Brian Wilson and the Sounds of God

The product of inspired spontaneity, “God Only Knows” — lauded by Paul McCartney as ‘the greatest song ever’ —sparked a restless and beautiful new version of pop music at a time when the word “God” was still barred from the industry. Regarded as a masterpiece, ‘God Only Knows’ sparked a restless and dissonant popular musical era whose title alone included a word still barred from the industry: God. The inclusion was revolutionary. “No one thought you could say ‘God’ in a song. No one had done it,” claimed Asher. While it was considered blasphemy by a few Southerners, other listeners warmly accepted the song. This album, however novel and beautiful, unraveled the roots of The Beach Boys that were so tightly wrapped around the essentials of surf and bikini clad girls. Wilson, colliding with his musical brothers, set off into experimental terrain in an attempt to move away from their iconic hit productions. It was this album, with its biting and ghoulish carnival noises, that sent an irreparable split down the middle of the band. Pet Sounds is a landscape of exploratory and moving pieces, steeped in the depression of its composer and producer: a man in foreign lands.

Wilson sits in the studio fitted in a red mock-neck shirt that swallows his figure. His brown hair catches the bit of artificial light that comes in from the corner. By 1966 it has grown long so that it runs across his scalp, enveloping his ears and grazing the tops of his furrowed eyebrows. Thin red and white stripes sewn into the shirt follow him down his shoulders and return to the bright red bands that hold him in. He is leaned, almost permanently, into the microphone. His old leather watch still clinging to his wrist though his sense of time remains neglected. One finger remains on the mixing board at all times while his other hand extends upwards. Each of the five raised fingers of the outstretched palm indicate the beginning of the twentieth recording of “God Only Knows”. The twenty-three musicians throw themselves into their instruments, careful not to shift too much in the tight quarters. As the clock strikes 12:30 a.m. the French horn begins to vibrate. One of the three bassists follows shortly after, accompanied by a twelve string guitar, drums, two accordions, a piano, organ, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, baritone saxophone, and a small string quartet. From behind the thin glass panel that separates Wilson from the musicians, he listens. Each note is struck correctly, evoking the happiest of memories with a major infused and melodic set of chords. Wilsons shoulders relax away from his neck and he eases into the success of the song, the red bands around his arms loosening as he grows calm. Every tap and strum of this song has been memorized, emblazoned into the forefront of his mind as he watches it unfold before him.

After the final take of “God Only Knows” faded into the background of the studio, a sigh of relief filled the stale air. Though the musicians retired, Wilson moved onto mixing. Groaning over the sour texture of horns and harshness of keys, he produced his masterpiece in fragments. Distorting sounds, doubling voices, and adding harmonies until the song could no longer be exactly replicated. It was released May 16, 1966 and considered as Wilsons first solo album, yet was branded with the Beach Boys iconic name in the upper left corner. The cardboard wrapped record became his release from the band and transformed him into a solitary genius trapped by the confines of his sun soaked brothers.

Nearly ten years after the release of Pet Sounds the subsequent assembly line of pop production began to take its toll on Wilson. Following his first LSD experience he began experiencing auditory hallucinations which continue to reverberate in his head today. Thus marking his fascination with psychedelia, obsessed with the psychedelic music phase. In an effort to halt the drug use and resurge as a beach boy once again, psychologist and psychotherapist Eugene Landy was employed. Landy used radical and often disapproved therapeutic methods on Wilson, wrongly diagnosing him as a paranoid schizophrenic and isolating him from his family and friends. Though it was nearly twenty years past the release of “God Only Knows” and the rest of Pet Sounds, Landy's treatment of Wilson was a byproduct of the illness manifested in the album. This early onset illness, however, poured from Wilson creatively throughout the 1966 album, in opposition to the abusive reactions he had to these health issues later on. Thus there was a tipping point in Wilson's life in which he no longer saw past heartbreak where “life would still go on”, but rather dwelled in the question of “what good would livin’ do me”. His drug overdose, in combination with poor psychiatric treatment, caused this spiral of suicidal behavior and lack of musical creativity. The history of Wilsons endurance and failure as a musician suffering from schizoaffective and manic disorders both bound and destroyed his ability to create. His patterns, recluse, and resurgences up to his life today have displayed the trends of the overwhelming and ingenious insanity painted in Pet Sounds. The curve of sounds and color that burst from this album laid the groundwork for his life to follow. With no fillers and no songs below the belt of the top forty, Pet Sounds and its feature of “God Only Knows” projected the swelling and ultimate healing of Brian Wilson.

It seemed fitting that this young man, adrift in a studio of twenty-three musicians and lost in a sea of schizoaffective voices, would begin a divine love song with: “I may not always love you”. Yet, it is one of the most praised and pure love songs due to its honesty and perhaps even more importantly its simplicity. The phrase ‘God only knows’ has been mumbled and muttered through the lips of countless people, a simple response to common occurrences. In this mix of rich and plastic sounding chord progressions the phrase sounds literal. As if life without this kind of love, though the subject remains unnamed by Wilson, can only be known by God or any other sentient being. Framing his conversation with god within the soundscape of “God Only Knows”, however, allowed Wilson to explore other, non-religious worlds. In the midst of the potential controversy he was contemplating, he was also unboxing a new type of pop. It would not be a genre that aimed to provoke its listeners, but rather a genre that released itself from the constraints of pop music while simultaneously retaining its ecstatic nature. Thus a love song born of out experimentation became grounded in the roots of joyous music, but traveled into sophisticated territory. Placing God and a reference to higher powers within this exploration, however, did not detract from the acclaim the world held for Wilson. It seemed, for many of his listeners, that Wilson continually took the common and mundane and spun it into orchestral symphonies of melody and soul. Once this label of genius was hot pressed onto his lapel, he felt that he had continually advance his name or it would “become mud”. As if he stopped stirring then the genius might solidify and crack. Wilson felt victimized by the industry, “I didn’t think I was a genius” he claimed, “I thought I had talent. But I didn’t think I was a genius”. It seemed that once this ingenious pot had been stirred, it could not settle for even a moment. Thus Wilson embodied the remarkable and intangible musician his audiences had projected for him.

Wilsons shift from simple popular music to his ingenious and spiritual embodiment was a byproduct of his need to make a statement. As he grew tired of the beach cabana music production routine, he looked inwards to create. Pet Sounds was quickly regarded as a concept album and possibly the “first concept album in the history of rock music”. It lacked, however, a uniform narrative. Instead, the album was centered around the theme of excellence rather than a traditional theme or motif. The axis on which the album rotated about seemed to form subconsciously through Wilsons emotions about the band, his wife, and his mental health at the time. “Marilyn”, he cried out, “I’m gonna make the greatest rock album ever made!”. This excitement and challenge was a reaction to the Beatles album of the time: Rubber Soul. It was this record that inspired Wilson to shift from beach hit fodder to a new level of sophisticated and demanding music. Thus, Pet Sounds was created on the basis of quality. Each song may branch off into unchartered topics, but they return to its focal point by showcasing Wilsons emotional intelligence. “God Only knows” then, is referential to a variety of topics that are tied together by the sheer value and excellence of the song. Its purpose lies not in its intended nor unintended references, but rather its contribution and ability to lift the Beach Boys out of the dry heat of popular music and into the rich atmosphere of orchestral masterpieces. Though “God Only Knows” may seem referential to the Christian God, Wilson specified that it is written in dedication to no one God. Instead, it may be directed to any higher power as the song is about moving on after loss and looking ahead to whatever light shines brightest. In this dedication to higher powers, Wilson described the song as “being blind, but in being blind, you can see more”. As listeners bathe in the noises and sounds of orange juice bottles, barking dogs, and barbershop chords, they drift off into other worldly realms.

Leftover room remains for the possibility that this common idiom is just that: common. For listeners who cannot hear the unearthly tones, the words lack religious and spiritual connotation and come out simple. Considering the potential religious affiliation, Wilson and Asher feared the possibility that the song would never played over the air. As the song progressed and developed, this fear began to dissolve and a profound spirituality took its place. Asher and Wilson went through an excruciating decision process as they meditated over the word. Wilson’s wife at the time, Marilyn, even weighed in with a dramatic gasp: “Oh my god, he’s talking about God in a record”. Which at that point she very much considered to be “really taking a chance” as it might be too religious; too buttoned-down. The audience was then divided into two groups. A religious audience repulsed by the association of God and pop music versus the pop music group repulsed by the songs conservative nature. To arrange this song and sneak it into a full and luxurious album can appear as both courageous and cowardly at once. It appeared so until Wilson finally settled on endorsing the song with all its words in full force. “God was a spiritual word”, he said, the Beach Boys would “be breaking ground”. Wilson was lifting the Beach Boys’ surfer slackers and neglected burnt-cheeked beach bum listeners up from the sand and asking them to consider the sentiments of a higher spirituality. Not to pray, as music critic Jim DeRogatis noted, but to participate in “a sensitive meditation about moving forward in the face of loss”. Distinct voices from the band supported this surge of spirituality, each in their own unique way. Carl Wilson, younger brother to Brian, was the most religious of them all. According to Wilson, he contributed “a tenderness and a sweetness” that was abundant in both Carl and his voice. “God is love. God is you. God is me. God is everything right here in this room”, the room being the studio and god being the a concept that embodies the joy of life itself; at least for Carl. The fear of using this word dissipated as it proved to play constantly on the air. A resonant and vivid blanket of sound and color spun through the radios waves, pushing Wilson’s spiritually encrypted love song through the airways.

Pet Sounds is an album of hits with no buffers in-between. It travels, rapidly and efficiently, from one symphonic irreplaceable piece to another which are tied together by intense quality. By the time the record comes to “God Only Knows,” the album has peaked several times already. While the inclusion of the word God might have caused a few to falter, it empowered Wilson in the studio. Through inspiration and a potent ability to create, this song was formed by Wilson and Asher as a desperate plea, a serenade, a spiritual liberation, and a monument of music. It is simultaneously classic and revolutionary. The layers fall upon one another, some peeling back while other pile in an effort to create tactile explosions of emotion. The words are supported by the movement of the chords as Wilson and his brothers push and pull through the expansive land of godliness and hope. Each reverberating coat of chords predicting, or rather anticipating, Wilson’s future. The swelling of abuse, the minor laden falls of despair, the rising of treatment, and the clownish melody of helpless hallucinations. “God Only Knows” laid down the hard stone path that Wilson tumbled down throughout his life. The song is about moving forward after loss, however, as a guide to this forward movement, it provided no procedural details. The song then, is a manual, composed by someone just as lost as those who need it for directions. Buried just beneath the surface of one of the most famous records of all time, “God Only Knows” rests entirely in the faith of higher powers. Brian Wilson, the man adrift in uncharted and unfamiliar territory, remains exactly where he was when the song begins: his teeth exposed, his shoulders tensed, and his mind resting entirely in faith.