FOR THESE TIMES (1995)
1) Meant For You; 2) This
Whole World; 3) Caroline, No; 4) Let The Wind Blow; 5) Love And Mercy; 6) Do It
Again; 7) The Warmth Of The Sun; 8) Wonderful; 9) Still I Dream Of It; 10) Melt
Away; 11) 'Til I Die.
This is certainly not an essential release, but
it has a bit of historical importance. The last really rough period in Brian's wobbly life occurred on the brink of
the Eighties and the Nineties, as his risky relationship with Eugene Landy was
finally cracked, with a little help from brother Carl and other members of the
family, and he finally found himself in a position where he was no longer
manipulated or abused by anybody — probably for the first time in his life, or
maybe for the second, if we count the brief period in between breaking up with
his father and succumbing to insanity, during which he made Pet Sounds. Almost as if to celebrate
that newly-found freedom, he teamed up with Don Was for a biodocumentary and a
soundtrack album to the documentary, and I guess the only better song title for
this than ʽI Just Wasn't Made For These Timesʼ would have been ʽHang On To Your
Egoʼ, but nobody would get it except for the bootlegging crowd at the time, so
they went ahead with the obvious.
Anyway, since (I guess) they probably could not
use the original material without the consent of Capitol, they simply went
ahead and re-recorded all the songs. Surprisingly, the re-recordings are not at
all crappy! I guess all these guys were just so happy to work with the
legendary Mr. Wilson that they honestly gave it their best, and since Brian,
for the first time in ages, supervised all the production himself, the
recordings sound warm and natural, and the extra touches are all reasonable —
like, for instance, David McMurray's extended flute solo on ʽCaroline, Noʼ:
there were lots of flutes on the original, but they were sort of «implied»,
buried in the mix, whereas here the instrument is finally given a chance to
surge, and it does that quite nicely.
The songs, as you can imagine, are usually the
personal-intimate ones, mostly from the Pet
Sounds and Smile shelves,
although the old boy does let himself be carried away on a sunny wave with ʽDo
It Againʼ, and reaches as far back into his catalog as ʽThe Warmth Of The Sunʼ
(although, frankly speaking, the harmonies on that song make it an early, but
straightforward, precursor to the «teen symphony» era of the Beach Boys). The really good news, though, is that there
are new versions of ʽLove And Mercyʼ and ʽMelt Awayʼ here, completely free of
the stiff excesses of Eighties' production, and they are wonderfuller than
wonderful — with normal drumming, acoustic guitars, pianos, unimpeded vocals,
whatever. It might have been a good idea to just re-record the entire Brian Wilson instead, but that, I
guess, would have been incompatible with the general idea of the movie.
Vocal-wise, Brian is in significantly better
form here than he was in 1988. If you want yourself a good contrast, listen to
the ninth track — an unearthed demo from 1976 (the Love You era), with just Brian at his piano, somewhat spontaneously
singing about whatever was going on at the time: "Time for supper now /
Day's been hard and I'm so tired, I feel like eating now..." It's actually
an embryo of what could have been a pretty good song (a nine-year-late answer
to "woke up, fell out of bed" that Brian couldn't come up with back
in 1967), and you can feel all the lo-fi pain of a confused and meaningless
existence flowing out of the speakers, but after three and a half minutes of
the man's 1976 sandpaper vocals you will be physiologically glad to be back
(forward) in 1995. Maybe the voice has aged, yes, and forever shifted its
timbre to something less angelic, but at least this is no longer the voice of a
«half-person». And yes, maybe good health and self-confidence are bad for
artistic purposes, but we've already had so much bad health and lack of
confidence from Brian over the years that it is actually heartwarming to see
him back in shape.
It is, however, respectable that he ends the
album with ʽ'Til I Dieʼ — no matter how happy and uplifting the majority of the
selections are, he still finishes things by reminding us, and himself, of
simple mortality, with one of the best songs ever written about death (I'm not
joking — I'm pretty sure the song works as a great pice of therapy for anyone
who happens to be afraid of dying). Starting off with love (ʽThis Whole Worldʼ)
and ending with quiet acceptance of the inevitable is the way to go, and Don
Was, along with his little playing team (including guitarist Waddy Wachtel and James
Hutchinson on bass), did a fine job of guiding Brian through his own backstory.
Again — nothing essential, but a good short summary of the man's greatness, and
at the same time a nice opening of the next, perhaps not the greatest, but quite
possibly the happiest stage in his life.
Actually, "Still I Dream of It" was finished and was intended for the "Adult Child" project. You can find a bootleg download of it. It's pretty good, if a little too heavily orchestrated.
ReplyDeleteIt got a legitimate release on the 1993 box set.
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