God Only Knows

Brian Wilson and Tony Asher wrote it for Pet Sounds. Asher said the pair had long conversations about the word God in a pop title, because unless you were Kate Smith singing God Bless America, no one thought you could say it, and he had to fight for the opening line, I may not always love you. The song has a weak tonal center, moving between E and A, and it ends with vocal rounds, a device that was unusual for pop records of the time.

Instrumental tracking began at 12:30 a.m. on 10 March 1966 in Studio 3 at Western Studios, with about twenty session musicians and Carl Wilson on 12-string guitar. They made 22 takes, and strings were added to take 20. Sleigh bells, a piano with its strings taped and two paper orange juice cups all appear on the track, and Don Randi suggested playing the instrumental break staccato. Brian sang an early lead, but on 11 April at Columbia the final vocals were done with Carl on lead. Carl said Brian told him to sing it real straight, with no effort. The coda was cut back to three lines sung by Brian and Bruce Johnston.

In the US it was the B-side of Wouldn't It Be Nice, issued on 18 July 1966, and reached number 39. In Britain the sides were reversed: it came out on 22 July as the third Pet Sounds single and peaked at number 2 on 27 August, behind the Beatles' Yellow Submarine and Eleanor Rigby. It also reached the top ten in Canada, Norway and the Netherlands. Derek Taylor directed a promotional film for Top of the Pops, shot at Lake Arrowhead on 25 April 1966, in which the group wore horror masks.

Live and legacy

The Beach Boys first played it live on 28 July 1966 at a concert in Massachusetts, and 2,335 logged setlists include it. On the 2012 reunion tour they played along to a vocal track from Carl's performance at Knebworth in 1980, released in 2002, and Mike Love said nobody would ever sing it as beautifully as he had. Paul McCartney has called it the greatest song ever written, and it was among the songs that inspired the Beatles' Here, There and Everywhere. Rolling Stone ranked it number 25 in 2004 and number 11 in 2021, and Pitchfork put it first among the songs of the 1960s in 2006.

Artists who have covered it include Andy Williams, Neil Diamond, Olivia Newton-John, Glen Campbell, David Bowie, Michael Stipe, Rivers Cuomo and Taylor Swift. Lyle Lovett sang it at Wilson's Kennedy Center Honor tribute in 2007, and Wilson said it was the best version he had heard, including the Beach Boys.