On This Day in 1966, The Beach Boys Won Over the Hip Crowd With This Controversial Love Song

The Beach Boys’ eleventh studio album, Pet Sounds, is rightfully regarded as one of the most monumental records to come out of the 1960s. But when the California band released it, they were fighting to win over the hip crowd as heavier rock bands began to dominate the mainstream music market. On August 27, 1966, The Beach Boys got to rest easy (at least for a moment) knowing a controversial love song had catapulted them back to the top of the charts.

Even better, it made The Beach Boys look a little less square while staying true to their typical sun-soaked and romantic lyrics.

The Beach Boys Finally Won Over the Hip Crowd

The Beach Boys’ bright and upbeat surf-pop sound took the world by storm in the early 1960s. But rock ‘n’ roll got progressively grittier and hippier throughout the decade, and by the late 60s, The Beach Boys’ clean-cut-Californian schtick seemed square by comparison. Their 1966 album, Pet Sounds, shoved them back into the spotlight with songs like “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder”. From the production style to the songs themselves, Pet Sounds would serve as a major influence in rock and pop’s evolution, even if its initial reception was a bit lukewarm.

Interestingly, one of the most controversial songs on the album was also one of the best for their career, as its divisiveness intrigued the younger, hip crowd that had previously disregarded The Beach Boys as uncool. “God Only Knows” might sound like a starry-eyed love song by today’s standards, but back in 1966, people didn’t use the word “God” in songs. It was seen as offensive and inappropriate, like hell or damn. In David Leaf’s The Beach Boys and the California Myth, guest lyricist Tony Asher recalled Brian Wilson saying, “You’re not going to get any airplay on this song.”

“He had a good point,” Asher continued, citing a song that radio stations had banned either for the word hell or damn. “We both recognized that it was a real pretty song and thought it had a good chance of being a single. I had to really fight with him to retain that title.” The songwriter mused that Wilson’s acceptance was likely because he saw it as “an opportunity to be really far out [because] it would cause some controversy, which he didn’t mind.”

This Former Beatle Loves This Controversial Love Song

The Beach Boys’ controversial love song peaked on the Billboard charts on August 27, 1966, proving that their decision to keep the title was the right choice to make. “God Only Knows” became one of the band’s most beloved songs by casual listeners and contemporaries alike, and its influence on music from the decades that followed is immeasurable. One such person who let “God Only Knows” rattle, excite, and inspire him was Paul McCartney, who was still deep in his tenure with the Beatles at the time of the song’s release.

McCartney once said the track was “one of the few songs that reduces me to tears every time I hear it. It’s really just a love song. But it’s brilliantly done. It shows the genius of Brian. I’ve actually performed it with him, and I’m afraid to say that during the soundcheck, I broke down. It was just too much to stand there singing this song that does my head in, and to stand there singing it with Brian. It’s little vibrations reaching your music. It’s only little vibrations, little words, and little things. There is this powerful effect.”

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