Sometimes you can find redemption, but you have to find it for yourself. No one is going to give it to you. You can’t find it in a movie or a song. You can only find it inside yourself. In the 21st century, decades after his pursuit of an unfinished teenage symphony to God that drove him to the edge of sanity, Brian Wilson found his redemption. But he also found something else, too: the realization of a dream that he thought had died long ago. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Oct 10, 2022•36 min•Season 4Ep. 10
Brian’s lost masterpiece, Smile , continues to lurk in the background. It’s there when Brian’s troubled and talented brother, Dennis, takes one last swim in the Pacific Ocean blue. It’s there as Brian claws his way out of the grip of the doctor who keeps him apart from health, love, and happiness. And it’s there as he prepares his triumphant return, not as a Beach Boy – but as someone he’s just discovering. Himself. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Oct 03, 2022•33 min•Season 4Ep. 9
The Beach Boys stage an intervention to get Brian the help he needs just as he reaches what he thinks is the bottom. He’s pulled out of the darkness by a doctor – a man Brian immediately recognizes as his savior. But Brian’s vision isn’t clear. He can’t see the doctor for who he really is: not the person who will set Brian free, but rather keep him trapped in a different kind of prison. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Sep 26, 2022•36 min•Season 4Ep. 8
Brian continues to lose control. And not just of his band and the music he makes. He loses self-control and becomes so dependent on drugs that he pays someone to deliver them to him. He loses control of his car and nearly kills himself in a crash. And then he loses control of himself – in front of one of the biggest rock ‘n roll stars of all time. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sep 19, 2022•32 min•Season 4Ep. 7
After months of frustration, the Beach Boys abandon Smile to work on new music. But for Brian it’s not that easy. He’s quickly losing control. He’s betrayed by those meant to be closest to him. And one of his brothers is flirting with a dark and disturbing group of people living on the fringes of society…a so-called family that may or may not infiltrate the warm and sunny climes of the Beach Boys’ world. SOURCES Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brain Wilson , by Pe...
Sep 12, 2022•37 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Brian’s troubled relationship with his controlling and abusive father comes into focus. Paul McCartney stops by a California recording studio to chew some celery into a microphone. And the tragedies of the past threaten to echo endlessly into the future. SOURCES Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brain Wilson , by Peter Ames Carlin I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir , by Brian Wilson with Ben Greenman Wouldn’t It Be Nice: Brian Wilson and the Making of the Beach Boys’ Pet S...
Sep 05, 2022•32 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Brian is haunted by the Monterey Pop Festival, John Lennon’s voice, and the disapproval of his fellow Beach Boys. He finally goes off the deep end – literally, straight into the deep end of his pool where he holds band meetings, far away from the prying eyes and ears of the people he thinks are watching him. SOURCES Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brain Wilson , by Peter Ames Carlin I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir , by Brian Wilson with Ben Greenman Wouldn’t It Be Nic...
Aug 29, 2022•33 min•Season 4Ep. 4
The pressure builds in Brian's mind as he continues to work on Smile with the Beach Boys. His vision is completely out of step with what the others expect. A new collaborator butts heads with the band. His father, Murray, and his idol, famed record producer Phil Spector, haunt him. And just when things seem like they'll never get back on track, inspiration strikes in the form of a trusted advisor...but the advice Brian receives leads to another in a long line of disappointments. SOURCES Catch a ...
Aug 22, 2022•33 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Before the Beach Boys began to work on Smile , Brian Wilson was already expanding his mind with the aid of LSD. The drug proved to be a point of contention with other band members, who bristled at Brian's newfound mind-altering methodology. Brian's LSD intake didn't just spark arguments between the Beach Boys. LSD made a black-and-white appear in Technicolor for the first time. It made water taste like it fell straight from heaven. It made musical notation come alive, notes and staffs just float...
Aug 15, 2022•31 min•Season 4Ep. 2
Things are pretty calm around here at the moment, but sometimes they get a little shaky. Where are we? We're inside the mind of Brian Douglas Wilson, of course, the genius behind the Beach Boys' unprecedented masterpiece Pet Sounds . There are lots of things in here...songs, melodies, ideas...but there are also many dark corners for things to lurk in. For people to lurk in. As Brian continues to work on the band's follow-up to Pet Sounds , a so-called teenage symphony to God called Smile, the da...
Aug 15, 2022•33 min•Season 4Ep. 1
In 1966, Brian Wilson planned to follow up the Beach Boys' groundbreaking album Pet Sounds with an even bigger musical statement. He was writing a teenage symphony to God. That album, Smile , was never finished. Instead, Brian slowly unraveled, as the pressure to make something profound weighed heavy on him. He worried that he wasn’t good enough. He worried that he was a failure in the eyes of the record company, his band, his peers, and his own father. He thought his house was bugged. He though...
Aug 08, 2022•3 min
Trees grow tall, leaves fall, rivers dry up, and flowers die. New people are born every day. Life doesn’t stop. Sometimes things can change in an instant—a gunshot to the head, a man losing control of a motorbike—but sometimes things take years to change. And sometimes, like in the curious case of Bob Dylan, a man can go through a lifetime of change in just ten days. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Apr 28, 2022•38 min•Season 3Ep. 10
Nine days after his near-fatal accident, Bob Dylan has become increasingly consumed with his own mortality. He sees the world as a much older, and perhaps wiser, man. He has died as many times as he has lived. Bleak winters in Minnesota have taken their toll. So has the life of a touring musician. There’s also another brush with fate on yet another motorcycle…a harrowing moment that he may never escape. SOURCES Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brain Wilson , by Pet...
Apr 20, 2022•36 min•Season 3Ep. 9
As Bob Dylan’s physical injuries continue to heal, there is a growing concern that mental problems are only beginning to surface. He struggles with an identity crisis. Did he really introduce the Beatles to marijuana? Did he actually steal movie reels of an unreleased film from one of the most famous directors in the world? And what on earth was he doing inside a complete stranger’s house in London…what was it he was waiting for? SOURCES Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach ...
Apr 13, 2022•36 min•Season 3Ep. 8
Bob Dylan continues to recover from his motorcycle accident in upstate New York. He thinks of the things he’s done that he’s not proud of. The depths to which he’s sunk, only to find that you can always go lower. He worries that the words will stop coming. He yearns to hide in the skin of someone who is not Bob Dylan. Someone who can play “dead” one moment and break hearts the next. Someone who plays a pink guitar. Someone who sees the touch of grey in every silver lining. SOURCES Catch a Wave: ...
Apr 06, 2022•35 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Courtrooms, contracts, lawyers, and loss. Stalkers, divorcees, punk rockers, and the wrong harmonica. These are the things on Bob Dylan’s mind as he continues to endure a secret recovery at a doctor’s private house in upstate New York. Dylan’s future continues to unfold from behind his eyes. He changes. So much that he begins to forget who he is. Or was. Who he will be, in 20 years’ time…a complete unknown. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.c...
Mar 30, 2022•37 min•Season 3Ep. 6
On the fifth day of his recovery from a motorcycle accident, Bob Dylan begins to hallucinate. He claims he’s not only seen our Lord and savior, but that he’s had a close encounter with Jesus Christ himself. It’s an encounter that changes him forever. Don’t believe him? That’s fine. But everyone serves somebody. And you just might question what it is you do and don’t believe after hearing his story. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listen...
Mar 23, 2022•37 min•Season 3Ep. 5
When a man wears a mask, he’s gonna tell you the truth. That’s what Bob Dylan is thinking about as he continues his recovery from his motorcycle accident: being masked and not-so-anonymous on a rambling spectacle of a tour that feels more like the Greatest Show on Earth than a rock concert. Dylan’s fever dream-like state allows him to peek into the future…a future full of gypsies, boxers, sad-eyed ladies, and a homicide that would result in one of the toughest legal battles of his life. Learn mo...
Mar 16, 2022•36 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Bob Dylan continues to spend his days recovering from his accident thinking about change. And not just artistic change, but physical change. From New York he goes to Nashville in his mind, where he’s callously snubbed by Jerry Lee Lewis, lovingly embraced by Johnny Cash, and hopelessly drunk on Leprechaun Cocktails with some of the finest musicians Music City has to offer. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information...
Mar 09, 2022•38 min•Season 3Ep. 3
As Bob Dylan continues to recover from his accident, he remembers another motorcycle crash, one that took the life of a biker with a suspiciously familiar name. Robert Zimmerman, president of the San Bernardino chapter of the Hell’s Angels, dies on the road at the very moment that another Robert Zimmerman, this one from Minnesota, becomes Bob Dylan on stage in New York. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Mar 02, 2022•38 min•Season 3Ep. 2
In July 1966, Bob Dylan crashed his Triumph 500 motorcycle in upstate New York. As he recovers in the privacy of a doctor’s home, he thinks about the death of folk music at Newport. About a piece of history gone missing for decades. Pete Seeger, wielding an ax. Andy Warhol and two Elvis Presleys. Shakespeare and a dog named Hamlet. And what really happened on that road in Woodstock, when the Bob Dylan you thought you knew…died. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork...
Mar 02, 2022•36 min•Season 3Ep. 1
In 1966, Bob Dylan crashed his Triumph motorcycle on a road in upstate New York. And then he disappeared. For ten days, as Dylan recovered privately in the house of a local doctor, no one knew where he was. When he resurfaced, he was transformed. He looked different. He sounded different. What exactly happened to Bob Dylan during those ten days? Was he simply recovering from injuries sustained during the accident? Detoxing from heavy drug use? Was he suffering a mental breakdown? Or had the Bob ...
Feb 23, 2022•3 min
Holden Caulfield, the fictional narrator of J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye , comes to life to explain exactly why Mark David Chapman’s plan didn’t work – and exactly why Mark David Chapman is himself one of the greatest phonies of all time. Holden also imagines what the 1980s would have been like with John Lennon alive and well, making more music and marching in more rallies. For more info on BLOOD ON THE TRACKS and other great shows, visit the Double Elvis website and follow Double Elvis on...
Oct 14, 2021•38 min•Season 2Ep. 10
Go inside the mind of the man who received messages from both God and the Devil. The man who thought he would step into the pages of a dog-eared paperback with one unspeakable deed. The man who took a dreamer from the world. Mark David Chapman tells the chilling story of just how and why he assassinated John Lennon. For more info on BLOOD ON THE TRACKS and other great shows, visit the Double Elvis website and follow Double Elvis on Twitter and Instagram . Learn more about your ad-choices at http...
Oct 07, 2021•36 min•Season 2Ep. 9
As the 1970s came to a close, John Lennon famously withdrew from the public eye to focus on his family life. He was no longer appearing on television shows and peace rallies to rail against the confusion and destruction wrought by the political powers of the world. But as one of those television hosts, Dick Cavett, attests, John was anything but dormant during this period. He nearly made a surprise live appearance on a late-night TV show. He nearly died when he went on a sailing expedition throu...
Sep 30, 2021•34 min•Season 2Ep. 8
As the 1970s wore on, John Lennon found himself at a crossroads. Was he a pop singer or an artist? Would he continue to be a musician at all, or instead would he retreat into quiet family life? Enter David Bowie, who managed to find a way to help John be all of those things at once, while at the same time making Bowie bigger than ever in the United States. Bowie’s tales about John involve the usual vices, drugs like cocaine – but also some very unexpected and unorthodox hallucinogens on the back...
Sep 23, 2021•36 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Elton John and John Lennon had a special relationship. It very well may have been the deepest and closest relationship that John had with another musician after Paul McCartney. Elton explains how he and John hid out from Andy Warhol in a hotel room; how one of the most legendary bets in rock ‘n roll history led to John making an unexpected appearance at Madison Square Garden; and how John’s brush with UFOs makes us reevaluate just exactly what we think is real. For more info on BLOOD ON THE TRAC...
Sep 16, 2021•34 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Was Harry Nilsson a bad influence on John Lennon? Or was John Lennon a bad influence on Harry Nilsson? Harry ponders this very question as he takes a very inebriated stroll down a memory lane. It’s on this journey that John and Harry consume far too many Brandy Alexanders, Harry tries to get Paul McCartney to take a horse tranquilizer, Harry literally shreds his vocal cords, and John makes a heroic stand at RCA Records. For more info on BLOOD ON THE TRACKS and other great shows, visit the Double...
Sep 09, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Keith Moon, wild man drummer for the Who, has plenty of his own stories to tell, from chopping up hotel rooms with a hatchet to dunking a Lincoln Continental in a Holiday Inn’s pool. He was one of John’s frequent fellow partiers during John’s “lost weekend” in Los Angeles, which was longer than a weekend and even more lost than you’d initially assume. And as Keith Moon explains, the trouble that he and John got up to during that lost weekend was more than fun and games: it nearly got John Lennon...
Sep 02, 2021•34 min•Season 1Ep. 4
To settle a copyright lawsuit, John Lennon begins a disastrous recording project with one of the most disastrous producers in the biz: Phil Spector. The former “tycoon of teen” attempts to helm John’s rock ‘n roll covers album in Los Angeles, which quickly devolves into drunken hijinks, all while a threatening music executive presents serious challenges. Plus, Spector reveals the reason why John and Yoko wanted to be in the United States in the first place – and it’s not what you think. For more...
Aug 26, 2021•31 min•Season 2Ep. 3
