Charlotte Shane at Bookforum:
BRIAN WILSON HAS BEEN DEAF IN HIS RIGHT EAR since childhood. He mixed the Beach Boys’ albums, including Pet Sounds, in mono because he couldn’t hear them any other way. “It was sort of like being robbed of something, some pleasure of life,” he said in 1976. “I’m not complaining, but it’s a little bit of a setback.” I think the deafness might explain why the left side of his mouth reaches up when he speaks, like he’s addressing his good ear. (The affect has become more pronounced with age, but it’s visible in footage from the 1960s.) “I got one ear left and your big loud voice is killin’ it,” Brian yelled at his father and former band manager, Murry Wilson, during 1965’s “Help Me, Rhonda” recording session. Murry, drunk but not untrue to his sober form, had been berating the guys for almost forty minutes as they tried to get down the vocals.
While Brian’s hearing loss is undisputed, its cause has never been confirmed. In his second, most recent autobiography, I Am Brian Wilson, Brian says another kid hit him in the head with a lead pipe.
more here.