How The Beatles And Beach Boys' Rivalry Inspired And Eventually Broke Brian Wilson

Brian Wilson was slowly building to his breaking point, again. It was 1967, and unlike his first breakdown three years earlier that freed him from touring and, along with a friendly rivalry with the Beatles, helped him create some of the best American pop music in history, this time was different. He'd pushed himself too far in the game of one-upmanship with the Fab Four, resulting in an eventual mental collapse, drug overuse, and the spectacular failure of what Wilson had hoped would be his magnum opus, the album "Smile."

After more than 80 recording sessions between August 1966 and May 1967 that resulted in about 50 hours of recordings, Wilson abandoned the project. "I thought it was too weird, I thought it was too druggie influenced, I thought the audience wouldn't get it," Wilson told The New York Times in 2004. On top of this, the rest of the Beach Boys — Al Jardine, Mike Love, and Brian's brothers Dennis and Carl — didn't love the album's direction. The failure helped push Brian Wilson over the edge and into a decades-long spiral.

Brian Wilson's first breakdown happened aboard a plane in December 1964 as he flew from Los Angeles to Houston. He began crying hysterically and was inconsolable. The pressure of touring and a brand new marriage to Marilyn Rovell collided catastrophically. "We were really scared for him," Al Jardine, the band's rhythm guitarist, told the Houston Press in 2000. "[We were] concerned for him because he was so upset. He obviously had a breakdown. None of us had ever witnessed something like that."

Not long after this incident, Wilson told his bandmates during a recording session that he was no longer going to tour or travel with the Beach Boys. "I said the Beach Boys could have a beautiful future if they did their job and I did mine," Wilson told Tiger Beat in 1967 (via Anne Moses' website). The rest of the band wasn't happy, but they eventually capitulated. Freed from his touring duties, Wilson was able to focus on writing and recording. And with the Beatles as his foil, he masterminded the groundbreaking album "Pet Sounds," which upped the ante for the Beatles.

With "Smile," Brian Wilson envisioned what he called a "teenage symphony to God," according to Rolling Stone. He enlisted the help of lyricist and composer Van Dyke Parks for the album. But several factors collided that doomed the project, including Wilson's drug use. "Because I was on drugs, I couldn't concentrate, and this music requires a lot of concentration," he told Paste magazine in 2004. The rest of the band's attitude during the recording process didn't help. Mike Love was especially opposed to where Wilson was going with "Smile" and let everyone know it. Parks butted heads with Love so much that Parks quit. Wilson eventually gave up on his masterpiece.

The truth about the Beach Boys' album "Smiley Smile," the record that eventually emerged in 1967 out of the ashes of the "Smile" recording sessions, was that it was a watered-down version of Wilson's vision that didn't land with audiences at the time. The album's failure helped send Wilson down a years-long spiral of mental illness and drug and alcohol dependence. Even years later, Wilson mourned his unfinished masterpiece. "It's pretty well documented how he associates this music with all of his failure," Darian Sahanaja, Wilson's musical director, told Paste magazine. "Smile was the moment when he started to check out; when it fractured and he lost his support system."