The first time Brian Wilson met Bob Dylan: “We just talked and talked”
The 1960s saw many musical greats arrive and positively impact the trajectory of popular culture. Of course, The Beatles stand out as the most important of the set, but others helped the decade become such a vital creative milestone. Two of the most prominent of these are Bob Dylan and Brian Wilson.
Breaking through in the early 1960s as a folk songwriter in a similar vein to his hero Woody Guthrie, Dylan quickly captured the hearts of listeners. He lucidly verbalised their concerns about the nature of the decade, an era marked by tremendous social upheaval, with the civil rights movement, Vietnam War and Cold War raging in the background.
Whilst he would eventually break away from this early guise by going electric on 1965’s Bringing It All Back Home, after this period, Dylan embarked on a musical odyssey that’s still going strong today. It reflects the gravity of Dylan’s efforts in the ’60s that he has long been hailed as ‘The Voice of a Generation’.
As the leader of The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson took his band on an arc that led them from being pioneers of surf rock in the early ’60s into an experimental area that was far ahead of its time. Although the group captured the sunny spirit of southern California’s youth culture with classics such as ‘Surfin’ USA’, it was with Pet Sounds that they truly secured their place in the history books. The band became something much more consequential than the innocuous sounds of their early years.
Fusing pop, jazz, classical, exotica and the avant-garde, with Wilson’s heavy drug use and spiritual enlightenment fuelling proceedings, the album pushed the boundaries of modern popular music, producing classics such as ‘Good Vibrations’, ‘Sloop John B’ and ‘God Only Knows’. A turning point in popular culture, it set the scene for generations of musicians to come.
Given the lofty status of Dylan and Wilson, it is perhaps unsurprising that the pair crossed paths during the heady days of the 1960s. Writing on social media, Wilson looked back at the moment they first met and revealed that it was in unexpected circumstances.
“Once I was in the Malibu emergency room getting a weigh-in and this guy walked up to me,” Wilson wrote alongside a photograph of the pair. “He had curly hair and was on the short side. ‘Are you Brian Wilson?’ he asked. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m Bob Dylan.’ He was there because he had broken his thumb. We talked a little bit about nothing. I was a big fan of his lyrics, of course. ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ was one of the best songs, you know? And ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ and ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’ and so many more. What a songwriter!”
After this surprise meeting, Wilson invited Dylan over to his house. There, they had a more substantial conversation about their artistry, discussing old songs from their youth. “I invited him over to my house for lunch the next day,” The Beach Boys leader continued. “That was a longer conversation. We just talked and talked about music. We talked about old songs we remembered, songs before rock and roll. We talked about ideas we had. Nice guy.”
Bob Dylan has always effused about Brian Wilson. In an account uploaded to Wilson’s official website, the Duluth troubadour said: “Jesus, that ear. He should donate it to the Smithsonian. The records I used to listen to and still love, you can’t make a record that sounds that way. Brian Wilson, he made all his records with four tracks, but you couldn’t make his records if you had a hundred tracks today.”
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Bob Dylan Newsletter
All the latest stories about Bob Dylan from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.