Brian Wilson Suffering Verbal Abuse From His Father In ‘The Beach Boys’ Doc Makes The ‘Let It Be’ Fights Look Tame

If you thought Paul McCartney and George Harrison squabbling in Let It Be was uncomfortable, wait until you watch the new, depressing Beach Boys documentary from Disney. You’ll never be able to un-hear the audio of Murry Wilson—the father of lead songwriter and producer Brian Wilson—mercilessly telling his son that The Beach Boys are “going downhill.”

The Beach Boys, which began streaming on Disney+ today, features both new and archived interviews with the three Wilson brothers, their cousin Mike Love, and other rotating members of the popular ’60s surfer-pop band. That includes a split-second interview with a now-81-year-old Brian Wilson, who has largely been out of the public eye in the last five years, due to his declining mental and physical health.

It was reported earlier this year by The Guardian that Wilson has dementia, and has entered into a conservatorship. But in a moment of lucidity with the documentary’s co-directors, the aging Wilson tells the camera, “I remember the songs, the lyrics, and a lot of fun. I’m very proud of my brothers.”

It’s bittersweet, made all the sadder by an audio clip from the “Help Me Rhonda” studio recording sessions in February 1965, when the then-sharp, 22-year-old musical mastermind—now considered one of the greatest songwriters of all time—takes a verbal beating from his father. Here’s how it goes down: The Beach Boys’  rhythm guitarist and vocalist, Al Jardine, was having trouble with a section of “Help Me Rhonda.”

In a talking head interview, the now 81-year-old Jardine recalled, “Murry came in, and wanted to produce the band. It got real uncomfortable.”

Beach Boys singer, co-songwriter, and Wilson cousin, Mike Love, put it more bluntly: “He was drunk. And Brian was masterful in the studio, OK?”

On the tape, you hear Murry Wilson giving Jardine slurred instructions. When Brian Wilson offers an additional instruction for Jardine, Murry asks, in a cold voice, “You want me to leave Brian?”

“No, I just want you to let him sing it,” his son replies with a forced laugh.

At this point, the father and son really get into it. It’s ostensibly over how they want Jardine to sing his part, but it’s clear that the issues run much deeper than that.

“Brian, I’m a genius too. Let’s go, OK?” Murry says.

The documentary’s directors, Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny, don’t play the audio of the argument in full but instead select clips of some of Murry’s most cutting remarks. Those include: “Brian, forget who you are, will ya? Let’s go. Let’s roll,” and “You guys get too much money, you start thinking you’re gonna make everything a hit.” That said, you can find the full audio of argument elsewhere online.

There is one unedited part of the argument that gets included in the documentary.

“I’ll never help you guys mix another song,” Murry declares.

“Why?” Brian asks.

“When you guys get so big, you stop singing everything from your hearts, you’re going downhill,” Murry replies with venom.

“Downhill?” Brian scoffs.

“Downhill, son! I’ve protected you for 22 years, but I can’t go on if you’re not going to listen to an intelligent man. You want to fight for success, I’ll go all out.”

“No, we don’t want to do that,” Brian responds.

“You think you’ve got it made,” his father spits back.

“No, we don’t.”

“Chuck and I used to make one hit after another, in 30 minutes. You guys take five hours to do it. You know why? Because you guys think you have an image. Don’t ever forget it.”

To that, Brian replies: “Times are changing.”

Murry Wilson was a prolific songwriter in the ’50s and served as The Beach Boys’ original manager until the band fired him in 1964. But he stayed on as the band’s publisher, and, clearly, still attempted to usurp his son’s power in the studio. The elder Wilson has denied his three sons’ allegations that he verbally and physically abused them, but this audio clip provides concrete evidence that he did, at least, verbally abuse them. It adds heartbreaking context to Brian Wilson’s life-long struggle with mental health, addiction, and his now sadly declined cognitive state.

But despite the band’s tumultuous history—including Mike Love suing Brian Wilson several times over songwriting credit—the documentary ends by bringing the surviving members of the band back together in a 2023 reunion on the beach, to end on a positive note. We don’t hear any audio, but we do see Brian Wilson smile.

As a tearful Mike Love tells the camera in a recent talking head interview, “We don’t really talk much. But if I could, I’d probably just tell him that I love him. And nothing anybody could do could erase that.”