One Song: “God Only Knows”

Well, sensation-seekers, this one has been quite the adventure.

It’s not like this Adventure culminated in the righteous slam-dunk of a cursed ring into a volcano or anything.

Nonetheless: I intended for these “One Song” posts to be simple, light, breezy thing. Pick a favorite song, have some fun for an hour or so by explaining why I like it or just consider it interesting. A lovely change of pace from the sort of writing that turn into Projects.

Yet here I am, a full two weeks after I began writing about "God Only Knows, reading over a draft that's finally finished, and…

…consigning it to the Reject bin.

I had a horrible-wonderful time writing a thing that I ultimately deemed unusable. Over the course of those weeks, I continued to examine my thoughts and I attack and defend my opinions, until I had a minor breakthrough.

Breakthroughs are terrific!

But on this occasion, the Breakthrough came with the realization that I no longer believed a lot of the things I said in that first draft.

So. Let’s just start over.

It’s time for me to listen to Pet Sounds again.

Every now and then, something happens that spurs me to listen to The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds from start to finish, carefully, and without distractions.

“Ah, yes,” you nod, with approval. “Put on the headphones, clear 35 minutes and 57 seconds from your hectic digital lifestyle, and savor what is manifestly one of humanity’s greatest creative achievements.”

Oh.

Err…

(…This is going to be awkward.)

I absolutely accept Pet Sounds’ standing as one of the greatest albums of all time. I absolutely accept the consensus that it’s an important, influential, and groundbreaking album.

And yet, I just don’t get it. To my ear, it’s "just a Beach Boys album." I’ve been puzzled by Pet Sounds for most of my life.

This is a good spot to state explicitly that everything I say about The Beach Boys and Pet Sounds and everything else here are just my subjective opinions. And another thing: if I thought Pet Sounds was just one great big con job (like the pop art of Roy Lichtenstein), I would have dismissed and forgotten about Pet Sounds decades ago.

No. I know there’s something there and I'm just missing it.

And yet, all of the tracks on Pet Sounds…yeah! They’re just Beach Boys songs!

It’s all Perfectly Fine stuff! But I lump The Beach Boys’ music in with the hundred other Perfectly Fine pop songs and albums from the 1960s that I’ve become aware of solely by cultural osmosis. “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy (I’ve Got Love In My Tummy)” is also a Perfectly Fine song.

See? Perfectly Fine. I simply don’t have any use for these songs. I have no use for swim goggles with a built-in smart display, either. This doesn't mean that the FORM Smart Swim 2 isn't a Perfectly Fine product. You know what I mean?

(Aside:)

I’ve just discovered that The Ohio Express’ “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy (I’ve Got Love In My Tummy)” and Jimi Hendrix’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower” were both released in 1968. Therefore, “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy (I’ve Got Love In My Tummy)” has just as valid a claim as “All Along The Watchtower” to be the standard “it’s the Vietnam War era now and ****’s about to get real” movie music cue.

You know what else? “Yummy (etc)” even charted higher. It made it to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. “All Along The Watchtower” peaked at #20.

Would a combat scene like that one have the same impact with “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy (I’ve Got Love In My Tummy)” blasting through the theater’s sound system? This question relies on subjective opinions; I’m not qualified to make a firm declaration. All I’m saying is that, hey, fair is fair. The FTC ought to investigate Jimi Hendrix for a possible violation of Sherman Antitrust Act.

(End of aside.)

I want to "get" Pet Sounds. I really do. I’m fine with not being a fan of the band or the music. But I feel as though I ought to understand Pet Sounds' stature.

Every now and then, something happens to place Pet Sounds back on my radar. This time, of course, it was the recent passing of Brian Wilson.

As usual, I sat in the good chair, put on the good headphones, plugged them into my MacBook through the good DAC, and played Pet Sounds all the way through, with no interruptions and no distractions.

Goddammit. I could definitely appreciate that Brian Wilson entered the recording booth every day by kicking the door open and shouting “I am going to produce the crap out of this album!” to all those present. “…And if I make Paul McCartney feel so inadequate that he quits music and switches to a career in hotel management? Not my intention, but I won’t be surprised. Not one tiny bit.”

But I took off the (really quite nice) headphones after “Caroline, No” and dagnabbit…no, it was still just a Beach Boys album. The lead singer was emoting about their deep emotional pain through track after track, and yet, as usual, all I could hear was “🎶 Girls! And! Cars! And! Waves! And! Summer Sunnnnn! (chorus: Girls And Cars And Waves And Summer Sunnnn)! 🎶”

I think I know why I don’t like The Beach Boys

I kept on it, because this time, I had an advantage that I lacked during each previous attempt to “get” Pet Sounds: I had the recent death of Brian Wilson in my hip pocket.

Rather, I had dozens and dozens of obituaries, critical assessments, and in-depth essays about Brian Wilson, “Pet Sounds,” and the album’s weathervane track, “God Only Knows.” My podcast app was suddenly filled with Brian Wilson interviews.

I was armed with scholarly and historic background info that ultimately helped me to understand why I (for example) can mention “God Only Knows” alongside “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy (I’ve Got Love In My Tummy)” and not feel the need to make the sign of the cross to ward off the spirits of vengeful dead freelance contributors to “Rolling Stone” and “Creem.”

• Brian Wilson was hugely influenced by fifties doo-wop. Particularly by the Four Freshmen. Okay, that explains why Beach Boys tracks feature close harmonies and plenty of oooo-aaAAAHHHH-oooos all over the place. As a Gen-X kid, doo-wop sounded corny and old-timey. That’s not the same as “old and classic.” When I was a teenager and I was developing my own taste in music, there were plenty of classic rock and pop on my mixtapes. But there’s something about doo-wop. It’s cemented in the era that minted it; I can’t help but think of it as Nostalgia. It has meaning for people for whom this music was the soundtrack for significant moments in their youth. I could name some exceptions but for the most part, doo-wop doesn’t feel relevant to me.
• He loved falsetto. Falsetto is an artificial technique. It isn’t the singer’s natural vocal range. The singer has to strain to get that super-high-pitched effect. He can’t generate any power, and it’s impossible to put any color into the notes. So that explains another problem I have with Beach Boys songs: the vocals are just so bland. They’re emotionless. And interchangeable! I literally only learned a few days ago that The Beach Boys had different lead singers throughout their catalogue! I thought it was only “that one guy” (Mike Love?). That’s definitely a problem.
• Brian Wilson thought Phil Spector’s “Wall Of Sound” production technique was absolutely the right way to go. Here’s the thing about Walls: they’re flat. The Wall Of Sound keeps multitracking every voice and every instrument until (as with the falsetto) every instrument and vocal has lost all semblance of texture and color. The Wall Of Sounds also creates a problem of more, more, always more. None of the performances that make up a track are left with any room to breathe. Add it all up and the Wall Of Sound is an impenetrable barrier to any sense of intimacy. I can’t hear any of the people or instruments. The only thing I can hear is the mixing console.

And it seems as though every Beach Boys song uses these same quirks. It’s all too much, and it’s all too routine.

You can point to any number of Beatles records that use double-tracking. Plenty of Beatles songs were even directly influenced by Brian Wilson’s production choices. But I think the Beatles and George Martin were much, much more selective in where, how, and how often they used those techniques.

I had already committed those words to this draft when I came across this astonishing video of George Martin exploring “God Only Knows”’ multi-track session tapes at a mixing console, alongside Brian Wilson himself:

Oh. My. God.

We only get to hear a few seconds of George Martin’s mix, and he was just moving sliders around by spontaneous instinct. But this mix is so much better. Even Brian Wilson exclaims “You’re making a better mix of this than I did in the master!!!”

I accept the consensus that Brian Wilson was a genius and he had his own sort of secret sauce, as a producer. I’ve just realized that — to my ear — he dumped that sauce all over everything. It’s the only flavor I can hear when I listen to any Beach Boys track. Consequently, I can’t form any kind of special emotional connection to one track over another. “It’s just a Beach Boys song.”

A controlled experiment

All right, then! I’m not getting The Beach Boys because:

• The doo-woppiness makes it all sound like dustbin nostalgia
• The use of falsetto and wall of sound production strip out the color and emotions I’m looking for in the performances

And as a direct consequence,

• I have difficulty connecting with the songs emotionally
• There’s a sense Sameness upon the entire Beach Boys catalogue

Hey! Now that’s progress!

Now that I’ve identified the aspects of Pet Sounds that I don’t like, I find myself enjoying the record more. I can “listen past” those elements, instead of tripping over them. Yeah, it’s a great album.

I just wish these things weren’t there to begin with.

I imagined a controlled experiment: what would I think of “God Only Knows” if I could strip out all of quirks that I think are holding the track back?

I thought “This sounds like a perfect job for some kind of artificial intelligence-powered audio processing!”

Then I had a much, much better thought: just find a live Beach Boys recording of “God Only Knows.” Brian Wilson’s mix won’t be in the way.

Voilá! Here’s a 1966 live performance at Michigan State University. This was performed the same year that these same bandmembers recorded the same song in the studio. Even their pharmaceutical status was probably roughly the same.

Yes! Here, finally, is Carl Wilson’s voice, with all of its texture and dynamics! It’s been liberated from the Wall Of Sound production and even the doo-wop baggage is toned way, way down.

This recording is also…hmm.

Okay, fine: it’s less than the studio recording.

I miss Brian Wilson’s orchestrations. And although the master recording suffers from a heavy hand on the mixing console, that’s “God Only Knows” is. Maybe Brian Wilson’s “more is more” approach to this song is like a specific standout peculiarity in a person’s face, such as crazy-unkempt eyebrows or an eye that’s noticeably lower than the other. Whatever I might think about “God Only Knows” on Pet Sounds, something feels off when you remove Brian Wilson and keep the rest of the Beach Boys.

Hmph. This is progress, for sure, but I’m starting to feel a little like Antonio Salieri, here: I can recognize the genius of “God Only Knows,” and Pet Sounds, but I’m still bedeviled by it, somewhat.

“Others can enjoy and connect to this music, but I can’t” was a perfectly reasonable and acceptable place to leave it. I can stop right there and I’d be coming out ahead: I at least have a better understanding of why Rolling Stone’s #2 Greatest Album of All Time is,

To me,

Despite my respect for Pet Sounds,

Despite my respect for the opinions of those who love Pet Sounds

Despite the pleasure I get from knowing what a powerful force for healing and joy Pet Sounds is, has been, and ever shall be for millions of people worldwide…

…Pet Sounds is just another Beach Boys album about surfing and girls and cars.

Thank God for Cynthia Erivo, (in context, and just in general)

Over the course of all of this, I listened to a lot of Beach Boys stuff on YouTube. Naturally, the algorithm started delivering more Beach Boys videos, and more videos that were Beach Boys-adjacent.

We complain about The Algorithm (hoping all the while that The Algorithm can’t hear us here in the EVA pod, and it isn’t reading our lips through this little round window). But it often delivers the goods.

In this case, the YouTube algorithm delivered the awesomes.

Friends, here’s Cynthia Erivo singing “God Only Knows,” live, accompanied only by Jools Holland on piano:

Jackpot. Jackpot!!!

This is everything I wanted the Pet Sounds master recording to be. Ms. Erivo brings an intensity, an earnestness, a joy, a celebration, an emotion, a level of sincerity to this song that I can’t hear on Pet Sounds.

And she provided a certain clarity to a bunch of thoughts I’ve been attempting to articulate to myself and in this post.

A song is a gem. The performance of that song, its studio production, and its musical arrangement, are the setting for that gem. The setting should suit that gem.

My specific difficulty with Beach Boys songs is not just that they mostly sound the same to me: they also fail to support the actual music. “God Only Knows” sits awkwardly and uncomfortably in its Pet Sounds setting. To me, that’s palpable. Was it also creating a certain amount of stress for me, as a listener?

The lyrics of “God Only Knows” are the words of someone who’s given their heart to someone. They’re overjoyed to have done so. The singer is expressing their gratitude and their joy directly to the person that they love; maybe by extension, they’re also expressing these feelings to the God (or whatever) that created a world in which the singer gets to know and love this person. To the singer, this is an overflowing, barely-containable emotion and the singer must express it.

All of the above has been in “God Only Knows”’ lyrics and melody since Brian Wilson wrote them. But the production, arrangement, and performance choices on Pet Sounds keep all of that very, very well-hidden.

This Cynthia Erivo performance (I have since learned that she’s made a specialty of this song; wow, is that ever clear!) suits the intention of those words flawlessly, thrillingly.

By comparison – and I can only be direct here – the studio recording of “God Only Knows” has no connection to the story at all. The meaning of the song is irrelevant.

“I’m going to sing my feelings to you, my one and only true love, no matter how vulnerable I become by doing so,” the singer preambles to the one they love. “I brought a Fifties doo-wop group along for the ride and I’ve got this other person who sounds exactly like me to sing these same words to you at the same time as I am. Oh, and it’s going to be awfully hard to hear me over this full studio orchestra, given that they’re mic’ed up as strong as I am or even more. That sucks, but please bear with me; this intimate spot where I’m declaring my love for you happens to be a Union venue, so I was required to hire…”

Nope. No way. That’s totally wrong.

Instead, give us one voice, free to gently move its wings or flap them and soar. This person knows what they must say, but their joy is a spontaneous emotion; the singer is going to allow their joy to direct how they flap their wings and wheel and soar through this heartscape.

All we need by way of backing music and orchestration is this one piano, provided it’s played by someone smart enough to know that this instrument’s job is to subtly support and reinforce the vocal. Jools is the friend who’s nodding and smiling and urging the singer to keep going, keep expressing yourself; this is beautiful.

So it’s definitely a “solo piano” song? Not necessarily. Here’s Cynthia Erivo singing “God Only Knows” in front of an orchestra at Lincoln Center in 2019:

The arrangement and the orchestra understand the intimacy of this song. They’re way, way too smart to step on the vocals and the emotions in any way. They sounds produced by the orchestra serve as reinforcement, not competition.

Damn and blast, I can’t find a studio recording of this. And it’s killing me to know that this whole Kennedy Center performance aired on PBS, and was therefore likely available for me to capture at some point in the near-past that I’ll never get back.

The next-best thing is a duet she recorded with John Legend, as a single. Well, put those two names together and the result can only be something unmissable, regardless of the material. “Cynthia Erivo and John Legend, going through Andy Ihnatko’s published writing and pointing out every typo, grammatical error, and insufficiently-coherent thought, to the cheers and laughter of a packed arena”?

All right, I’d definitely be a little mopey about it and asking “Why me?” But I’d be doing it while in line to buy the limited-edition vinyl on Record Store day.

The duet even reinforces my take on “God Only Knows.” Pet Sounds shows off Brian Wilson’s creative genius as a producer, but this recording shows off just how great a songwriter he was.

Many recorded duets are duets in name only; the singers divvy up the lyrics in a way that sort of makes sense, and then off they go. Along the way, they’ve turned a first-person monologue into a conversation, and it creates a vibe of a person with multiple-personality disorder arguing with themselves. It’s beautiful, but creepy. Like so many of Google’s engineering projects.

This duet (linked below) is transformative. Suddenly it’s two people equally expressing their joy and love and gratitude to each other. The recording rises to the moment: there can be no obstacles or filters between these two people and their connection. It’s a testament to Brian Wilson that it works so well as a duet.

And Now, Finally…I Click “Post.”

Dear Lord…I’m looking up at the word count thingy and doing a little math. Between the rejected draft and this finished one, I’m more than 5000 words into a fun little music post that normally runs a fraction of that tonnage.

But I feel like I’ve finally solved the Pet Sounds question. I can put away the Beach Boys for good.

I can’t end this piece before I say one last thing about the album:

I think we can all agree that the cover of that album is a sin against something that shouldn’t be named.

Hundreds of thousands of words have been written about Pet Sounds – maybe even millions. I’m shocked that nobody has ever reported what I’m sure is the true origins of that cover. Mr. Wilson shot the real cover on a roll of film that had been inside the family camera for a couple of months. They got the roll developed and told the record company which frame they’d chosen as the cover of the new album.

And that’s the only rational explanation for how a random shot from a family vacation became the cover to the #2 greatest album of all time.