BB Sessions: The Making of God Only Knows (and Stella by Starlight, How Deep Is the Ocean, and Three Blind Mice)
60 years ago today, Brian and the Boys finished recording “God Only Knows” and mixed it to mono for the last time. To commemorate, the one and only time we’ve managed to time one of these to the date, there’s a new essay on the Pet Sounds sessions page all about the making of the record, every exhaustive detail from writing to completion:
https://beachboyssessions.com/pet-sounds/god-only-knows/
This is the most comprehensive entry in the series so far, for us a payoff to years of hard digging and debating in the trenches to nail down every component of the track’s creation. “God Only Knows” is a pretty good song, so it felt worth the investment. The full arrangement score (I know we’ve fallen behind on getting these together) should be available pretty soon in PDF and Musescore format to download from the website.
Alongside that, to take a weird detour, there’s a second new essay all about the time Brian teamed up with Dick Reynolds to produce orchestrated covers of “Stella by Starlight” and “How Deep Is the Ocean” for his uncle, Carl Korthof. While at the studio with a leftover orchestra, Brian whipped up the track “Three Blind Mice” on the spot. We love an obscure side story:
https://beachboyssessions.com/pet-sounds/carl-and-mice/
On the main Pet Sounds page, there are now general overview credits for that whole era of sessions (which may be subject to adjustments as we cover the rest of the album). There’s more on the way for other albums and time periods. If you’d like to keep up to date with our work (as we know some were asking about a mailing list), subscribe to our Patreon to be notified with new posts: https://patreon.com/BeachBoysSessions?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
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