147 Quotes by Brian Wilson

Surfing music is dead. It was just a summer craze for kids on the beach. I’m finished with it.

You’re called a genius by people, and then your whole life you become the part.

Gershwin inspired me very much. The concept of ‘That Lucky Old Sun’ was inspired by ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ – not influenced, but inspired.

I sit and I write automatically. I don’t really try to write. My subconscious mind takes over and writes the songs for me. Songs come very easily for me. When I’m inspired, it takes me 20 minutes to write a song.

I have stage fright every single concert I’ve ever done. I have at least four or five minutes of it. It’s absolute living hell.

I get off on hearing other people’s voices. I like voices: they’re my favourite things on records.

I like the piano – I’m always about 15 feet away from a piano.

I’m doing good. I’ve had a slight nervous breakdown in the ’60s. I got through that. And I got through the ’70s. And I was in a doctor’s program during the ’80s and then I met Melinda and we’ve been together ever since. I’ve got a happy life.

I approach my music-making as an art-form – something pure from the spirit to which I can add dynamics and marketable reality. Music is genuine and healthy and the stimulation I get from molding it and adding dynamics is like nothing else on earth.