Brian Wilson Was So “Obsessed” With This American Folk Song That It Even Made Iggy Pop Uncomfortable

Even taking into account his piano room full of sand, Brian Wilson was a schoolboy compared to the self-destructive, ever-shirtless former Stooges frontman Iggy Pop. But according to multiple musicians’ accounts, Wilson had an obsession that became so overwhelming to Pop that the “Lust for Life” singer had to leave the room. (Yes, the very same Iggy Pop who used to slash himself with broken glass and break his own teeth with his mic.)

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Adding to this strange turn of events is the fact that Wilson’s obsession centered around an early 20th-century American folk song called “Shortnin’ Bread”. The song officially started as a poem by James Whitcomb Riley, though some historians claim he based the poem on an unpublished plantation song. In either case, it became a classic song that Dolly Parton and Patti LaBelle would later sing together using acrylic nails for percussion. And apparently, it was Brian Wilson’s all-time favorite song.

How did everyone know? Easy—everyone got the hint at around the seventh or eighth run-through.

Brian Wilson Pushed Iggy Pop out of the Room With His Favorite Song

As Peter Carlin would later document in Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall & Redemption of The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, the “Good Vibrations” songwriter would often fall into an obsessive loop of playing “Shortenin’ Bread” on the piano when attending parties with copious amounts of c******. Wilson would lead his fellow partygoers, most of whom were famous musicians themselves, in sing-alongs ad nauseam. It was a well-known quirk among those who often partied with Wilson. But for Iggy Pop, it was an unexpected surprise that threw him for an unpleasant loop.

According to the Irish-American singer Danny Hutton, The Beach Boys founder got through a handful of “Shortenin’ Bread” run-throughs before Iggy Pop backed out of the room, telling Hutton, “I gotta get out of here, man. This guy is nuts!” Alice Cooper, another shock rocker akin to Iggy, had a similar story about The Stooges singer and “Shortenin’ Bread”.

“It was about 1978 or something like that,” Cooper later recalled, per Music News. “Iggy and I were sitting there waiting—you know, it was Brian Wilson, one of the great writers of all time—and he sat down at the piano and starts playing, ‘Mama’s little baby loves shortnin’, shortnin’, mama’s little baby loves shortnin’ bread.’ He goes, ‘This is the greatest song ever written,’ dead seriously. We were two little kids. We go, ‘Um, okay. Why is that the best song?’ ‘I don’t know,’ [he replied]. ‘It’s just the best song ever written.’”

“That’s like [Sir Paul] McCartney telling you that,” Cooper continued. So, he told Wilson the same thing he would have told Macca. “Okay, I guess you’re right.”

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