The Beach Boys song that Pete Townshend called “perfect”
Few bands capture the giddy optimism of 1960s America quite like The Beach Boys. At a time when British groups like The Beatles and The Kinks dominated the airwaves, the West Coast ensemble helped carve out a new identity for American pop, blending elements of surf and psychedelia with Baroque harmonies and mesmerising structures. Unsurprisingly, Brian Wilson’s songwriting had a huge impact on his contemporaries, and to this day, Pete Townshend of The Who regards the bandleader as one of the great geniuses of the ’60s.
Like The Beatles, The Who always held The Beach Boys in high regard. Before Brian Wilson and the band had released their genre-defining album, Pet Sounds, The Who were already covering Beach Boys songs. In 1966, for example, Townshend and the gang released a rendition of ‘Barabara Anne’ on their 1966 EP ‘Ready Steady Who’. His enthusiasm for group peaked the following year when Pet Sounds, Wilson’s masterpiece, hit the shelves. In the 2000s, the musician opened up about the record’s dizzying impact: “When Pet Sounds came along, I think really what happened is that, for me, the whole world was turned on its head, and I think for a lot of people. Certainly for The Beatles. The thing about Brian’s work was that he was writing with the band and voices that were part of his canvas.”
Pet Sounds had a similar effect on The Beatles. Brian Wilson had taken some recordings from the album to London with the intention of spreading the word ahead of its release. In a hotel suite, he played a handful of tracks to, among others, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who were then working on their own conceptual masterpiece Sgt. Pepper’s. “I believe that without Brian Wilson’s inspiration, Sgt. Pepper might have been less of the phenomenon that it became,” Beatles producer George Martin opines in Brian Wilson and The Making Of Pet Sounds. “Brian is a living genius of pop music. Like The Beatles, he pushed forward the frontiers of popular music.”
For Townshend, there was one track in particular that shone especially bright: the hauntingly beautiful ‘God Only Knows’. “I love Brian. There’s not many people I would say that about,” the guitarist once said. “I think he’s a truly, truly, truly great genius. I love him so much it’s just terrible. And I find it hard to live with.’God Only Knows’ is simple and elegant. Was stunning when it first appeared. It still sounds perfect.”
You can revisit the track below.
