Live Up to the Legend?: If “legend” means “an unreleased masterwork from the genius who brought us
Pet Sounds” then no. But for Brian fanatics,
Adult Child is a must-hear, even if it does chronicle the decline of what was arguably pop’s greatest talent. A sample lyric: “
The
cigarette butt when you throw it in the water goes ‘phhht!!’/But the
trick, but the trick is you shouldn't laugh/'Cause if you start
laughin’, you're just a coward/If you start laughin’, you're just a
coward.” Clearly, the man had hit bottom – hard. Nearly every song
reflects the sorry state in which the elder-Wilson found himself by the
late-Seventies: a drug-addled, paranoid shut-in, weighing in at a
none-too-svelte 300 lbs. As morbidly awful as that proposition sounds,
however, Wilson’s melodic sense, arranging skills and humor had not yet
totally abandoned him by 1977 – even if his choirboy voice, ravaged by a
four-pack-a-day cigarette habit, had.
In some respects Brian’s “Food Album,” one song finds the recluse
staring into the mirror at his blubbery naked body – in another, he
yearns to drown his sorrows in a good meal, with the whole aesthetic
basically encapsulated in a fantastically Moog-y rendition of the
children’s song, “Shortenin’ Bread” (which, according to Three Dog
Night’s Danny Hutton, Brian had been performing at home for nearly a
decade – often with friends like Hutton and Iggy Pop(!!) uncomfortably
cajoled into singing harmony parts). Elsewhere, wanting to give their
insane older brother a hand, Carl and Dennis pop in to croon a few as
well, taking the leads on “It’s Over Now,” reportedly penned for
Sinatra, and the bouncy “It’s Trying To Say,” respectively. Add to
those a heartbreakingly sad orchestrated ballad, “Still I Dream of It,”
and suspect covers of “Deep Purple” and “On Broadway,” replete with
treacly Baker Street sax, and
Adult Child stands as solidly B-grade Brian.
Songs: Life Is For The Living, It's Over Now, Everybody Wants To
Live, LinesOn Broadway, Games Two Can Play, It's Trying To Say
(Baseball), H.E.L.P. Is On the Way, Still I Dream Of It, Shortenin’
Bread
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