Albums influenced by therapy, therapists and psychology. No 2 - Brian Wilson, Brian Wilson

There are many villains (not so many heroes) in the life story of Brian Wilson. Obviously there’s Mike Love. Next there’s the disciplinarian father, Murry. Then, of course, there’s the daddy who took her t-bird away. But perhaps trumping them all is the disgraced psychiatrist Eugene Landy - after all, a mere mention of his name is usually enough to get most BB fans frothing at the mouth. Yet it not always thus. Once upon a time Landy was portrayed as Brian’s saviour, who performed a miracle in transforming the bloated, drug addled non-surfer into tip top physical condition - saving his life, essentially.

Now we all know that Brian just wasn’t made for these times, or in fact any other times. He was a restless soul; in the 60s he had tried to find inner peace, using an array of spiritual techniques without perhaps nailing the spirit of it (‘I meditated my ass off’, he recalls). His very real mental health problems, meanwhile, are too often treated as amusing rock anecdotes. Like, ha! He had paranoid delusions while he was making Smile! Hilarious.

But perhaps repeated most gleefully and most often is the story that he spent three entire years in bed in the early 70s, existing on a diet of cocaine, booze and fast food. It’s not entirely true; it was partly manufactured to promote the idea of Landy as saviour, and old footage shows Brian surprisingly lucid during those years. But he was undeniably a mess, and in a state bad enough for his wife to hire Dr Landy.

Landy’s technique was something he called 24 hour therapy. In his own words it involved ‘gaining complete control over every aspect of a person’s life - physical, personal, social and sexual environments.' Nothing sinister about that then. So he moved into Wilson's home, along with his bodyguards. And while he kept Wilson off the coke, he loaded him up with sedatives and psychotropics until he'd become a kind of bewildered, helpless man-child. By then Landy had got himself named in Wilson’s will, and was due to collect a cool 70%. Hey, give the guy a break, perhaps he was off sick the day they had professional boundaries training.

Which all explains how it was that Landy and his wife turned up as credited writers on Wilson’s 1988 self-titled comeback album. Time has not been kind to this record, but back then it was (laughably) trumpeted as an extension of Pet Sounds, both musically and thematically. Revisited now it sounds facile, its elaborately produced nursery rhymes a tragically pale imitation of Brian’s past glories.

And what was Landy’s actual contribution? Other people in the sessions remember him as disruptive, bribing Brian to change lyrics on the promise of a milkshake. Landy told it differently, unsurprisingly. ‘When we would write, Brian, Alexandra and I would sit around and have these extraordinary philosophical conversations.’ Right. Perhaps it was one of these extraordinary philosophical conversations that led to the following lines:

Night time is delight time
It's starlight time
And it's the right time for me

Fortunately it wasn’t long before Landy was shown the door and Brian’s people found more talented people to exploit him. And if you care one tiny shred about Brian Wilson, believe in his soul, his talent, forgive him his flaws, then do yourself a favour and avoid this album. If you want to hear him at the very best he could be - reflective, open hearted and downright beautiful - no problem. Go listen to Pet Sounds.