“Rio Bravo” by Brian Wilson which clocks in at 8:16.

Brian Wilson’s reclamation of his own legacy over the past five years has been nothing short of remarkable. Pop music’s very own Lazarus, the man who even 40 years ago just wasn’t made for these times now seems busier than ever. He’s simply unstoppable, working at a frenzied pace that rivals even his most manic era of musical immersion from back in the day.

Among other accomplishments, we’ve witnessed the resuscitation of SMiLE - the greatest album that (almost) never was - in 2004, an accompanying SMiLE tour, a Christmas album in 2005, the completion of yet another album That Lucky Old Sun (due on Capitol on September 2nd), and even more live dates planned throughout the summer. Among these, and in addition to a performance at Hammerstein Ballroom on July 11th, Wilson will also be playing a free show at Coney Island on July 17th AND has also been tapped to headline the Newport Folk Festival on August 1st.

For Brian Wilson fans, this is all amazing news, right? I mean, New Yorkers have two opportunities in a single week to see the man who used to spend his days shuttered indoors in a bathrobe inhaling ice cream by the gallon.

Yes it’s all wonderful (won-won-wonderful), but it also raises an interesting question: does the considerable allure and mythology surrounding Brian Wilson remain entirely intact now that he’s readily available to us?

Let’s start with SMiLE. Do you even realize how much ink has been spilled and unofficial mixtapes made for the explicit purposes of sorting out just exactly what Wilson’s original vision was for this album? Originally intended as The Beach Boys’ answer to Sgt. Pepper, SMiLE instead only provoked a world of questions and expectations under which Wilson famously buckled and retreated. He all but shelved the fragile masterpiece, doling out alternate takes of many of the album tracks for inclusion in later Beach Boys albums while unofficial versions - including Smiley Smile - tried to fill its gaping void.

About eight years ago, I came across a fantastic book that tangentially dealt with the SMiLE phenomenon. Compiled by Dominic Priore, Look! Listen! Vibrate! SMILE! essentially functions as a xerox of every press snippet, photo shoot, newspaper article, and piece of sheet music devoted to the topic of SMiLE. The book came out in 1997 and even then, some 30 years after the album was first slated for release, its mysteries remained as intriguing as ever. An essay within titled “The Facts About Smile” states the following:

There are few real mysteries in rock music anymore. Perhaps that is why there is so much interest in and speculation about SMILE. The lost Beach Boys album is indeed one of those remaining mysteries[...]Even the most thoroughly researched and documented story on the making of SMILE is only informed speculation - and probably will remain such. It is unlikely Brian Wilson will ever discuss the subject in great detail. And only Brian can ever clear up all the mysteries of SMILE. Even those very close to the situation in 1966 and 1967 are in the dark.

Note to Axl Rose: hold off on releasing Chinese Democracy for another 25 years or so if you’ve got your heart set on its inclusion in the pantheon of classic lost albums. SMiLE was a wet dream for conspiracy theorists and Beach Boys fans alike in a time BEFORE bloggers even existed to blow things further out of proportion.

Keeping the discussion within the Wilson family, I also can’t help but think of last week’s re-release of Dennis Wilson’s 1977 album Pacific Ocean Blue and all the fuss that’s being made over Brian’s little brother. Standing on its own, the album is good, but it’s interesting to see how it has suddenly become ensconced within discussions of “lost classics” and “unheralded genius”. The reasons for this are two-fold: firstly, critics are unable to ignore Denny’s own autobiographical details in assessing the work - his intertwined history with Charles Manson, drug and alcohol problems, and tragic death in the, err, Pacific Ocean Blue - and secondly, the re-release includes a few bonus tracks from his own “lost album” Bambu. It turns out it’s impossible not to mythologize Dennis Wilson; he’s not around anymore to prove or disprove our assessments of him. This latest version of Pacific Ocean Blue is all we have to go on.

And yet, Brian Wilson refused to play along, snuffing out close to 40 years of speculation and fanboy folklore by unexpectedly finishing the damn album that was never supposed to have been finished. That he finally completed SMiLE is amazing, but perhaps even more shocking is how good it actually is. While it may have been more “romantic” and “rock and roll” for Wilson to have continued down his spiral and currently either be dead or locked away in his mansion while continuing to stoke our collective imaginations and allowing us to play the “what if” game, there’s also another word for that scenario: cliche.

Instead we get an unbelievable comeback story, an improbable but uplifting series of events as inscrutable as some of the circumstances behind SMiLE’s original recording sessions. Wilson’s survival and triumph (and ability to still make actual good music) is the Rio Grande of rock tales: unpredictable, tumultuous, and larger than life.

Trekkies (and those with access to Wikipedia) might see another parallel between Wilson’s endurance and the Rio Grande. In Deep Space Nine all Starfleet Runabouts were apparently named after major America rivers. Of these, only the USS Rio Grande survived all seven seasons on the show. Endurance! Survival! Triumph! Rio Grande! Beam us up Brian, we’ll see you on the boardwalk next month…

Buy Brian Wilson on Amazon.

*above photo found HERE.

EAR FARM’s 8+ is a weekly feature that showcases songs longer than 8 minutes. Click HERE to see the songs recently featured in EF’s 8+.