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I don't think I've ever heard this one before but its really beautiful.
I don't think I've ever heard this one before but its really beautiful.
Lots of information on this song, but I think it deserves it.
"God Only Knows" was voted 25 in Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the second of seven Beach Boys songs to feature (the first being "Good Vibrations" at 6), and was ranked by Pitchfork Media as the greatest song of the 1960s. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included it as one of "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
Sung by his younger brother Carl Wilson, the Beach Boys' recording was produced and arranged by Brian using an unorthodox selection of instruments, including French horn, accordions, sleigh bell, harpsichord, and a quartet of violas and cellos heard throughout the piece in counterpoint. The musical structure has been variously cited for its harmonic complexity, inspiring tension through its disuse of authentic cadences and a definite key signature. Its closing section features perpetual rounds, a device that was not normally heard in popular music of the era.
The song is told from the point of view of someone contemplating life after death to their lover, as Asher describes, "'I'll love you till the sun burns out, then I'm gone,' ergo 'I'm gonna love you forever.'" Wilson explained that "God Only Knows" was "a vision that Tony and I had. It's like being blind but in being blind, you can see more. You close your eyes; you're able to see a place or something that's happening." He initially hated the opening line of the song as "it was too negative." He eventually gave in after hearing the subsequent lyrics. In 1976, Brian said there was no one particular that the song was written for.
Fusilli extrapolated that the song was "a mature proclamation of love and a desperate plea. And it's a distillation of what much of Pet Sounds is about: the sense that if we surrender to an all-consuming love, we will never be able to live without it. And, though we're uncertain that the reward is worth the risk, we yearn to surrender." Fusilli also noted a closing phrase Wilson had once written to his wife in 1964: "Yours 'til God wants us apart." James Perone wrote: "While Wilson's character may indeed be in love with the woman to whom he sings, there is a hint that part of this 'love' may be self-serving and part of a cycle of codependency." Asher denied that the song alluded to suicide. He describes his interpretation:
"This is the one [song] that I thought would be a hit record because it was so incredibly beautiful. I was concerned that maybe the lyrics weren't up to the same level as the music; how many love songs start off with the line, 'I may not always love you'? I liked that twist, and fought to start the song that way. Working with Brian, I didn't have a whole lot of fighting to do, but I was certainly willing to fight to the end for that. ... 'God Only Knows' is, to me, one of the great songs of our time. I mean the great songs. Not because I wrote the lyrics, but because it is an amazing piece of music that we were able to write a very compelling lyric to. It's the simplicity—the inference that "I am who I am because of you"—that makes it very personal and tender."
"God Only Knows" is frequently cited for referencing "God" in its title, a decision that Wilson and Asher agonized over, fearing it would not get airplay as a result. As Wilson's then-wife Marilyn describes, "The first time I heard it, Brian played it for me at the piano. And I went, 'Oh my God, he's talking about God in a record.' It was pretty daring to me. And it was another time I thought to myself, 'Oh, boy, he's really taking a chance.' I thought it was almost too religious. Too square. At that time. Yes, it was so great that he would say it and not be intimidated by what anybody else would think of the words or what he meant." Asher explains that he and Brian "had lengthy conversations during the writing of 'God Only Knows', because unless you were Kate Smith and you were singing 'God Bless America', no one thought you could say 'God' in a song. No one had done it, and Brian didn't want to be the first person to try it. He said, 'We'll just never get any air play.' Isn't it amazing that we thought that? But it worked." Wilson added that although he feared putting the word "God" in the title of the song, he eventually agreed to keep it, firstly, "because God was a spiritual word", and secondly, because the Beach Boys would "be breaking ground".
Jim DeRogatis states that, as was common in psychedelic rock, the spiritual invocations in "God Only Knows" express non-specific sentiments which could be addressed to any higher force, and that it is "less of a prayer than a sensitive meditation about moving forward in the face of loss". Even though the Wilson family did not grow up in "a particularly religious household", younger brother and bandmate Carl Wilson was described as "the most truly religious person I know" by Brian, and Carl was forthcoming about the group's spiritual beliefs stating: "We believe in God as a kind of universal consciousness. God is love. God is you. God is me. God is everything right here in this room. It's a spiritual concept which inspires a great deal of our music." Gil writes: "It’s a love song, yes, but again, echoing its classical forebears, there is something not quite secular about it. Yes, 'God Only Knows' is a common, casual phrase, but in this context it feels much more literal."
The instrumental part of the song took 20 takes to achieve what is the master take of the song. Present on the day of the instrumental recording was Carl on twelve-string guitar among other session musicians collectively known as The Wrecking Crew. A strip of masking tape was placed over the strings of a piano while the bottoms of two plastic orange juice bottles were used for percussion.
According to Brian, many of the musicians who were present at the "God Only Knows" sessions claim that those sessions were some of "the most magical, beautiful musical experiences they've ever heard". He added that there were 23 musicians present during the "God Only Knows" sessions, though only 16 are credited as being present on the actual take that was used for the final song. At the time, 23 musicians was an astounding number of musicians for a pop record. All the musicians played simultaneously, creating "a rich, heavenly blanket of music". A string section was overdubbed thereafter.
Carl Wilson: "I was honored to be able to sing that one. It is so beautifully written, it sings itself. Brian said something like, 'Don't do anything with it. Just sing it real straight. No effort. Take in a breath. Let it go real easy.' I was really grateful to be the one to sing that song. I felt extremely lucky."
Brian originally intended to sing lead vocal on "God Only Knows" but after the instrumental portions of the song had been recorded, Brian thought Carl could impart the message better than he could. Brian reflected in October 1966, "I gave the song to Carl because I was looking for a tenderness and a sweetness which I knew Carl had in himself as well as in his voice. He brought dignity to the song and the words, through him, became not a lyric, but words." At the time, it was rare for Carl to sing lead on a Beach Boys song.
Bruce Johnston explains that "Brian really worked a lot on 'God Only Knows', and at one point, he had all the Beach Boys, Terry Melcher and two of the Rovell sisters [Brian's wife Marilyn and her sister Diane] on it. It just got so overloaded; it was nuts. So he was smart enough to peel it all back, and he held voices back to the bridge, me at the top end, Carl in the middle and Brian on the bottom. At that point, Brian's right move was to get subtler. He had a very tender track here. 'God Only Knows' is a very small masterpiece with a major heartbeat, and he was right to peel everybody back and wind up with the three parts. In fact, it's probably the only well-known Beach Boys track that has just three voices on it."
The final vocal track was recorded between March and April 1966 at CBS Columbia Square, Hollywood, with the session engineered by Ralph Balantin and produced by Brian. The song features three voices on the track. Carl is featured on lead vocals, with Brian and Johnston backing him. Johnston explained that, "The really cute thing is that at the end of the session, Carl was really tired, and he went home. So Brian ... remember, this was 8-track, so, he now has these extra tracks at his disposal. But there were just the two of us. So in the fade, he's singing two of the three parts. He sang the top and the bottom part and I sang in the middle." Brian used the production technique of double-tracking Carl's voice, so that his voice is simultaneously singing the same part twice, to give the vocal a fuller and richer sound; Brian used this technique often during the recording of Pet Sounds. The song's sessions concluded on April 11.
Lots of information on this song, but I think it deserves it.
"God Only Knows" was voted 25 in Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the second of seven Beach Boys songs to feature (the first being "Good Vibrations" at 6), and was ranked by Pitchfork Media as the greatest song of the 1960s. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included it as one of "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
Sung by his younger brother Carl Wilson, the Beach Boys' recording was produced and arranged by Brian using an unorthodox selection of instruments, including French horn, accordions, sleigh bell, harpsichord, and a quartet of violas and cellos heard throughout the piece in counterpoint. The musical structure has been variously cited for its harmonic complexity, inspiring tension through its disuse of authentic cadences and a definite key signature. Its closing section features perpetual rounds, a device that was not normally heard in popular music of the era.
The song is told from the point of view of someone contemplating life after death to their lover, as Asher describes, "'I'll love you till the sun burns out, then I'm gone,' ergo 'I'm gonna love you forever.'" Wilson explained that "God Only Knows" was "a vision that Tony and I had. It's like being blind but in being blind, you can see more. You close your eyes; you're able to see a place or something that's happening." He initially hated the opening line of the song as "it was too negative." He eventually gave in after hearing the subsequent lyrics. In 1976, Brian said there was no one particular that the song was written for.
Fusilli extrapolated that the song was "a mature proclamation of love and a desperate plea. And it's a distillation of what much of Pet Sounds is about: the sense that if we surrender to an all-consuming love, we will never be able to live without it. And, though we're uncertain that the reward is worth the risk, we yearn to surrender." Fusilli also noted a closing phrase Wilson had once written to his wife in 1964: "Yours 'til God wants us apart." James Perone wrote: "While Wilson's character may indeed be in love with the woman to whom he sings, there is a hint that part of this 'love' may be self-serving and part of a cycle of codependency." Asher denied that the song alluded to suicide. He describes his interpretation:
"This is the one [song] that I thought would be a hit record because it was so incredibly beautiful. I was concerned that maybe the lyrics weren't up to the same level as the music; how many love songs start off with the line, 'I may not always love you'? I liked that twist, and fought to start the song that way. Working with Brian, I didn't have a whole lot of fighting to do, but I was certainly willing to fight to the end for that. ... 'God Only Knows' is, to me, one of the great songs of our time. I mean the great songs. Not because I wrote the lyrics, but because it is an amazing piece of music that we were able to write a very compelling lyric to. It's the simplicity—the inference that "I am who I am because of you"—that makes it very personal and tender."
"God Only Knows" is frequently cited for referencing "God" in its title, a decision that Wilson and Asher agonized over, fearing it would not get airplay as a result. As Wilson's then-wife Marilyn describes, "The first time I heard it, Brian played it for me at the piano. And I went, 'Oh my God, he's talking about God in a record.' It was pretty daring to me. And it was another time I thought to myself, 'Oh, boy, he's really taking a chance.' I thought it was almost too religious. Too square. At that time. Yes, it was so great that he would say it and not be intimidated by what anybody else would think of the words or what he meant." Asher explains that he and Brian "had lengthy conversations during the writing of 'God Only Knows', because unless you were Kate Smith and you were singing 'God Bless America', no one thought you could say 'God' in a song. No one had done it, and Brian didn't want to be the first person to try it. He said, 'We'll just never get any air play.' Isn't it amazing that we thought that? But it worked." Wilson added that although he feared putting the word "God" in the title of the song, he eventually agreed to keep it, firstly, "because God was a spiritual word", and secondly, because the Beach Boys would "be breaking ground".
Jim DeRogatis states that, as was common in psychedelic rock, the spiritual invocations in "God Only Knows" express non-specific sentiments which could be addressed to any higher force, and that it is "less of a prayer than a sensitive meditation about moving forward in the face of loss". Even though the Wilson family did not grow up in "a particularly religious household", younger brother and bandmate Carl Wilson was described as "the most truly religious person I know" by Brian, and Carl was forthcoming about the group's spiritual beliefs stating: "We believe in God as a kind of universal consciousness. God is love. God is you. God is me. God is everything right here in this room. It's a spiritual concept which inspires a great deal of our music." Gil writes: "It’s a love song, yes, but again, echoing its classical forebears, there is something not quite secular about it. Yes, 'God Only Knows' is a common, casual phrase, but in this context it feels much more literal."
The instrumental part of the song took 20 takes to achieve what is the master take of the song. Present on the day of the instrumental recording was Carl on twelve-string guitar among other session musicians collectively known as [The Wrecking Crew](https://voat.co/v/PaddysPub/2244749). A strip of masking tape was placed over the strings of a piano while the bottoms of two plastic orange juice bottles were used for percussion.
According to Brian, many of the musicians who were present at the "God Only Knows" sessions claim that those sessions were some of "the most magical, beautiful musical experiences they've ever heard". He added that there were 23 musicians present during the "God Only Knows" sessions, though only 16 are credited as being present on the actual take that was used for the final song. At the time, 23 musicians was an astounding number of musicians for a pop record. All the musicians played simultaneously, creating "a rich, heavenly blanket of music". A string section was overdubbed thereafter.
Carl Wilson: "I was honored to be able to sing that one. It is so beautifully written, it sings itself. Brian said something like, 'Don't do anything with it. Just sing it real straight. No effort. Take in a breath. Let it go real easy.' I was really grateful to be the one to sing that song. I felt extremely lucky."
Brian originally intended to sing lead vocal on "God Only Knows" but after the instrumental portions of the song had been recorded, Brian thought Carl could impart the message better than he could. Brian reflected in October 1966, "I gave the song to Carl because I was looking for a tenderness and a sweetness which I knew Carl had in himself as well as in his voice. He brought dignity to the song and the words, through him, became not a lyric, but words." At the time, it was rare for Carl to sing lead on a Beach Boys song.
Bruce Johnston explains that "Brian really worked a lot on 'God Only Knows', and at one point, he had all the Beach Boys, Terry Melcher and two of the Rovell sisters [Brian's wife Marilyn and her sister Diane] on it. It just got so overloaded; it was nuts. So he was smart enough to peel it all back, and he held voices back to the bridge, me at the top end, Carl in the middle and Brian on the bottom. At that point, Brian's right move was to get subtler. He had a very tender track here. 'God Only Knows' is a very small masterpiece with a major heartbeat, and he was right to peel everybody back and wind up with the three parts. In fact, it's probably the only well-known Beach Boys track that has just three voices on it."
The final vocal track was recorded between March and April 1966 at CBS Columbia Square, Hollywood, with the session engineered by Ralph Balantin and produced by Brian. The song features three voices on the track. Carl is featured on lead vocals, with Brian and Johnston backing him. Johnston explained that, "The really cute thing is that at the end of the session, Carl was really tired, and he went home. So Brian ... remember, this was 8-track, so, he now has these extra tracks at his disposal. But there were just the two of us. So in the fade, he's singing two of the three parts. He sang the top and the bottom part and I sang in the middle." Brian used the production technique of double-tracking Carl's voice, so that his voice is simultaneously singing the same part twice, to give the vocal a fuller and richer sound; Brian used this technique often during the recording of Pet Sounds. The song's sessions concluded on April 11.
It's a great song, probably my wife's favorite BB tune.