God Only Knows Where We’ll Be Without Brian
Brian Wilson in Santa Monica California 1990. Photo by portrait of Brian Wilson by Ithaka Darin Pappas via Wikimedia Commons
Brian Wilson captured bliss — the first days of falling in love, the joy of driving, summer, the beach — and crafted them into songs so densely filled with honied light that they will surely still be played hundreds of years from now.
A twist of melancholy — we know those moments of joy won’t last — only makes the songs sweeter.
Brian Wilson, brother, lover, composer, Beach Boy, died at the age of 82 on 11 June 2025. Many were surprised he made it past his first Saturn Return which took place back in 1972, when the hungry gods of music were chewing him up, perhaps in exchange for his unearthly talent. But it turned out that Wilson’s later life comeback from the edge of rock and roll was, just like his music, an inspiration for those of us who have found ourselves lost in a dark wood somewhere in our middle years.
Data from astrodatabank.
It’s fitting that a genius and famous sibling should be born with Uranus Rising in the sign of Gemini, the sign we associate with brothers and sisters. Wilson formed the Beach Boys with his younger brothers, Carl and Dennis, and two friends, when they were teenagers.
Right now, Uranus is sitting on Wilson’s 27° Taurus Ascendant, preparing to jump into Gemini for Wilson’s Uranus Return, which won’t officially happen until next year because his natal Uranus is at 2°, but it’ll be close enough.This is the planet of change arriving just in time for the biggest switcheroo of them all.
Look at this chart and it does sing music maker. For music, look to Venus and Neptune to start, and there they are. Hovering just above the Ascendant in the magical 12th House, Venus, at home in Taurus, the sign of the voice itself, the throat, and Neptune in meticulous earthy Virgo, each note pitch perfect and precise. Those two planets contain the rest of the traditional chart. Might that mighty trine be the tapestry of sound the Beach Boys wove with voices and a wonderfully wide range of instruments? Neptune, of course, is in the 5th house of play and creativity.
Venus and Neptune are not just gods of music but also of love — divine and earthly — and this is the real subject of Wilson’s songs. Some are about the pure joy of love, or the pure love of surfing or driving or beautiful girls (California Girls), and some are literally about divine love (Prayer) or just, well, Good Vibrations. The love is the honey, the sweet thing, the Venus.
Often, with musicians, you should look for the earth signs plus Pisces. At first glance, it seems that Pisces is missing, but then you see that the asteroid of abundance, Ceres, is in the sign of pure music. She is, in fact, in a tight pattern with Neptune, Venus, and Wilson’s Sun. And she is in a degree of unearthly power — the very last of the Zodiac. Pisces is also the sign of oblivion, of course, and during the middle of his life, Wilson dipped in and out of oblivion for many years, submerged in a sea of drugs — legal and prescription.
Gemini is often found in the charts of bards. There’s a straightforward facility with communication. Wilson has Uranus (genius) and Saturn (mastery and persistence) in Gemini conjoined and Rising. Mercury in Gemini in the first house, and the in Gemini in the house of talents conjoining Jupiter in Cancer. Jupiter and the Sun in the second house can indicate a person with either many talents or one overwhelming talent — and a need to express that. Wilson was the first pop musician to be credited with writing, performing, producing and arranging his own material.
This is a sensitive man: Moon in Virgo, who sometimes struggles with mental or physical health, conjoins the North Node, Jupiter is in Cancer, that most sensitive of signs.
You can see the very tight Pluto-Mars conjunction in Leo, the sign of kings, in the place of family and tribe — and it’s well-known that Wilson’s father was a tyrant. But this place also represents the soil from which we spring, and in Wilson’s case that is California. What could be more Californian than Pluto, the Lord of wealth (and poverty), in the sign of the Sun himself. Pluto and Mars together are like a pumping oil well. So, although Wilson’s father crushed him — possibly making him deaf in one ear — there was a rich well of inspiration for Wilson here. With his songs, he spins darkness into sunshine, pulling the twisted thread of Pluto and Mars, with his Uranian genius (see the tight sextile), alchemising it into music in the studio.
Wilson bottled a certain dream of California — sun-kissed blondes, muscled surfers, the Pacific, freedom. And his life story might only have happened in California. His instant fame, the parties, the decadence, the brilliant collaborators, the mysticism, the drugs, the personal psychiatrist and his descent into madness.
It’s a story of life and death and rebirth — not just once or twice but repeatedly. He lived on the edge of reason for most of his adult life — after a mental breakdown in 1964, the year that Uranus and Pluto conjoined on his Moon. That was also supposedly the year he discovered LSD, which blew open the doors of perception that he never quite managed to shut again.
All this could be written in that Leonine Pluto on the IC.
A man who brought us the sound of angels has been transported to the other world in the arms of the angel of death. Jupiter, in this guise, passed over his Sun, stepped into Cancer, and began Wilson’s Jupiter Return. Surely, he’s already in the paradise from which his music seemed to emanate.
One last thought, Vesta, the torch, the flame, on Wilson’s Midheaven oversees the whole chart. There is not doubt that his legacy will live, and some of his songs will become anthems for the future.
I believe that Brian Wilson channelled his music. It is otherworldly in is beauty and emotional truth. “Love and Mercy” was simply angelic ( the song and the album). He has gone to the realm from which he came. How lucky we were to hear his pet sounds.
Totally agree. When I first heard these song they seemed out of this world.
I agree. It actually sounds like it comes from other realms.