The influence of Murry Wilson

As an eight-year-old, Brian Wilson says his young life was already being shaped and influenced by music... None affected me more than the music I heard when my father played the family piano... I watched how his fingers made chords and memorized the positions.

Murry had limited success as a songwriter, peaking with Two Step Side Step when it was recorded for a Bachelors album in 1952. Despite his musical ability and any wish to educate Brian in particular, Murry Wilson was a tyrant, quick to offer discouraging criticism and who abused [his sons] psychologically and physically, creating wounds that never healed. Carl found comfort in food and Dennis rebelled against the world to express his anger. Brian would immerse himself in music to cope, but though he longed to learn piano as a child, he was too frightened to ask and even too scared to press the keys when his father was at work.

Eventually Brian surprised his parents by showing he had learned how to play the piano by watching his father. Thereafter, playing the piano... literally saved my ass. I recall playing one time while my dad flung Dennis against the wall... That was just one of many incidents when I didn't miss a note, supplying background music to the hell that often substituted for a family life...

At first, Murry Wilson steered The Beach Boys' career, engineering their signing with Capitol Records in 1962. In 1964, Brian Wilson fired his father after a violent confrontation in the studio. Over the next few years, they became increasingly estranged; when Murry died of a heart attack in 1973, Brian and Dennis did not attend the funeral.