This song long ago vested itself passionately within the ventricles of my heart. Brian Wilson hit many home runs, yet something within the shape and structure of "God Only Knows" is so utterly off the beaten path - it's mystical and profound. I'd even liken it to the most "perfect" of all musical pieces: Mozart's "Ave Verum Corpus."
Is that too far a stretch?
This little solo track of mine from several years ago... I can and will do better and share that with you very soon. Valentine's Day?
One among some of the more atypical approaches I spun around was to play GOK using the figuration from Bach's WTC Prelude #1, which has been, incidentally, used quite famously as a background setting for "Ave Maria" (not to be confused with Schubert's setting). Running Wilson's harmonic structure, voice leading, counterpoint - whatever terminology you prefer - works very nicely in the figuration, and It plays itself, so to speak. Which makes it feel like a gimmick. This true masterpiece of American song deserves better. You dig?
