Feature image: Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys in West Los Angeles, 1990. PHOTO: “Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys in West Los Angeles 1990 photographed by Ithaka Darin Pappas” by IthakaDarinPappas is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1961 Brian Wilson founded the Beach Boys with his brothers Carl and Dennis, cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine. Brian was the eldest of the Wilson brothers. Carl died in 1998 and Dennis accidentally drowned in 1983. In December 1963 the Beach Boys had the number one song in America (Surfin’ U.S.A.). Two months later the British Invasion began with the television appearance of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964 seen by 73 million viewers (see – https://www.edsullivan.com/the-beatles-on-the-ed-sullivan-show-on-february-9-1964/ – retrieved June 11, 2025) Overnight the Beach Boys, specifically Brian Wilson, found themselves in what became an informal head-to-head competition with the Fab Four, particularly Paul McCartney, for the direction and purpose of pop music in the 1960’s. In response to Beatlemania, Brian immediately set to work to complete more original material and began experimenting with arrangements and instrumentation to achieve a new sound that not only inspired the Beatles and the admiration of Paul McCartney but resulted in 15 top-20 hits (two at no.1 for multiple weeks) in the three years between Surfin’ U.S.A. and God Only Knows.

The album Pet Sounds ushered in the era of studio experimentation for rock and pop bands. It predated and was the inspiration for the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967, one of pop music’s first concept albums that promoted top-40 psychedelic imagery into mass culture which carried into the mid-1970’s. For God Only Knows, the Beach Boys brought in a 15-piece orchestra that played along a rock band comprised of some of L.A.’s best session players so to achieve Wilson’s “sophisticated soundscape.” The 11th studio album has been described as a clear departure from the Beach Boys’ past discography and is not rock and roll music so much as “futuristic, progressive and experimental.” (see – The Beach Boys FAQ, All That’s Left to Know about America’s Band, Jon Stebbins, Backbeat Books, 2011, p 74.).

The song, God Only Knows, was written, according to Brian Wilson, in about 45 minutes. For some it is the greatest Beach Boys song and even the greatest song of that period or perhaps all time. The lyrics revolved around themes of faith, emotion and being afraid of losing a connection to someone. The entire song is high stakes. For Wilson mentioning God was unusual in this context. It was not the public God of Church or country but, for Wilson, a private force who “helps a person control their hopes and doubts.” (see – I Am Brian Wilson: a memoir, p. 180). Brian Wilson gave it to his brother Carl to sing who would do it beautifully but as a set of words that convey meaning and not, as Brian feared if he sang it himself, with self-consciousness. Brian Wilson was most proud of God Only Knows because he believed it contained a real message in it of feeling and eternity.

Mike Love concurred on the fact that God Only Knows “became one of the album’s most celebrated numbers” and that Carl Wilson in “his dulcet voice” actually “heightened” the song’s “spiritual dimensions.” Love also believed that it was a moment where Carl Wilson, four and a half years younger than Brian, was emerged as his own talented leader for the Beach Boys. (see – Good Vibrations My life as a Beach Boy, pp. 130-131). During the recording of Pet Sounds, Brian proved a virtual dictator in the studio such that Mike Love dubbed him during these sessions as “General Patton” (the four-star World War II American General) though others’ nicknames for Wilson were not so red, white and blue. Love also confirmed Brian Wilson’s reluctance to use the word “God” in his song and, by inference, the composer’s courage and honesty to do so.

With lead vocals by Carl Wilson, the words of God Only Knows are expressed from the perspective of a narrator who asserts that life without his lover can only be fathomed by God. Brian Wilson was married to Marilyn Rovell at the time though, in a 1976 radio interview he claimed the song was not written for anyone in particular, though he had written songs with certain girls in mind. (In 1979 Wilson and Rovell amicably divorced.)

In 2016 Brian Wilson wrote, “I wasn’t in love often. I thought about girls, but if they didn’t think about me, how was that love? …When friends would tell me that they were seeing a new girl, I would ask them if they were really in love. That was important to me. It seemed like a real thing. Were they in love? Did something happen inside them that made them feel closer to that other person and closer to themselves? It’s why I wrote so many love songs, because it’s the real thing.” (see- I Am Brian Wilson: a memoir, p. 124).

God Only Knows was issued in the U.S. in July 1966 on the B-side of Wouldn’t It be Nice. It peaked at no. 39 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song reached no. 2 in the U.K and in the top ten in Canada and Europe. God Only Knows and Wouldn’t it be Nice were both recorded in the same session on April 11, 1966. For the work Brian used an 8-track recorder at Columbia and Terry Melcher, famed California producer and singer-songwriter, was present to provide backup vocals for God Only Knows. Carl Wilson claimed that Brian said he wrote God Only Knows for him to sing as recognition of his “beautiful spirit.” (see – The Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary of America’s Greatest Band on Stage and in the Studio, Keith Badman, Backbeat Books; First Edition, 2004, p. 126.

SOURCES:

The Beach Boys: America’s Band, Johnny Morgan, Union Square & Co.; Illustrated edition, 2015, pp. 108-109.

i am Brian Wilson a memoir, Brian Wilson with Ben Greenman, Da Capo Press, Boston, Massachusetts. pp. 124 and 180.

Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy, Penguin Publishing Group, Mike Love, 2016, pp. 130-131.

The Beach Boys FAQ, All That’s Left to Know about America’s Band, Jon Stebbins, Backbeat Books, 2011, p. 74.

The Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary of America’s Greatest Band on Stage and in the Studio, Keith Badman, Backbeat Books; First Edition, 2004, p. 126.