One Song - The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows"

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

Diallo and LUXXURY swim in the Beach Boys’ achingly beautiful ballad “God Only Knows,” a song that packs emotional vulnerability, baroque instrumentation, and studio innovation into just two and a half minutes. They break down Brian Wilson’s singular vision, Carl Wilson’s tender vocal, and revisit the long-lost sax solo left on the cutting room floor. Get 15% OFF your entire order @MANSCAPED with code “ONESONG” at https://manscaped.com! #ManscapedPartner #TCSociety Visit https://manscaped.com/tcs to learn more about how to check yourself, or make a donation to @tcsociety today to save lives (and balls!) Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home One Song Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/40SIOpVROmrxTjOtH7Q1yw?si=340144ae189641f2 Songs Discussed: “God Only Knows” - The Beach Boys “Teachers” - Daft Punk “Surfin’ USA” - The Beach Boys “Sweet Little Sixteen” - Chuck Berry “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times” - The Beach Boys “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” - The Beach Boys “California Girls” - The Beach Boys “Feel Flows” - The Beach Boys “Here Comes The Night” - The Beach Boys “Good Vibrations (Kundalini Mix)” - Psychic TV “Bad! (Bad!)” - Luxxury Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brian. Brian. Never let it be without you. God only knows what I'd be without you. And we're going to be talking about the late great Brian Wilson. We're going to be talking about one of the songs that he wrote that moves me to tears every time I hear it. Every single time. I mean, it's likely to happen today, not just once, but like many times as we deep dive into those stems.

I mean, this is an exciting episode because I think that his studio techniques might be one of his biggest legacies. And we've got the stems. We've got the stems. We're going to hear all of the innovations he put into the music, the composition, the arrangement, and the sonics of it all. Many consider this to be one of the greatest pop songs ever written. I mean, it's even Paul McCartney's favorite song. He said many times. So I know Brian Wilson is, you know, generally considered a musical genius.

So please don't judge me, one song nation. I've got a big admission to make here. And it's that I've never really, really gotten into the beach boys, the same way I've gotten into so much of the other music that I love in life. I love the vulnerability, by the way. Oh, no, seriously, this is me being vulnerable. I know right now I'm literally coming out of a certain, I don't know what kind of closet this is,

but like I have so many friends who I've talked to at length about the beach boys. And I know when they hear me say that I've never really gotten into it, they're going to be like, who have I been talking to? What an opportunity this is today, then. Maybe things will change. I have literally listened to so many Beach Boys' songs. I have tried to understand it, but there's a roadblock there for some of the adulation. Okay.

Okay. That they are given. But I think today's episode is going to possibly make me a fan. I just want to see if I can hear what everyone else is hearing. So we're talking one song, and today that song is God only knows by the Beach Boys. I'll make you so sure about it. God only knows what I feel. Visit BetMGM casino and check out the newest exclusive.

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What's going on, One Song Nation? luxury here. And I'm Diallo. And we are excited to share that we are taping our 100th episode. 100. 100. Live at Sirius XM. We did it. We did it. And by the way, we couldn't possibly do this episode without you guys in the room with us. So please join us and a very special guest on August 14th. That's right. Get more information at the link in our bio on the one song Instagram page. And we can't wait to see you guys there. I have so many questions about this song. Yeah. But we're going to get into it. Hi, I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Deallel Riddell. Hi, I'm

producer, DJ songwriter and musicologist Luxury, aka the guy who whispers, Interpolation. And this is one song. The show where we break down the stems and stories behind iconic songs across genres and tell you why they deserve one more listen. You will hear these songs like you've never heard them before. And if you want to watch

one song, you can watch this full episode on YouTube and Spotify. While you're there, please like and subscribe. All right, so Luxury, I know you're a big fan of God only knows. Tell me about the first time. you heard this song. It was one of my dad's favorite bands. My dad grew up in San Diego and he went to UCLA. He's a Southern California man of the same age as Brian Wilson. He's just a couple years younger. And this music was the music of my childhood. These harmonies are, they harken back to a very

nostalgic era, not just for the Booburn generation, but for the children of the Boomer generation, myself included. Their nostalgia was our nostalgia. I still love the Wonder Years. You know, And all that stuff that came out that was like very boomer friendly to the point where I thought, man, I can't believe that I was just a kid when the Vietnam War broke out. Like, you know, like I sort of adopted their timeline as our own timeline just because it was so, it was so prevalent, you know, which was like 30 something in the wonder years. But we grew up in absolutely the shadow for a lack of a better word of that era because, I mean, we talked about this a bit on our Jimmy Hendricks episode.

You know, it was a little bit of the cultural wallpaper of the 80s was the children of the 60s. You know, you sort of reliving. The cartoon was like such a huge movie. And it had, you know, Reflections, you know, China Beach had that song Reflections by the Supremes. I got most of my 60s music from television. Yeah.

No, I think the movies, the Big Chill, all of that stuff was happening for us as though, you know, it had never gone away culturally. So, as I mentioned, this is one of those episodes where I am here to learn. Okay, I feel like... And I'm here to teach. Together, we are a perfect match.

I do feel like Brian Wilson was a big influence. on so many groups I respect. I was reminded this week that DaBunk has a whole quote about Brian Wilson in the homework album and that he gets mentioned on their song, Teachers.

And what's funny is when I go back and listen to that song, with the exceptions of Brian Wilson and Dr. Dre, like when I got into homework, I didn't know a lot of those games. Oh, yeah, me too. It really served the purpose of turning us on to a bunch of their heroes.

Yeah, gratitude. Exactly. Here's the big question. The elephant in the room is this question. Diallo Riddle, why do you think you never got into the Beach Boys? You know, I've spent a lot of time this week thinking about this. And I'm not one to try to, you know, bring down the vibe here in the studio. You can't possibly. You can't possibly. You're up vibe guy. Listen, when I think about the Beach Boys, I think it's surf culture.

I think of, you know, California sunshine, you know. But it's, I'm going to rip the Band-Aid all. it's a very white 1960s America. It's a different time. Yeah, exactly. Even when I really like Lana Del Rey, there was a part of me I was like, is this okay to like Lana Del Rey? Because she sort of like comes in with this sort of like,

this is the white Americana that we've lost. And it's so funny to me that you bring up, this was my father's favorite band. Because you got to remember, like when you think about my father in the 60s, you know, that man is in his 20s or 30s. He is literally fighting. He's fighting with the cops. Like the 60s is the riots

You know like this is not You know shine up a surfboard And let's go you know swimming in the ocean You know like unless you're trying to escape You know what I mean? Like it's a very different 1960s And so when I hear this I think of Newport Beach

I think a Huntington Beach Which you know Sort of says that the Beach Boys got the assignment And they accomplished it Yeah But it's like the music of the squares It's like the music of the people who My father wasn't hanging out

This is sort of like the opposite of our Royers episode where, like, I hear Roy, and I hear, like, the people that I grew up with. Here, I hear, quite honestly, the people who have all, you know, they haven't all left California, but they always talk about leaving California because the taxes are too high. There's too much regulate. Like, these are the people who complain about California now.

This is their idyllic California. I was going to say, idyllic is the perfect work because I think the Beach Boys represent a certain fantasy, literally down to the fact that as... Totally. They were not themselves except for Dennis, surfers, but they, like, represented surf culture. There's this idea of this fantasy. idealized utopian in a way, vision for what life can be if you're a young white person. So in part, I'm really excited about this episode because I want to know more about Brian Wilson.

I've seen a lot of Mike Love and some of the other guys like on cable news saying crazy stuff. You don't want him to be representing this music. That's the wrong guy. I kind of just want to know where was Brian Wilson? Because I think anybody can relate to this. It's hard to get into the art of somebody who you think hates you. You know what I mean? And I've always felt like,

the Beach Boys and a lot of the older fans of the Beach Boys don't really appreciate the California that I know and that my parents more importantly knew because they were already out there in the 50s and the 60s. So I want to know more about Brian Wilson. I want to know more about, you know, was he influenced? I know that there's a Chuck Berry influence in there. I know that there is some black music in there, but is his music essentially music for people not like me? That's what I really want to know. I think what I love about what you just said, by the way, which was so well said, I think I don't need to respond to all of it. I can't possibly.

But I think one thing that popped in my head about Brian Wilson as sort of a sui generis one-of-one individual is that not only was he not a surfer, but his individual experience that led to all these songs, which came to represent a world that I don't think he really participated in. He was very much an individual with a lot of fear, with a lot of anxiety. He had a very rough upbringing. We'll talk very briefly about his father and their relationship.

And what to me is important about the, disconnect between the music is the music was his vision of a fantasy. It's his place to put his feelings. Oh, wow. And what was unique about this song and this album and this era was he really is one of the first artists in the pot milieu. I'd put the Beatles and the kinks. They're all kind of taking from the same well here, bringing a next level of emotionality into pop music. It's not just the sounds, and that is a big part of it. He brought new sounds, but he also brought new emotions into it because his individual experience was very tortured. He had a very challenging upbringing. Let's talk about that upbringing. Let's just jump into it. So the Beach Boys form in 1961,

in Hawthor and California, which, for those of you not in the Southland area, it's near L.A.X. It's not the beach. Brian's born in 42, his brother Dennis in 44, and his third brother, Carl, in 46. The three of them get together with their cousin, Mike Love. His mother is their father's sister. And Al Jardine, a friend. And the five of them formed this band, the Beach Boys. No access to the beach directly. But Dennis is the only surf. in the crew. I will say Hawthorne is not necessarily a beach community. Did they form the group or were they like pushed together by like their father? In brief, the three brothers are at an early age. They are singing together. It sounds like under Brian's auspices, but also Murray, their father,

is a musician himself. So clearly there's some influence going on there. To what degree it's a Joe Jackson kind of thing is unclear. But there is definitely, there is definitely violence in the household. There are some really harrowing tales that Brian tells and are corroborated by the brothers. of basically they're all terrified of their father. And the father is for a while their manager. He was abusive to the point of apparently hitting Brian causing the loss of his hearing in his right ear. And it should be said that they finally fired him in 1966,

which, but he continued to be their father, right? So there's still this sort of, right? There's this interplay that's challenging. He owned their publishing and undersold it. He sold their publishing from out their noses without telling them and without their approval. He sold it in 1969 for $700,000. Can you imagine the Beach Boys catalog,

including all of the songs on PetSounds, and this song we're talking about today, for 700K. Later in life, Mike Love said that the group had signed the way their rights to the songs under duress and that the lawyer was involved. There was this big intricate, like, scheme to defraud the band.

All kinds of ugliness going on there. But that's the origin. That's sort of Brian Wilson's, like, origin story, is he comes from under the thumb of this abusive father who literally took his hearing away. But that's an important thing to take into consideration as we talk about the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson.

Despite those challenges, these guys are basically a hit-making factory. They have songs that top the charts throughout the first half of the 60s. That's right. The Beach Boys had a string of hits from 63 to 65. The same string of hits. Put them on top of the charts with songs like Surf and USA. I love the title Surf and USA because it's almost like, hey, let's take two things that our audience likes.

It's like birthday sex. Yeah. When that song came out, I was like, that's the perfect house. People love both of these things. Surfing USA. Yeah, dude, wasn't there some legal beef with Chuck Berry over Surfing USA? Yeah, not only were early Beach Boy songs influenced by Chuck Berry songs, in certain degrees, they are Chuck Berry songs.

So case in point, Surfing USA is a song that sounds like this. So that's Surfing USA by the Beach Boys from 1963. And in 1958, a gentleman called Chuck Berry wrote a song called Sweet Little 16. And that sounds like this. All over St. Louis, and down in New Orleans. It is the same melody, and they do both call out the cities. They do the city call out, which is the origin in Brian's telling of why he wanted to do the song. In Brian's own words, I was going with a girl called Julie Bowles and her brother, Jimmy, was a surfer.

He knew all the surfing spots, and I thought to myself, wait a second, what if we put surf lyrics to Sweet Little 16's melody and called out all the surfing spots? Well, at least he was honest. At least he was honest. maybe a little too on it. Because Chuck Barry's people were like, wait a second. Because Chuck Barry, when he heard the song and interacted with the publisher, in this case, Murray, for whatever reason. By the way, I don't know that this is the right response. We can get into it.

How much, I'll just ask you, hearing those two songs together, what would be a fair amount to give publishing wise to Chuck Barry and his publisher? Going by the Steely Dan precedent 100%. That is what he got. Oh, he did. Oh, good for Chuck. Call him up. What? That feels a little unfair to me.

He's not. I'm just happy to see, especially in light of like, you know, Robert Johnson's whole catalog being picked over the way that it was because he never got the copyrights in the first place and that was messed up. You know, it's just nice to see for once the original black artist in a time like this getting some money because it's just like it doesn't happen often. 100% agree he should get some money, but 100% sets a terrible precedent that for since 1963, you need to be careful. It really is important to point out what a precedent this is for all the modern lawsuits, because had it been something more reasonable, like, yeah, we'll cut you in 25% because the melody is the same. The rest of the song is completely different. No one's not buying this song because this song exists.

If you hear Surf in USA, you might learn about Sweet Little 16. Anyway, all this to say that, in my opinion, I think the world would be a different place, had Murray Wilson not given up 100% of the royalties to this song. If he had given up 20% or 25%, all the modern copy. copyright cases of sampling might actually be more reasonable. I don't know, man. I think that there's a world in which Chuck Berry gets 20% and then they start whittling it down to where like, you know, I just worry about, we've seen it so many times on the show,

black artists not getting the money or the acknowledgement. But that didn't happen in this case. So Chuck Barry gets 100% in the publishing and then I think he gets a songwriting credit, does he not? Not only does he get a songwriting credit. He is the sole songwriter of Surf and USA, which is crazy to me. From 1966 onward, if you buy any compilation or album with the song on it, you'll see that it's written by Chuck Berry, which again, it is not.

Chuck Barry deserves to get some money, or his estate does, his publisher does. But in my opinion, to me, it's really landing for me right now how crazy of a precedent this has set. And it's a terrible one. So that's the Beach Boys leading up to Pet Sounds. But we're here to talk about God All I Know's, which is on their 1966 album, PetSounds, which I've heard so much about. And I've actually listened to the album at length.

But tell us what set pet sounds apart even before they got in the studio. Yeah, the Beach Boys are touring all over the world. They're on a big world tour. They're in Japan. They're going to Hawaii. But Brian's not part of the band. He's stayed home to focus on writing new material because they need new material. You can't do that on the road.

So actually, interesting fact, Glenn Campbell takes his place in the band temporarily on tour. And then he's replaced by Bruce Johnson, who's an unsung hero of this episode. We'll be talking about him more a little bit later. And listen, it should be mentioned. that at this point, Brian literally has an undiagnosed, a very major undiagnosed disorder called schizoaffective disorder. He's experiencing it without knowing what it is, and without obviously having any of the emotional support to help him through it. He has yet to meet one of the many people like Dr. Eugene Landy many years later, who questionable role in his career, but at this point,

he's on his own handling the voices in his head quite literally. And I think that the tours of that period are just grueling in general. You always see that, like, Ringo, I think famously said something like, you know, people use the Beatle concert coming to town as an excuse to go crazy. Oh, yeah. They could, they stopped. The Beatles stopped touring because they couldn't hear themselves and they played live. They have these tiny little early 60s amps and these giant stadiums filled with screaming girls. Didn't work. So much like the Beatles are going to make the decision around this time, he decides he's no longer going to be on tour. That's right. An interesting kind of fun fact, which I only just learned preparing for this episode, there is sort of this received

idea, which is deservedly so to a degree, that Brian Wilson is a genius. Well, did you know that the reason why we have that phrase in our heads is because the Beach Boys hired the Beatles publicist Derek Taylor to put ads in newspapers saying Brian Wilson is a genius. It actually was a publicity campaign to sort of separate Brian from the rest of the Beach Boys to sort of set up the solo career and sort of the name recognition that we now have for him. And that's happening in this period. So there's already the separation happening. Brian from the rest of the band. New ideas are coming into his head for various reasons, apparently. Some of them related to sound. And I mentioned that because the reason why the album is called Pet Sounds is because Brian was very driven by

sound. He was obsessed with trying to capture certain sounds, and the album was intended to be a compilation of his favorite sounds. He also very specifically talks about how in this moment he wanted to make an album that was about spiritual love, which is such an interesting, like, what does that mean? I mean, I will say based on the Beach Boys material I've been exposed to, especially on Pet Sounds, it does have this almost coral quality. Yes. It's obviously do-wop influenced, like we said, but it's almost like the choir of the Church of California. Yeah. You know, like it definitely has that spiritual quality.

This album just seems to heighten it and turn it up by a great degree. I'm glad you mentioned doo-wop because it actually harkens back to sort of what precedes du-op, and you mentioned it, the choral singing, it's church. A lot of what we hear in the music is church-like for a couple reasons. One, because of the vocals, because they're using techniques of counterpoint and call-in response and these sort of fugues and kind of like canon and round methods of singing where the voices are distributed and the melodies are layered in interesting ways that harken back hundreds of years, like way before duop and barbershop.

But he's also got a lot of like reverb on the sounds that kind of fills specter wall of sound, which feels like a church. There's a cathedral like this. There's definitely a spectre wall of sound. There's a big wall of sound and church-like experience to all of it, which underscores the spirit I think idea that he was going for. Talk about the spiritual sounds of pet sounds. Is there a particular song on this album

that you think really sort of expresses that? Let's listen to a little bit of a song from Pet Sounds. This is, I just wasn't made for these times. I'm basking in the emotional afterglow of that because it's devastating. It's like a really powerful song. It's very hard to unpack after listening because it does that thing that music does,

which is I'm in it. But I'm taking myself out of it. And why is that song so devastating? Well, first of all, let's remember this is 1966, and pop radio is not vulnerable to this degree. When you have pop songs that are about heartbreak and love and loss, they tend to be a little bit like acted out. I tend to think, you know, there are certainly emotional songs. Don't get me wrong. But like this one draws me in in almost a modern way.

This feels like the language of modernity. He's repeating that line. Sometimes I feel very sad, and that gets repeated. without the rhyme. Like in my mind, I'm thinking, it's 1960s. You know, you don't want it to rhyme with glad, but that might be where a 1966 pop writer would go. That's not where Brian Wilson goes. The chords aren't going where you expect. The melodies aren't going where you expect. The sounds aren't what you expect. And the overall effect is, it just is devastating to me. That's the only word I can give you for so many of the songs on this record. And when I say devastating about a song, it's just

powerful. And it impacts me and makes me feel what the pain of the singer, the pain. He's being emotional. You know, as sort of like a third-party outsider, what I sort of hear is a maturing of his subject matter. You know, I always say that, like, a lot of us who grew up liking artists like kid in play and DJ Jazzzy Jeff, just two or three years later in our teenage years, suddenly we're listening to the Wu-Tang Clan ain't done to fuck with. You know what I mean? And in its own way, like, that showed our maturity out of like sort of like this happy go lucky dance music. Right. Our version of surfing USA, so to speak.

Yeah. into something that was much more mature, much more dark, may not have been vulnerable in the way that he's being vulnerable, but it spoke to what was going on in the culture. And also remember, 1966 is not 1962. We've lost a president. We started a war. He's very much a part of his generation.

He's giving voice to what his audience might have been going. And yet the song is called, I just wasn't made for these times because he feels really isolated from the beach culture that he sees happening, and he's helped create the mythos, but he is not part of it. We don't know this. We don't have him to ask, maybe some of the listeners will know, maybe you'll know,

do we know that's what this is? Because I'll tell you, when I listen to it, I heard more of not, I don't, I just wasn't made for these times like beach culture. I heard like, he's aware of what's going on in the world out there, 1965, the Voting Rights Act. Like, there's a lot of stuff already, you know, on TV in the culture that people are having a hard time dealing with

because it's so different than what was going on in the country just 10 years earlier. So without trying to imagine, what he was thinking, I do wonder, is he feeling divorced from surf culture? Or is he feeling divorced from what he sees on the news at night? Or is it even something more nostalgic? Is this like the last dying grasp on, you know, essentially what Archie Bunker sings at the beginning of all in the family? Like, oh man, what happened to the hit parade? You know what I mean? Like, does that make any sense at all? I think he might be nostalgic for like, I just wasn't made for these times because

these times are crazy. This is the freaking 60s. I think that's great. I mean, listen, I think having one's own personal take is why art is there. And my personal take, just listening and knowing his story and just feeling the emotion of the song as it washed over us listening to it is that I hear a 23-year-old Brian Wilson who is experiencing loneliness and isolation and confusion and doesn't really know how to fully communicate and doesn't know why he has voices in his head because he's undiagnosed. Exactly. It could be all of the above happening at once. I think it can be a combination. Yeah. And also, you know, like that, none of that is to take away from the personal journey that he may be on.

Like, you know, if he does feel like a man out of time for whatever reason, you know, he's just trying to speak to that. And I think there was a lot of disillusionment, even among people who weren't dealing with a mental health issue as serious as the one that he was. This is an important moment to talk about Tony Asher, who is an unsung hero of this episode, because in this moment, he's Brian's primary collaborator, and he plays an incredibly important role in the lyrics. So Tony Asher is a jingle composer, and they actually meet in 1960s.

He's one of his famous lines. He's a copywriter. So he's a words guy primarily. And he's quite famous, apparently, in this moment, because he wrote this ad. Diesel and Beanie Boys are lovable and huggable. You can tell their Mattel, they're swell. Yes, that's right. So he composed jingles, including that incredible Mattel's slogan.

You can tell it's Mattel. It's swell. Very of its era. They meet sort of by happenstance at a recording studio. And later on, Tony Asher tells the story. He gets a call out of the blue. they only met briefly and it was a nice to meet you kind of thing. And then out of the blue, when Brian is not on the road with the rest of his bandmates,

he thinks of Tony Asher and calls him. And apparently the only reason why he chose him was Brian tells the story, like he just thought he was a cool person. He just vived with him. So that was enough to bring him aboard to, like, co-write songs with one of the most famous bands in the world. And they start a collaborative process. It's an insane story.

As we set the stage for God Only Knows and the entirety of the Pet Sounds record, Tony Asher is an important collaborator because he is primarily pulling out of Brian's the stories he wants to tell the actual lyrics that map to Brian's chords and melodies. So they're in conversation with Brian and trying to translate that into the lyrics. That's what Tony's coming up. That's right. So Brian's at the piano. Tony's standing up with a note pad.

Brian will come up with a little melodic fragment or maybe a series of chord changes. And they bat around sort of the concepts. And they'll have a, you know, Brian would have a lyric or, It's one of these collaborative things, very much like actually in advertising, you know, copywriting and ad directors, art directors. Sometimes the copywriter has a visual idea. Sometimes the art director has a text idea. In this case, Brian Wilson's almost like the company is like, hey, this is our new product.

I don't know how we're going to sell this to the public, and Tony Asher's like, I've got an idea. I think that's exactly right. So Tony Asher is there to get every syllable and every word to map to Brian's musical ideas. Yeah. And they do that for some of the biggest songs. They do that for the song of the day today. They do that for God Only Knows. They also do it for the song we just listened to.

I just wasn't made for these times. They also do it for Wouldn't It Be Nice? Caroline, no, that's not me. By the way, I think Wouldn't It Be Nice is the most Beach Boys'e song on this album. It doesn't surprise me that was number one. It was almost like Brian saying, okay, I'm going to start you off with what feels like a Beach Boys album. By the end, I'm going to be doing Caroline. No.

It's so funny that you say that because, like, let's listen to the song and talk about it. This is how the album starts. This is Wouldn't It Be Nice. And listen to that. The tears are going to start flowing. This is the one that makes me lose it. This is the one that makes me lose it. Wouldn't it be nice?

Is wouldn't it be nice your favorite song of this album? Or is it just, God only knows. I don't know why. This one impacts me the way it does. But this one, the devastation from this one, here's my devastation explanation. Okay. And I'm getting out of the tear zone.

I'm getting back to just being me again. Okay. I was getting close. I was on the edge. I don't know why this one hits so hard, but there's something about it hearkening back to being a child, and only child and longing for participation in the world, longing for a partner, maybe longing for a girlfriend in my teen years.

It's a beautiful story. A podcast partner. You didn't even know what a podcast was, but you're like, I need somebody sitting across from me. I'm a lonely guy at heart. Listen, it's true. I am an only child and there's something really truthful about that. So I respond very, very powerfully to songs about solitude. This song is about, wouldn't it be nice if we were older, we didn't have to wait so long. I can still identify with that 13-year-old who was just a person.

like, when am I going to have a collaborative partner in life in podcasting, in marriage, in all things? I definitely respond to this song lyrically, but also it's just like all things Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, the melodies are devastating, the sounds are devastating, the chord changes are surprising. But also Tony Asher's lyrics are. But that's, to me, maybe the biggest revelation of preparing for this episode is, yes, Tony Asher has put together lyrically a lot of what the emotional impact of these songs are.

So definitely, and Brian Wilson gives them all the credit in the world. It's Brian's story being assisted by Tony Asher in The Telling. And of course, the session musicians will get into it and all of the above. Yeah, we're going to get into all that. But one last thing, by the way, because you just mentioned it and I thought about it, the song literally begins with, which comes from, that is California Girls. Wouldn't it be nice?

Yep. So you're absolutely right to make the connection that this album starts with a, this is what we were before, and then we had this big drum hit, boom, and then it changes. And then we change key. Right.

And the whole sound changes. So I think you completely nailed how this album begins with a, that was then, this is now moment. It's a little bit like notorious B.I.G. It's ready to die, which starts with the fantastic sampling of songs pass and then brings you into his first album.

All right, we're going to take a quick break. But when we get back, we're going to break down the elements of God only knows. What makes it the beloved song for so many? And here's something fun. There was going to be a saxophone on this song. Did it make the cut? Clearly not.

You will hear it for the first time probably ever right here. Come back. Find out. Fellas, smooth saxover is officially it sees it. So if you're grooming games, but a little wild lately, this is your sign to tighten it up, downstairs and beyond. And this year, it's not just about staying smooth. doing good too. We've teamed up with Manscaped and the Testicular Cancer Society, a registered 501

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at Western Recorder Studios in Hollywood, California. Initial tracking, it's wonderful. We have all these, like, as I mentioned, extraordinarily documented record. So we know that not only were the instruments tracked on Thursday, March 10th, 1966, but we know that they were tracked from 1230 a.m. until 4.30 in the morning.

So all of the incredible sounds you're about to hear were done in the dead of night. Another unsung hero of this episode is The Engineer. We should mention his name is Chuck Brits. He worked very closely with Brian Wilson on many of the Beach Boy Records of this era, and he's important because Brian Wilson is the producer, and he's also orchestrating and arranging all the parts.

Right. He's playing instruments? Brian's not playing any instruments on this record. In fact, none of the Beach Boys are, except for one, and we'll get to him in a moment. they are working with a group of between 20 and 23, very talented session players, many of whom formed a group you may have heard called the wrecking crew. Now, I should say... This is not the Dr. Dre World Class Reclass Recruit.

It's not the World Class Recing Crew. And also, it's not a term that everybody in the wrecking crew used at the time or likes to use to this day. It's like Soul Quarians. Exactly. Carol Kay famously, the bass player in a lot of these songs from this era, was just recently inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and she's opposed to the use of that term. Good for her. So that said, it is a term that other people have used.

And it refers to this group of incredibly talented musicians that played on many of the famous songs of this era. I mean, these guys work with everybody. Jan and Dean, Sunny and Cher, the Mamas and the Pappas, the Fifth Dimitian, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra. They even work with the birds on some of their early stuff. And Ronette's BMI Baby is, I believe, the wrecking crew. What that means is that when you hear all the recordings of those artists from that era, you're really hearing the musicians who are also on this song.

playing all the parts. It's like the white funk brothers. Yeah. That's right. The Motown Funk Brothers. Studio One had a crack team of musicians as well. Lee Scratch Perry with the upsetters. The list goes on.

So another important and interesting fact is that it was recorded, even though eight track existed, and this is an incredible multi-track sensation of a song. The layers are outstanding. They recorded it on four-track. It was just the preferred method that Brian was used to from his earlier days. So all of the instruments were recorded on three of the four-tracks, tracks and then they bounced it to eight track to do that huge stack of vocals and a string overdub.

But everything else was just recorded to three tracks. One last thing that's worth mentioning is that to communicate with the musicians, again, Brian Wilson is the producer, an orchestrator and arranger and writer and everything. And he has his good buddy, Chuck Brits, to make sure everything gets recorded to tape as the engineer. That's a very important role. And the way he communicates with the musicians, I find interesting because he doesn't write music.

He doesn't use sheet music. He doesn't create a score. And according to how Blaine, they all had chord sheets. So he would just list what the chords were. And boy, when we get into it, there are some complicated chords. And the frequency with which they change is crazy. So the fact that this was all communicated to these 20-plus musicians in a combination of just Brian explaining it in real time with words to supplement

just a sheet that had all the names of the chords listed is really incredible to me. All right. Let's get into some music. Where shall we start? Well, let's start at the beginning of the song. This is the intro. I don't think I've ever known. That's an accordion. That is an accordion.

That's right. And part of what's beautiful. So first of all, the stem separation, it's a four track. A lot of things are merged together. So you are going to hear some of the sounds that are touching each other, right? But what you are able to separate, I think, to my ears, is the accordion. There is an accordion, which is an unusual sound. Have they used the accordion of other songs?

Has it been in all these Beach Boy songs I just didn't notice? Not to my knowledge. In fact, to my knowledge is maybe the only song in history with an accordion and a harps accord. Because I do feel like the harpsichord, the Beach Boys, that is their sound. This is very much a sound of this 60s, what we'd be called, now we call Baroque Pop, because it harkens back to the Baroque era of Cosco Music where they had harpsichords. Totally. And here is the harpsichord.

And I should clarify that it's a harpsichord blended with attack piano, which means kind of an old honky-tong, like, picture like a cowboy 1800s. You go to like a saloon and they have like a cheap piano with like stand-up. Stand-up piano. Right. It's called attack piano. because it has that percussive sound to it. They've actually literally added to the strings these. Oh, so you're saying it's, these are tacks. Right. It's not an attack. It's not an attack piano.

It's a tach piano. I don't say like an effective form of warfare, but okay. A space, tack, yeah. Which means that it's a piano that they've added actually, you know, thumb tacks or something that makes that percussive sound. So you can hear more high end and more pluckiness, basically. And we're hearing that combined with a harpsichord playing those quarter notes, ding, ding, ding. And underneath it is that sort of a accordion, like a whole note accordion. And that's what we're hearing at the beginning, along with the iconic French horn. And that is played by Alan Robinson, who plays an important part of the story. And he's playing that first melody. So this is our introduction to the song with a melody that we will be hearing a little bit later. And that's an interesting start to a 1966 pop song by a rock band

that's just been doing fun, fun, fun until our daddy takes the T-Bird away kind of stuff. Let's talk about some drums. What is the percussion doing in this song? Well, we have a really fun moment of percussion. Again, the choices, right, right, the accordion, right? These unusual, not just the instrument itself, but the combination with the tack piano. All these sounds, the pet sounds, right? We're hearing some of Brian's pet sounds, clearly. Teacher's pet sounds.

I mean, it makes so much sense as we get into the stems and really break it down like this. I can kind of, it makes sense the idea that Brian went into this record thinking, I like this sound. I want to use it one day. And in a weird combination, he liked the accordion. He liked the sound of the honky-talk piano. Maybe he heard it in some old Western movie. Maybe.

And he likes the sound of sleigh bells. So he's bringing Christmas into this California, you know, Beach Boy song. So I'll play you the percussion part. And then I'll tell you what's in here, some of the pet sounds that made it to this. Can you guess what sounds we just heard? Sleigh bells. I heard sleigh bells. Is that a woodblock?

It's not, but it's making a sound of woodblock would make a great guess. Sounds like a woodblock kind of. I love wood blocks, by the way. It's such a hard sound. No, and I'm sorry to disappoint you that there aren't your favorite sound in this song. No woodblock. for you, my friend. So what's causing that horsey, clippity clop? So Hal Blaine, who's drummer and the leader of the wrecking crew, and is also playing sleigh bells.

He's playing a kick drum and sleigh bells here. Oh, wow. And there's this other sound you're referring to, which is Jim Gordon, who is playing two plastic orange cups or quite possibly two orange juice cups. It's unclear. The word orange was in several descriptions differently, but he's playing it with a couple sticks, making that clippity clop sound. You could have only won me more if you told me they were like Dixie Cups being played for the snare sticks. What's going on with the keys in verse one. What you're hearing is a combination of what might be any of these four players on these four instruments. Because they're doubling and it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

But we have Lyle Ritz on upright bass, Ray Pullman on electric bass guitar with, quote, Tick-Tac effect, which is that high-pitched kind of sound. Kind of like what they're doing on the piano. They're adding a lot of high-end to all these sounds. They pop out of AM radio, I think, is part of why. And I'm glad you bring up AM radio because that frequency doesn't really loan itself to, like, wonderful bass output. You know what I mean? To this day.

And when I think about the Beach Boys, I almost forget that there's bass in the songs, usually. Because at least until they get into like their later, like, sort of 70s up. 100%. These songs are like mastered for a wood panel station wagon. So there are two bases somewhere in there. There's also Carol Kay, not on bass, but rather on 12. string guitar and Carl Wilson, the only Beach Boy on the song in the instruments, is also playing a 12-string electric guitar. Somewhere in what we just heard, some combination of those four

players are playing that descending bass line, which doesn't touch the root. And if it does, it's just for a millisecond to keep you ungrounded, wonderfully ungrounded. Wonderfully ungrounded. Wonderfully wandering. Carl's pulling a little bit of a double duty here. I believe he's also singing. Let's listen to Carl sing verse one. love you, but long as there are stars above you, you never need to doubt it. I'll make you so sure about it. God only knows what I'd be without you. So I hear some layering there.

I mean, like, how many, how many Carl's is that? I'm sorry, like, I'm going to answer your question, but how are you not having chills up your spine, tears, sadness, melancholy, love in your heart. How are you emotionally able to detach yourself from? I can't do it. I can't do what you're doing. Your strength moves me. It's not strength.

I, you know, I think it's very nice. I think it's just some very nice singing. I don't know. I mean, like this. Very nice singing. Yeah, gosh. Diallo Riddle. When we did our thriller.

Hold on. When we did our thriller episode. We did our thriller episode. Yeah. And we had Michael. vocals layered on, you close your eyes, you close your eyes. Like in all those different parts, I was there. I was in the zone.

Right now, I'm just trying to understand the technical. And maybe it's because the lyrics aren't hitting me the same way. That's reasonable. It might just be the lyrics aren't hitting me the same way. That is super reasonable. Yeah. I may not always love you. What an opening line.

Jesus Christ. I mean, when Karen O sings a very similar line on maps, it hits me. Yeah. I don't know what Carl Wilson and the Wilson brothers Mike Love and the gang, Al Jardine. For some reason, I don't, I'm not, it's not. Those guys aren't on the song, by the way. Oh, no, I know.

But I'm just saying, like, I'm not, this is more of a Brian Wilson album than the Beech Boys. I hate to not react. It's perfectly reasonable for you to not get, because what is, the backstory matters, the history of having heard it in my life matters. Yes, I think you do have some, some, and this is totally fair, you have some memories associated with these lyrics, with this sound. That's how it works. Yeah.

And that's going to do some things. But there's also an argument that it's baked into the music. Like, where does it come from? Where does a musical emotional response come from? Is it inherent to the music? Is it the recording? Is it the backstory? Is it your emotional experience?

Hearing it as a child? Is it all or some or none of the above? There's no one answer. But it's not hearing me the way it's hitting you. That's legit. It's legitimate to have that response. Well, it's definitely hitting me hard. And that's Carl Wilson.

He is double-track to answer your question. And it's such a beautiful gift because Brian does originally sing the song. And in fact, we have a version of the original vocal demo with Brian on it. Hey, I'm a beach boys idiot. I thought this was Brian singing. So let's hear it. This is Brian. Who is this laughter?

How dare you? It sounds very similar. Yeah. Well, they're brothers. That's part of the magic of the Beast Boys is the three blended siblings and the cousin. That's part of their sound. I was only chuckling because, to me, to be uninitiated. You're allowed to chuckle.

I couldn't quite hear that big a difference. But there is not, well, there isn't that big a difference. You're right. It wasn't like, God only knows. Sashmo's on the cut. Listen, so Brian kind of generously gives his brother a gift because he goes, he listens back to his own demo and there's something not, it's not what he wants. And Carl's telling Brian told him something like, quote, don't do anything with it.

just sing it real straight, no effort, take in a breath, let it go real easy. I was really grateful to be the one to sing that song. And remember, he's the youngest brother. So this is his big brother that he looks up to. He would be 19 at the time. Of course, they're the Beach Boys, big, you know, huge stars, but still for the older brother to say,

I want you to have this. And he hadn't really been singing lead in Beach Boy songs up to this point. Can I say, like, I didn't know this. I come into this learning so much. I didn't know that wasn't just Brian and his brother's stacked. It's Carl. once I heard the isolated vocals, I'm not making this up. I thought, this is a person.

This voice sounds like he is singing for someone's approval. Does that make sense? Like I was like, I feel like he's singing for Brian's approval because I knew once he said it was Carl. I was like, so he wasn't necessarily, he wasn't the guiding force of the song and he's not Tony Asher writing the lyrics. I literally heard in that voice. I was like, who's he singing for approval from, probably from Brian?

Yeah. But now that you're saying, he's like, little brother, it's even deeper than that. You're absolutely right. I haven't even thought about that connection. Because I have three sons and I watch the dynamic play out when the youngest ones, the oldest, or even just the one, the middle-cut child's approval. That's a real thing. You never need to doubt it. I'll make you so sure about it, Brian, right? He's sort of singing that. A little bit.

It's not even so much in the lyrics. It's just in the delivery. In the delivery, yeah. So in verse two, these strings come in. I think it's one of the prettiest parts of this song. Tell us about it. It's gorgeous. Well, let's listen to the strings, and then we'll talk about it. I'll bring in some context. It sounds really wonderful. And Carl Wilson also singing some great lyrics in this verse as well. Can we hear some of those lyrics from verse two?

If you should ever leave me, the life would still go on, believe me. The world could show nothing to me. So what could we're living to me? So why even go on living? These guys were singing about surfboards before. What happened? Big change in subject matter.

I honestly wish they would just take like one line from like their first album than just supposed immediately with like a line. Be like, hey, the sun was great, but I'm thinking of death. You know, like. I wish their change would be more immediate. I mean, like the elephant in the room with a line like that is that, is it about self-harm? Or is it about, is it the less? language of just exaggeration in terms of, you know, for the purposes of telling a love story.

Yeah, I mean, but he is basically saying if you leave me, I don't know that I want to go on living. Like that's pretty, that's pretty extreme. But then he's, you know, life would still go on, believe me. He's like, look, if you would ever leave me, so you're like, oh, no, something bad's going to happen. Then he's like, he hedges it a little bit. Like, yeah, life would still go on. But the world could show nothing to me. So what could be the point?

So he's kind of back and forth about. You're right. He's teetering on the edge a little bit. It's so wonderfully hard to find a singular emotion about this song. There's 20. So it's a happy song, a sad song, an up, song, a down song, a major key, a minor key. There's a lot in this moment. Part of, I think, the power of it is that it isn't simplified.

It's not, again, going back to fun, fun, fun, fun. We're long past that simplicity of emotion and simplicity of lyrical content. Even though time-wise, we're only two years past, fun, fun, fun, fun. You know, a lot happens between 64 and 66. And maybe between age 21 and 23. I mean, yes, the career is progressing, his life is progressing. His independence is, you know, from his own father, you know, being under the wing of the manager, father abusive. All of that is, a lot has changed in a couple of years.

Absolutely. All right. What can you plan us from the interlude? We've just had a pretty standard song structure. You know, I mentioned it's a short refrain instead of a full chorus. But now we come to the first, like, quote unquote, really weird moment. This is part of what makes this song. such an unusual song, is that we have this four bars where it doesn't change the tempo,

but the feel changes because suddenly we have these syncopated parts. I'll play them for you now. So we've just gone into these dink-dink, ding-dink, and that's layered with a baseline, which is counterpoint. It's a different melody. So I'll put those together. And then we have this drum fill, which punctuates it right in the middle. And then I'll play all the way through and out the horns back. Man, if you had some high-fi stereo equipment in the 60s, maybe you heard that. I have never heard that underlying.

That baseline, right. You would have been able to isolate that. Can we actually hear that one more time? Just the base? Yeah, just the base is kind of the best part, isn't it? And again, this is some combination of those four instruments playing the same part. It almost sounds like the stove. Yeah.

Don, don't do, don't do, don't. Yeah, it's the most rock and roll moment of this whole piece. Dude, it just like literally like made me sit up in my chair a little bit because it was just like, Wait, where did that come from? But it's also these cute little syncopated sounds. And by the way, as I mentioned before, there's a huge back catalog. You can go listen to the master tapes of hours of recording footage of what happened behind the scenes with the communication between Brian and the instrument players.

There's a fun moment here. I'll play for you. This is Don Randy, the piano player suggesting they do what they ended up using, which is ghost decado. I'll just play it for you. So this is Don Randy making a suggestion to Brian. Brian? Yeah.

Why don't we do it? So that's him playing the tack piano and showing him his idea. So this just gives you just a moment of insight of the dynamic between Brian and his players, where he's listening to their input, they're making contributions. And that four-bar break became this iconically staccato. Ding-dink, ding, ding, ding, because of that suggestion. Yeah. Lots of wonderfully archived footage of the interplay between the band talking to Brian

and how they came up with some of these ideas, lots of early takes, etc. You can listen to all of that. It's available on Spotify, et cetera. Also, what you can hear is that the original version of the song had a sax solo. Wait, you're saying there was a saxophone on a Beach Boys cut? I did not see this. There was originally a sax played by Jay Miliori. Jay Miliori.

Here's a baritone sax overdub, and let's see if we can decide whether they made the right call by taking it off. You're not feeling it. Listen, when Eddie Murphy played the fifth beetle named Clarence, the saxophone playing member of the Beatles. I got to imagine that this, all you Eddie Murphy fans heard what I heard, this is Clarence's genius, once again being rubbed out

by those other musicians in the 1960s. That is hilarious. I think they made the right call, but give Clarence's do. Not only was that part, you know, wiped from the face of the earth. Buried. I'd argue buried.

It's not on the final version. It was replaced by maybe the exact polar opposite of the feeling that that gave me. which is it was replaced by this incredible corral section. So there's actually a third vocalist on this song, and it's Bruce Johnston who joined the Beach Boys in 1965 for live performances. He took over for Glenn Campbell, who had replaced Brian Wilson on the road.

So Bruce Johnson joined the band, and he sings California Girls. That's his lead vocal. And he's background on six pet sound songs, and he is in this section. Now, I'll point him out. Let's listen first. three different vocal parts.

With Bruce Johnston and Brian and Carl doing a three-part harmony. And here's the best part of the song, Fight Me, right here. So freaking gorgeous. That's Brian on the first line. The second line is Carl.

And the third harmony is actually Brian overdubbing it. And it's funny because he's in his mind the bapa-bba-bba-ba-ba. It's his imitation of Mike Love. It's sort of a loving, not a job, But it's like, that's a part, the low part that Mike Love would be doing on a Beach Boy song. But he's not on this track.

Understood. So Brian's doing it instead. Well, listen, several verses of the song, but the chorus, as we've already said, is saved towards the very end. Yes. So can we hear this legendary chorus? The legendary chorus is arguably the heart and soul of a song that has many hearts and many souls and many emotions and feelings. Just to set up what you're about to hear, this is a round. Technically, it might be a fugue.

A round is like row, row, row, row your boat or frera, jeer. Then you sing for a ro ro ro ro your part then you start. Row, row, row your boat. Ro, row your boat. Ro, row your boat. Merely, merrily, merrily, merely. Life is but a mistake. I'm sorry, I've gone dark, man. I understand you now, Brian.

Technically around or a canon, these are really old musical traditions that go back hundreds of years. It's when you have a melody and then the same melody is distributed later in time so that they overlap in interesting ways. This is closer to my ears. to a fugue, but it's a real question to the one song nation, to the deep nerds of the one song nation. Is this, I don't think it's a round or a canon. I think it's a fugue, but it might be an accompanied canon, or it could just be a chacon. Is this a chacon? Not really sure, but here's what it sounds like. And here's what to listen for. There's three different parts. The first one is Carl. The second is Bruce. And the third is Brian. Let's hear.

That's Carl. Bruce. God only knows what I'd be without you. Never let it be said that I am a closed-minded person. That was really cool. That's insane. I like a, almost like a repetition that makes you feel like you might go crazy, but you might also like you might also just really like sink into. to like the moment. I mean, I sat and I listened and I absorbed this like in the stems and in the research. I can say I wonderfully never quote unquote cracked the code. I know on a staff what's happening where I wear the notes a line, but it's still a magic trick. Music making is still a magic trick. All of our deconstruction is for not because we couldn't put it back together after

deconstructing it using the same pieces we've been talking about. Yeah. This is just an incredible 23 year old's mind putting together these melodies, obviously working with Mr. Asher on the and the way those parts interplay, the intricacy of the counterpoint is not only infinitely pleasing as like a, you know, theoretical, but I could listen to that loop forever. I know. It feels like it could go on forever. And there are certain songs that we've done on. The one song or just that I like from my personal. Let's Stay Together by Al Green.

When that song is fading out, it's just a repetition. Like I could hear that over and over and over. I was so happy when we did that episode. we actually heard that there was some more stuff that came after it. But yes, this is one of those ways. This is Ayanne's a song. It's so good. You could definitely listen to a whole minute of them just,

it's like the phrase God only knows what I do without you, what I do without you, coming up from like this person, then this person, it's like expanding out. And then all of a sudden you see a whole country full of people singing this. It is very visual and it does have that effect. And it's only three voices incredibly. So now that's the song,

what's to deal with the splits? So the song is 75% Brian Wilson, 25% Tony Asher and feels fair to me. Remember Brian is at the piano. Tony Asher's walking out with the notepad, contributing and fleshing out the lyrical content. So to me, 50% is usually the music and 50% is the lyrics. So if they split the lyrics 50-50 and the music was all Brian,

that kind of makes sense to me. Diallo, after spending some time, some quality time with God Only Knows, with Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, do you have any new insights, new thoughts, revelations, changes of heart even? Well, in some ways, I haven't changed at all. I came into this episode with a great appreciation for their music. I really like some of their songs. We won't have the time to get into sort of my favorite Beach Boy era, which is their later stuff.

They have an album, ironically, called Surf's Up that has, like, one of the most psychedelic songs that I've ever heard. And I really love it because I, because the first part sounds like he's, like, shining up the surfboard, but then the acid he kicks in. I just play a little bit. This is a little bit of a song called Feel Flows. Check this out. He's like just polishing it up. He's about to hit the waves. And then the ass it kicks him up.

It hasn't kicked in yet. By 71, they had definitely like, they still had like some of those things. Like, there's still a harpsichord there. I can still see the sun going down over Newport Beach. Yeah. But when the guitar comes in, you're like, oh, we're definitely full on embracing psychic, psychedelic sounds.

Totally. But it also sounded to me like super low. Lofi. It almost felt like a TASCAM, like, you know, four track that I have, you know, back in my, you know, in my high school, college years, whatever it is. But like, like, it sounded incredible. I love that sound. It was surprising. I will tell you this. Anybody would like an introduction to the Beach Boys that's not surfing USA era. Go find the song Phil Flows. Anytime I put this song on, I'd always get people run out to the DJ booth be like, what is this epic weirdness? And I was like, it's the beach. Do I think that I will be the person who cries every time I hear God only knows. I don't know about that. Well, you have a heart of stone then, my friend, because I don't. I don't understand how you're able to do that. I respect it, but I can't understand it. Oh, he picked up the coaster.

I'm in trouble now. I think that what God only knows is for you, I have any number of songs. And we've played some of them on this show. Jodicey's singing lately on MTV Unplug always gets me. Okay. That's your puddle song? Puddle of tears. I don't know if it's my puddle song, but when I hear it, I hear vocal.

I hear human vocal accomplishment that I do not dare aspire to. You know what I mean? And I probably have that feeling. So you're Brian Wilson is my Jojo and Casey. That's all I'm saying. But I think that that's what makes the show fun is that, you know, you can always bring

to the show exactly what you know and what you love. There's no judgment. I love that about the show. There's a little judgment. Let's face it. I'm judging it a little bit right now. Can I ask you about the legacy of God Only Knows? How did the public react to this show?

How do they react to this song? to this album, was it like at the time sort of like a low point commercially and then they got them all back with good vibrations? Like what happened? So it's so interesting. It only got as high as 39. It barely made the top 40 in other words in the U.S. But it did hit number two in the UK. And of course over time grows to become this canonical iconic important song. Paul McCartney's favorite of all time. And we keep mentioning Paul McCartney, but there's a list of 50 other iconic musicians who also made it in their top three all time. Nothing would ever be the same. Nothing would ever be. stopped touring the way that they had been touring because they were like, you can do so much

in the studio that you can never hope to replicate on the stage in 1967. This is happening in parallel with the rise of George Martin and the Beatles doing their studio trickery to and converting themselves to being more of a recording entity. And I do think the UK are really great tastemakers because the same way they saw what was special in pet sounds and then it sort of made it back to the U.S. In that sense, I mean, like you can think about how they saw what was special about Jimmy Hendricks and then he was able to come back to the United States. Like in some ways, they were great tastemakers during this period.

And we've done that in reverse sometimes. Go back and listen to our Radiohead episode, right? They get famous in America and then go over to the UK. And it happens like this in some... The killers is another example of a Beach Boys phenomenon, right? Oh, my God. The killers are so American. The exchange between our cultures is a magical thing.

Well, listen, one reason we did this episode is because Brian Wilson passed this year. Ironically, he was 82 just like Slystone. So we lost two giants. born the same year, both, you know, helped define the sound of their generation. Both, you know, had to struggle so much with addiction. And yet, here we are in this year and both finally checked out and we will be missing. But both will leave an undeniable legacy with the music that we continue to listen to. I will say, like I said, I came into this episode, like in the Beach Boys, I continue to. Yeah. But I'm going to explore more.

You're inspired to find some more. It's a deep catalog, man. It's a deep catalog, man. It's a deep catalog. Not only do they have, like, I don't even know. It's like 30 hours. How many dozens of albums they have, but there's so many B-Sides and reissues with like, you know, outtakes and such. You can get lost wonderfully swimming through this incredible catalog of music. Well, let's do some wonderful wandering. All right, Diallo, so it's time for one more song.

Woo-hoo. The sigmund where we share a deep cut or a hidden gem with you, the one-song nation. And with each other, Diallo, go first. Well, look, I mean, like, because we've been talking about the Beach Boys today, I am going to say my one more song is one of the most hated Beach Boy songs of all time. Wow, I can't wait. It is from their L.A. What?

They had a song called L.A. The Light album, also known as. And here's their foray into disco, which I don't, I'm a fan of disco. It's going to be good. It's going to be good. Or will it. Here comes the night by the Beach Boys. I think I have this 12. Oh, Vocoder? What?

So here's what I'll say. George Marauder. Dude, I'm telling you. They were living in L.A. By the way, I could have picked a number of songs that Dennis Wilson released solo as well because I think he had an amazing solo album. But I just kind of wanted to pick this out,

not even to troll, you know, the average Beach Boys fan, but like this is a song, they're never going to do this one in concert. You will only hear it here at one song. It just goes to show once again that I do like stuff that's drive-y, probably more drum-driven and a little bit of aggression, but this is actually an underrated disco song. Here comes the night. That was great.

I wanted to hear the rest of it. What's your song today? All right, y'all, my one more song is by Psychic TV, Genesis Peorridge, who passed maybe a couple years ago now, formerly of throbbing gristle, did a cover of good vibrations, which is an incredible take, which I play often in my DJ sets, and emphasizes the best part of that song, which is the da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. Here we go.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Emphasis. And you know what? It's just really faithful to the original. It doesn't really change or add anything. No. It's kind of the fact that it is psychic TV doing it. The fact that it's this industrial, this iconic industrial art rock band playing a pretty faithful Beach Boys cover.

They didn't change the notes. Yeah. But I'll tell you what they did. They put that drum underneath it. Oh, yeah. That's right. The drum machine makes a big difference. All of a sudden, it feels like should be called bad vibrations.

It's still good. And by the way, I've also got a new single. My name is Luxury. I do this podcast with Diallo, and I'm also a musician sometimes. It's easy to forget. And my new single is called Bad with an exclamation mark. Bad. There we go.

I've been playing with the whole one-word song thing recently. I love that. And by the way, I'm only insulted that you didn't get me to say the word bad and then mess up that sample. We'll do the remix. We'll get in the studio next time. I'll put you on the remix. I really like that way. Thank you, my friend.

As always, if you have an idea for one more song, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok. You can find me on Instagram at D-I-A-L-L-L-E. That's right, on Instagram at Diallo or on TikTok at Diallo riddle. And you can find me on Instagram at LUXXURY and on TikTok at LXXX and on Spotify at LUXXURY with the music lives. And you could also follow our podcast, One Song, at One Song podcast on Instagram and TikTok for tons of exclusive content. You can also watch full episodes of One Song on YouTube and Spotify. Just search for One Song Podcasts. We'd love it if you'd like and subscribe.

Also be sure to check out the one song Spotify playlist For all the songs we discuss in our episodes You can find the link in our episode description And if you've made it this far We think that means you like the podcast So please don't forget to give us five stars And leave a review and share us with someone who you think Would like this show

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I'm producer DJ songwriter and musicologist luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ D'Allar Riddle. And this is one song. We will see you next time. This episode is produced by Melissa Duenas. Our video editor is Casey Simonson.

Our associate producer is Jeremy Bimbo. Mixing by Michael Hardman. And engineering by Eric Hicks. Production supervision by Razak Boykin. Additional production support from Z. Taylor. The show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, Eric Eddings, Eric Wile, and Leslie Guam.