New Release: God Only Knows
featuring Adam & Darcie
[NEW SONG ALERT! Scroll to the bottom if you wanna skip the prologue.]
The first time I heard The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” was on a cassette tape that I used to listen to all the time, but especially remember binging in a Sony Walkman to pass time during the interminable car ride between Salt Lake City and Hebgen Lake, Montana.
The album was a career-spanning compilation. Its title—Made In U.S.A.— and its achingly 80’s album art give away that this was definitely an album intended to highlight the capital-A American-ness of the band. I would bet two days’ salary that someone at the record label, in an art-approval meeting, asked aloud if they ought to also include a slice of apple pie on the cover. Because the baseball and soda cup and frisbee and astronaut weren’t working quite hard enough.
So the album leans into the early rock n’ roll side of the band. All the surfing and cars and girls and California 60’s songs that made Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys famous. But even the compilation’s post-peak songs, like “Do It Again” (when The Beach Boys “returned to their roots” in 1969), their 1976 cover of Chuck Berry’s “Rock N’ Roll Music”, and their 1978 cover of doo-wop classic “Come Go With Me” are all the 70’s audio equivalent of #throwbackthursday—an unabashed dose of nostalgia and nothing new whatsoever. Worse even is the Mike Love-penned 1985 song “Getcha Back” which somehow tries to ape all of the classic Brian Wilson-isms (after the band had fired Wilson in 1982!) while simultaneously unabashedly ripping off Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart.” Please don’t get me started on Mike Love1.
But sandwiched in between all the early-era classics and later-era throwbacks and cars and bushy bushy blonde hairdos? There were all the next-chapter2 chamber-pop, genius, pantheon-level songs from Pet Sounds: “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “Sloop John B” and “Caroline, No” and, yes, “God Only Knows.”
What a masterpiece of a song3.
Why even record a new version? Nobody needs some water-colored version of the Mona Lisa, right?
Good question/point.
Well, first, my brother Scott asked me to sing it as the first dance at his wedding in 2006. So it (and its varsity-level chords) were under my fingers already. Mostly.
And then, as one of the rewards for my most recent album’s Kickstarter campaign, I offered to record covers and Scott pledged. So it just made sense to close the loop. I didn’t really have any intention to release my version, but I kind of love it, especially with Adam & Darcie’s additions.
Let’s rewind a bit.
In 2016, Adam—a massive4 Beach Boys fan—recruited me to record a Beach Boys cover for a tribute album he was spearheading for one of the lesser-known (see also: non-surfing, non-Pet Sounds) Beach Boys albums5. I did my best on a version of the Bruce Johnston-penned “Tears In The Morning6.” Have you heard it? It’s right here on Spotify or on Apple Music.
Anyway, fast-forwarding back to the present (or more-recent past, whatever), with just me and my acoustic guitar, “God Only Knows” felt unfinished. So I roped in Adam and his musical/life partner Darcie to help. And I love what they did—nodding to the original but not slaving for it.
When I brought the new parts to Scott Wiley to mix at June Audio, he was understandably skeptical. His reasoning was that keeping it simple—just guitar and vocal—could set my version apart. Attempting to emulate classic Brian Wilson production magic? It’s a tall (and often foolish) order. Wilson is an all-time legend.
So we’re sitting there, right, and Scott gets a little skeptical because we got to the magic part.
The magic part? you ask.
You know the part. At the end? Where they sing in a round? I once wrote a song “At That Day”, attempting to articulate some feelings/hopes for what a Second Coming might look/feel like. And the best way I could find to describe what the sound of angels7 singing might be:
And they’re singing upstairs.
And it’s a perfect sound.
The only thing close is “God Only Knows” when they sing in a round.
And as Scott and I are mixing our version of the round, with a swirl of vocals—me and Darcie and Adam—the magic feels like it’s there. The angels. It dawns on us that the magic is as much in the composition of it as it ever was in the Brian Wilson production of it. I get carried away every time I hear it.
I don’t wanna oversell it.
Wanna listen now? Here you go, dear reader, nearly a month before it hits streaming services:
“GOD ONLY KNOWS” SONG CREDITS
Written by Brian Wilson & Tony Asher
Produced, recorded, & mixed by Scott Wiley at June Audio
Additional recording by Adam Sanders at Cool Beans Sound Machine
Electric guitar, keyboards, vocals, tambourine: Adam Sanders
Vocals: Darcie Sanders
Acoustic guitar, lead vocal: me
Unless you’re Mike Love, who famously complained about and basically quiet-sabotaged (unsuccessfully, thank goodness) Pet Sounds and only ever wanted The Beach Boys to be one chapter: girls and cars and surf, bro. Ugh. I told you not to get me started on Mike Love.
Paul McCartney called it the best song ever, which is high praise in any context, but especially since Brian Wilson has admitted to writing “God Only Knows” in an attempt to match the Beatles’ Rubber Soul. McCartney, in turn, wrote “Here, There, And Everywhere.”
PopDose wrote, “to place 'God Only Knows' in its proper context is to [place it with] 1836 Frederic Chopin.” (!)
You can read all kinds of breakdowns about why it’s a masterpiece, but I’m too dumb to give you the Cliff Notes, so you’ll have to look them up yourself.
Fandom not physical stature. Adam is regular-sized, stature-wise.
If I told you there was a tribute to a classic Beach Boys album which was one of Rolling Stone magazine’s greatest albums of all time and one of The Guardian’s “100 Best Albums Ever”, you’d probably guess it was another tribute to that legendary critical darling Pet Sounds. Your second guess might be their mythical lost album Smile. Or maybe a tribute to their unstoppable run of ubiquitous cars-and-girls-and-surfing ringers.
But no. It was a tribute to 1970’s Sunflower, critically beloved but commercially (by Beach Boys standards) lukewarm. There’s not a single greatest hit in the song list and, yet, Pitchfork calls it the band’s strongest post-Pet Sounds album and Paste magazine calls it “their Abbey Road.”
Tears In The Morning by Paul Jacobsen & The Electric Dirt
Recorded, engineered, mixed, & mastered by Daniel Young at Orchard Studios.
Produced by Daniel Young, Ryan Tanner, Paul Jacobsen
Pat Campbell on drums
Marcus Bently on bass
Daniel Young: percussion
Ryan Tanner on keyboards
Dylan Schorer on pedal steel
Kiki Jane Sieger on background vocals
Me on acoustic guitar, electric guitar, keys, and vocals
Turns out the singing angels may very well be Brian Wilson, his brother Carl Wilson, and Bruce Johnston. Who am I to argue?
My favorite Beach Boys song. Your version is beautiful. Thanks for sharing.
Loved hearing you sing it!