Goodbye Surfing, Hello God: Brian Wilsons Tortured Effort to Finish Smile| Rolling Stone

In 1966, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys entered the studio to compose Smile, an album that he believed would transform not just the band, but the face of popular music. What happened next – captured by writer Jules Siegel, who had spent months in the Beach Boys’ inner circle – would become legend. “Goodbye Surfing, Hello God,” Siegel’s account of the tortured efforts to complete Smile, ran in Cheetah magazine, helping to create the legacy of Wilson’s madcap genius and the mystique around rock’s greatest lost album. The following is adapted from Siegel’s original 1967 story, recently resurrected by The Atavist as an ebook single for the Kindle and Nook, and as a multimedia production in The Atavist iPhone/iPad app.

“I’m writing a teenage symphony to God,” Brian Wilson told dinner guests on an October evening.