MatR: Brian Wilson and Bruce Springsteen: Love and Mercy

On May 12, 2007, Brian Wilson headlined a benefit concert for the Count Basie Theatre Foundation in Red Bank, New Jersey.

Recalling the evening years later in his 2016 memoir I am Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys co-founder and living legend remembered that “the whole time we were playing our show, there was a guy sitting in a folding chair on the side of the stage. I sit on the side of the stage sometimes myself during sound check, so I was paying special attention to the guy. I couldn’t tell who he was at first. I couldn’t see very well from the stage. But he definitely was someone–everyone who walked past him shook his hand.

“It turns out it was Bruce Springsteen. He was so quiet there on the side of the stage. It was almost like he was taking notes. At the end of the show, he came onstage and sat in with us; he played guitar on ‘Barbara Ann’ and sang harmonies on ‘Love and Mercy.'”

We can only imagine what must have been running through Bruce’s mind that night. “There’s no greater world created in rock and roll than the Beach Boys, the level of musicianship,” Bruce opined in last year’s documentary film, Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road. “I don’t think anybody’s touched it yet.”

“Barbara Ann” was the more famous of the two songs Bruce played with Brian that night, but “Love and Mercy” was far more personal.

Wilson wrote it for his 1988 debut solo album as a personal expression of his hopes and wishes for the world, and it’s widely considered to rank among his best work. “The beauty of [Wilson’s music] carries with it a sense of joyfulness even in the pain of living,” Bruce said in the film, and that description certainly applies to “Love and Mercy.”

When he returned to the stage that night for that final “Love and Mercy” encore, Bruce stayed in the background during Brian’s moving final number. Wilson recalls the moment:

“I remember turning and seeing him standing next to Taylor Mills, our pretty blond backup singer, and thinking that all singers have moments when they are just guys (or girls) standing at microphones. It doesn’t matter how famous they are. They still have to go to the microphone and sing.”

Fortunately that moment was captured on video–not all of it, unfortunately, but enough of it.

Wilson remembers talking with Bruce after they left the stage that night:

“Bruce came by afterward and hung out for a little while. He had really nice things to say about the band and how perfectly it fit the music. He said that the songs were American masterworks. It was nice of him to say. He has written some himself.”

Love and Mercy
First performed: May 12, 2007 (Red Bank, NJ)
Last performed: May 12, 2007 (Red Bank, NJ)