The Beach Boys song Bono offers as “proof of angels”
During the early 1960s, rock and roll was still starting to find its sea legs. As fans were moving past the era of Chuck Berry and Little Richard, artists like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones showed a more mature take on rock than expected out of songs that only had three chords. While the ‘British Invasion’ may have thrown everyone for a loop, Brian Wilson’s music touched Bono from a generation away.
After being knocked out by The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, Wilson wanted to make a musical statement that could stand alongside that. Before then, his songs were all fun romps about cars, surfing, or both simultaneously. Once Wilson made the studio his playground, there were no rules about what he could achieve, crafting one brilliant melody after another for the album Pet Sounds.
Aside from the traditional love songs, ‘God Only Knows’ was Wilson’s magnum opus, stringing together chords commonly found in jazz music and creating a beautiful ode to devotion. Being a pure statement of love, the song became a favourite among many rock fans, including Paul McCartney, who used Pet Sounds as inspiration when making Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.
While Wilson may have earned some praise from his contemporaries, an impressionable kid from Ireland was also paying attention. When Bono first learned about his love for music, he was knocked out by ‘God Only Knows’, thinking that something more spiritual was going on beyond just a good pop song.
Speaking after the fact, Bono mentioned the emotional power behind the song and how that magic might be coming from a higher power. When discussing Wilson’s impact on his life, Bono was knocked out by the amount of joy in between those grooves of vinyl, saying: “The genius of his music is the joy that’s in it. I know that Brian believes in angels. I do too. But you only have to listen to the string arrangement on ‘God Only Knows’ for fact and proof of angels”.
Since The Beach Boys traditionally used a rock and roll setup, bringing in the strings draped the song in a strange sense of melancholy. Although every single word of this song speaks of Wilson’s devotion, the string arrangements are the perfect touch, as if they are personifying the sounds of the heart leaping out of one’s chest with wonder.
Wilson agrees with Bono’s theory when talking about his creative process, telling Beatles producer George Martin, “I don’t believe anybody can concentrate and write music. It’s like your heart writes the music, your brain can see the keys and how they relate to each other, but really great music comes from the heart”.
Bono would always return to that same theory with U2, creating songs packed with soul across albums like War and The Joshua Tree. Even when the band reached greater heights than they had ever known, Bono was still going back to quoting his heart on Achtung Baby, writing about how getting to the top of the charts and becoming the biggest rock star in the world doesn’t mean a thing if there’s nothing inside him. Angels always reveal themselves mysteriously, and Bono understood the importance of when a song becomes a church.
