The Dennis Wilson Song Completed More Than 30 Years Later by Queen and Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins

By the time he died in 1983 at the age of 39, Dennis Wilson left behind a collection of songs written for the Beach Boys‘ archive, and a brief solo career spanning his 1977 debut album Pacific Ocean Blue—the only solo release within his lifetime—and another line of his songs that were later released on his posthumous album Bambu in 2017.

Often working alongside longtime collaborator Gregg Jakobson—who also co-wrote several Beach Boys songs with him—“Forever,” “Slip on Through,” “San Miguel,” “Baby Blue,” and “Celebrate the News”—together, the two also penned more for Pacific Ocean Blue, including “You and I,” with Wilson’s then-wife Karen Lamm, along with “Moonshine,” “What’s Wrong,” “Friday Night,” “Dreamer,” and the closing “End of the Show.”

During the Pacific Ocean Blue sessions in 1977, there was another track that Wilson and Jakobson began writing but never finished. “Holy Man” was left as an instrumental and never made it onto the album since neither could come up with its lyrics.

More than three decades after it was first recorded, Jakobson connected with his daughter’s former boyfriend, Foo Fighters’ drummer, Taylor Hawkins, to work on the unfinished track. “Gregg called me,” recalled Hawkins, “and said, ‘We’re doing it. We’re doing it. We got the funding and everything’s on. I want you to check out putting some vocals on this unfinished song that was really important to Dennis.’”

Hawkins added, “I guess they tried some lyrics and didn’t like ’em. There was a Dennis vocal track, but he erased it, just said, ‘I’m gonna f–king erase it.’ He was a big dude, and you didn’t fuck with Dennis.

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“Holy Man” 2008 and Queen

Hawkins wrote the lyrics inspired by Wilson’s complex personality, a man who had the ego of a lamb, lived with his addictions—sex, drugs, alcohol—and remained omnipresent: He is everywhere.

With the ego of a lamb
The holy man
Come the swagger of the dust
You know he can
Turn the corner all alone
He meets you there
Holy man will meet you there
The one you love is everywhere
He is everywhere
And you can follow
And summer burns and winter blows
The holy man
Speaks of fears to overcome
He knows you can
When you lose the innocence
He’s standing there
Holy man will meet you there
The one you love is everywhere
He is everywhere
And you can follow

At first, Hawkins said he was apprehensive about working on one of Wilson’s songs. “I was a little nervous,” said Hawkins. “I was like. ‘Who the f–k am I to do it?’ This stuff is pretty sacred. I didn’t want to piss on his Picasso.”

As a longtime fan, Wilson became a hero to Hawkins. “He’s a drummer,” said Hawkins. “He grew up on the beach, and Gregg always said that we had somewhat similar voices, kinda rough, not exactly Pavarotti, a bit scratchy.” He continued, “I love Dennis so much, and I love ‘Pacific Ocean Blue.’ I love the legend of him.”

Hawkins’s favorite Pacific Ocean Blue track was “End Of The Show,” and he admitted the one that “breaks my heart” was “Thoughts Of You.”

“I think he [Wilson] was terribly insecure ‘cos he had these two brothers,” said Hawkins. “One of them, Carl, had the voice of an angel, and the other, Brian, is a mad genius. But Dennis was the only one who surfed. He was the real Beach Boy. … With all due respect, because they all had their moments, Dennis did the best stuff. There’s no question.”

“With all due respect, because they all [the Beach Boys] had their moments, Dennis did the best stuff. There’s no question.”

Taylor Hawkins

Once Hawkins recorded his vocals in 2008, he later connected with Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor, who also recorded backing vocals and played on another version of the track, released more than a decade later. First featured on the 30th anniversary reissue of Pacific Ocean Blue in 2008, the second version of “Holy Man” with Queen was later released as a seven-inch single on Record Store Day in 2019, along with the B-side of Wilson’s original instrumental version.

Jakobson also recounted the similarities between Hawkins’ and Wilson’s vocals and why the Foo Fighters drummer was the perfect musician to wrap up the song they once started. “Any song with that title is likely to be contrived or clichéd, and we could never come up with a lyric,” recalled Jakobson in Mojo in 2008. “But Taylor, who’s a big Dennis fan, did a great lyric and vocal; he has that same whisky-smoker-gravelly voice as Dennis. If you’re a purist, yes, it’s strange, but music doesn’t work like that, and nor does life.”

Jakobson added, “All Dennis’s music was collaborations, like his brothers who’d come in and sing to someone he’d grabbed off the street to sing or play. If Dennis were still here, he’d love ‘Holy Man.’ I don’t like the word ‘tribute,’ but to me ‘Holy Man’ is a tribute to Dennis.”

Photo: Dave M. Benett/Getty Images