“God Only Knows” is a song by American rock band the Beach Boys from their 1966 album Pet Sounds. Written by Brian Wilson and Tony Asher, it is a Baroque-style love song distinguished for its harmonic innovation and its subversion of typical pop music formula. It is often praised as one of the greatest songs ever written and as the Beach Boys’ finest record.
Asked about Pet Sounds in various interviews, Wilson frequently emphasized the album’s spiritual qualities, saying that he had held prayer sessions with his brother Carl and “kind of made [the album] a religious ceremony.” At the time of the song’s writing, he was married to singer Marilyn Rovell. Writing in his book about the album, Jim Fusilli noted a closing phrase Wilson had once written to his wife in 1964: “Yours ’til God wants us apart.” In a 1976 radio interview, Wilson said that the song was not written for anyone in particular. Marilyn, who felt that much of the lyrical content on Pet Sounds was aimed at herself, commented of the song, “I’m the only one here, so it must be about me. Then I would think, ‘No it wasn’t.'”
The song’s musical sophistication is demonstrated by its multiple contrapuntal vocal parts and weak tonal centre (competing between the keys of E and A). Lyrically, the words are expressed from the perspective of a narrator who asserts that life without their lover could only be fathomed by God—an entity that had been considered taboo to name in the title or lyric of a pop song. It marked a departure for Wilson, who attributed the impetus for the song to Asher’s affinity for standards such as “Stella by Starlight”. Some interpretations of the lyrics project a suicidal inclination onto the narrator, although Asher said that such impressions were unintentional.
With lead vocals by his brother Carl, Brian produced the record between March and April 1966, enlisting about twenty session musicians who variously played drums, sleigh bells, plastic orange juice cups, clarinets, flutes, strings, French horn, accordion, guitars, upright bass, harpsichord, and a tack piano with its strings taped. The song ends with a series of repeating vocal rounds, another device that was uncommon for popular music of the era.
“God Only Knows” was issued as the B-side of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” in July 1966 and peaked at number 39 on the Billboard. In other countries, it was the single’s A-side, reaching the top 10 in the UK, Canada, Norway, and the Netherlands. Many songwriters have cited “God Only Knows” as their personal favourite song, including Paul McCartney and Jimmy Webb. In 2004, it was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s “500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll”. In 2021, it was ranked Number 11 in Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
