{"id":13961,"date":"2025-08-21T13:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T13:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/13961\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T13:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T13:51:09","slug":"brian-wilson-felt-really-bad-about-missed-opportunity-of-not-working-on-the-beach-boys-kokomo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/13961\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Wilson &#8220;felt really bad&#8221; about &#8220;missed opportunity&#8221; of not working on The Beach Boys&#8217; &#8216;Kokomo&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/brian-wilson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brian Wilson<\/a>\u2018s former lawyer has said that the late musician \u201cfelt really bad\u201d about not working on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/the-beach-boys\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Beach Boys<\/a>\u2018 \u2018Kokomo\u2019 after his doctor prevented him from participating.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"post-content-read-more\">\n<li><strong>READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/features\/music-features\/brian-wilson-obituary-the-beach-boys-3869273\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brian Wilson, 1942-2025: culture-defining innovator who represented pop music\u2019s awakening<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Wilson <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/music\/brian-wilson-dies-beach-boys-age-cause-tributes-3869089\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">died in June from respiratory arrest at the age of 82<\/a>. A year prior to his death, his\u00a0family revealed that he was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/music\/brian-wilson-to-be-placed-under-conservatorship-following-dementia-diagnosis-3588453\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">suffering from dementia<\/a>, and he was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/music\/the-beach-boys-brian-wilson-placed-in-conservatorship-3755193\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">placed in a conservatorship in May that year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t the first time he had been placed under a conservatorship, with his family filing a suit in 1991 to separate him from controversial psychologist Eugene Landy, who they said exerted \u201cundue influence\u201d over his life, music and finances.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Wilson\u2019s former lawyer John Mason has spoken about how Landy convinced the musician not to participate in \u2018Kokomo\u2019, the Beach Boys track from the 1988 film Cocktail.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/mike-love\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mike [Love]<\/a> and Carl [Wilson] came into my office and said to Brian, \u2018Hey, we have the opportunity to write a song for this movie, Cocktail\u2018,\u201d he told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/entertainment\/beach-boys-founder-brian-wilson-regretted-being-blocked-from-bands-hit-song-book\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Fox News Digital<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2019It\u2019s going to be starring Tom Cruise. It\u2019s really great. We\u2019d love you to join us. And Brian was really excited. He said, \u2018Oh, I\u2019d love to do that.\u2019 But later in the evening, Brian called and said, \u2018I shouldn\u2019t do that. Dr. Landy said I shouldn\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, that turned out to be \u2018Kokomo,\u2019 the biggest hit the Beach Boys had had probably forever. And Brian felt really badly about not working on \u2018Kokomo.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen he heard it, and when I heard it, we went, \u2018Oh my gosh, was that a missed opportunity?\u2019\u201d Mason said.<\/p>\n<p>Mason went on to say that Landy refused to let Wilson participate unless he, too, was listed as a writer on the song. The band refused and went on to write \u2018Kokomo\u2019 without Wilson\u2019s input, which Mason says Wilson lived to regret. \u201cBrian is truly a giant teddy bear and genius who regrets bad decisions and lives for better ones,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Landy first began working with Wilson between 1975 and 1976 when the musician entered his intensive 24-hour therapy program in an attempt to improve his declining health from drug use, and again between 1982 and 1992.<\/p>\n<p>The doctor\u2019s methods were controversial, with him demanding complete control over Wilson\u2019s affairs in order to rehabilitate him. A conservatorship case was eventually triggered by the redrafting of Wilson\u2019s will in 1989, in which Landy was named as chief beneficiary, standing to inherit up to 70 per cent of his estate.<\/p>\n<p>Mason admitting there were some \u201cgood\u201d elements of his treatment in that \u201che motivated Brian to become a participant in his own life\u201d, but added: \u201cThe bad part was that, as time went by and years went by, Dr. Landy expected more and more to replace Brian in the Beach Boys\u2026 Brian wasn\u2019t allowed to do anything without a Landy handler being with him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBrian was in a weak mental state,\u201d he continued. \u201cBrian often said to me, as sad as it sounds \u2026 \u2018I fried my brain. I took too many drugs.\u2019 Brian couldn\u2019t get up in the morning without somebody getting him up. He couldn\u2019t eat healthily without somebody giving him something healthy to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By 1992, the Superior Court of Santa Monica ruled that Landy must remove himself from Wilson\u2019s life, and appointed an independent conservator with \u201cspecific and limited powers over the artist\u2019s affairs\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The group later recorded a Spanish-language version of \u2018Kokomo\u2019 with participation from Brian.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/music\/the-beach-boys-brian-wilson-wasnt-just-the-heart-of-the-beach-boys-he-was-the-soul-of-our-sound-3869140\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The surviving members of The Beach Boys paid their respects to Wilson<\/a> in a joint message, saying that he \u201cwas the soul of our sound\u201d. Other tributes have come from the likes of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/music\/paul-mccartney-pays-tribute-to-brian-wilson-i-loved-him-3869283\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Paul McCartney<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/music\/bruce-springsteen-remembers-brian-wilson-the-most-musically-inventive-voice-in-all-of-pop-with-an-otherworldly-ear-for-harmony-3869458\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bruce Springsteen<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/elton-john\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Elton John<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/bob-dylan\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bob Dylan<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/ringo-starr\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ringo Starr<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/ronnie-wood\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ronnie Wood<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/nancy-sinatra\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nancy Sinatra<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/music\/watch-sting-honour-brian-wilson-with-tender-god-only-knows-cover-in-germany-3869164\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sting<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/music\/glastonbury-2025-biffy-clyro-pay-tribute-to-brian-wilson-with-beach-boys-cover-3873279\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Biffy Clyro<\/a>\u00a0and many more from the music world and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>In the wake of Wilson\u2019s death,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/music\/watch-brian-wilson-deliver-his-final-ever-performance-3869118\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fans started sharing footage of his final-ever live performance from 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere, Love <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/music\/the-beach-boys-mike-love-reveals-he-and-brian-wilson-sang-together-weeks-before-icons-death-3877839\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">revealed that he and Wilson sang together in the weeks before his death<\/a>, while Al Jardine <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/music\/al-jardine-hits-out-at-mike-loves-serious-megalomania-problems-for-speech-at-brian-wilsons-funeral-i-didnt-feel-the-compassion-3886057\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">has accused Love, his former bandmate, of \u201cmegalomania problems\u201d for his speech at Wilson\u2019s funeral<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brian Wilson\u2018s former lawyer has said that the late musician \u201cfelt really bad\u201d about not working on The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[18,117,19,17,337,4513],"class_list":{"0":"post-13961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-pop"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}