Brian Wilson Opened the Door Singing This Elton John Song to His Face When the Two Artists First Met

When meeting someone for the first time, there are certain social expectations you can anticipate during the interaction—unless, of course, you’re Elton John meeting Brian Wilson for the first time. Social norms mean nothing when two creative forces collide, which John quickly learned when the Beach Boys founder opened the door and immediately began singing one of John’s classic tracks to his face, pre-hello, pre-handshake.

It was an odd first encounter, surely. But the quintessentially Wilson experience led to a lasting friendship and professional relationship built on mutual love and respect.

Elton John Recalls Meeting Brian Wilson For The First Time

Brian Wilson and his iconic pop group, the Beach Boys, had already reached the apex of their fame by the time Elton John released his debut album, Empty Sky, in 1969. Like so many other artists at that time, John found Wilson to be a massive musical influence. He used to lie on his floor and listen to the Beach Boys’ records for hours. Once his star rose high enough, John was able to pay a personal visit to his hero’s house. In the documentary Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road, John called the experience “the most amazing, surreal trip for me.”

Adding to that surrealism was the way Wilson answered the door when John first arrived at his home with Three Dog Night’s Danny Hutton. In a 2020 interview with Howard Stern, John recalled Wilson opening the door and saying, “Oh! Elton John! I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind.” Wilson was referencing John’s 1970 track, “Your Song,” which he released on his eponymous sophomore album.

“I’m standing there, and I’m going, ‘Oh, my God,’ you know,” John continued to Stern. “I’m so quaking in my boots anyway. It was an extraordinarily eccentric night because that was when he was living in the house with the sand in the dining room with the piano. I went there on the assumption that I was going to hear a 16-track of the 8-track of “Good Vibrations.” We finally got around to doing it, and he would start playing, and ten seconds into the song, [Wilson would say], ‘No, it’s not the right mix.’ So, we didn’t really get to hear the whole “Good Vibrations,” and we were sitting there [until] 2 o’clock in the morning.”

From One Musical Inspiration To Another

Elton John has been a musical inspiration to countless artists, but to reach that level of creative artistry, John first listened to Brian Wilson. In a tribute post following Wilson’s death in June 2025, John wrote, “I grew to love him as a person, and for me, he was the biggest influence on my songwriting ever. He was a musical genius and revolutionary. He changed the goalposts when it came to writing songs and shaped music forever.”

John said Wilson“was always so kind to me from the day I met him,” alluding to that first encounter of Wilson singing “Your Song” to John as he opened the door to his Bel-Air home. Speaking to Howard Stern in 2020, John said his time at Wilson’s home was a singular experience. “Just being in the presence of someone like that,” John said. “I’d never experienced anything like that in my life.”

Notably, Wilson also tried to sell John the piano sitting in his sand-filled dining room in Beverly Hills. John ultimately turned the offer down, but he gained an impressive accolade of being one of the few people who can say the Beach Boys founder tried to sell him one of his most iconically wacky instruments.

Photo by Lynne McAfee/Shutterstock