The problem, he says, is less with Brian Wilson than with other people: “When Brian Wilson’s in a room, people don’t know how to approach him.”

Foskett thinks that his latterday career has been therapeutic. “It was obvious that he was having some memories, and they weren’t necessarily the best memories, when we started to rehearse Smile. I think it absolutely did exorcise those problems. It was therapeutic, even for me to watch.”

Love did his bit to add to the ongoing weirdness by accepting the band’s induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame with a rambling speech in which he variously attacked Paul McCartney, Diana Ross, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and called Mick Jagger a “chickenshit”

In any case, he says, he didn’t find the bedridden, unwashed, irreparably damaged tragedy of popular myth. “I knocked on the door and Brian answered and said, ‘Come on in.’ We hung out, we jammed for [...]