When Brian Wilson first sang “God Only Knows” to his then-wife, Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford, she was shocked at the blatant discussion of God and religion in a Beach Boys pop song. Wilson and co-writer Tony Asher agonized for weeks over the lyrics, believing that “unless you were Kate Smith and you were singing ‘God Bless America,’ no one thought you could say ‘God’ in a song.” They eventually decided to keep the word “God” in because they intended its usage to stand in for the “universal consciousness” of the world and not for any specific deity.
Brian Wilson’s brother Carl elaborated on that idea when he said “God is love, God is you, God is me.” In essence, “God” exists in every fiber of the universe, and any discussion of God is a way of discussing all of reality itself. The Beach Boys broke ground by taking their music, and by extension, American popular music, out of the beachside bonfires and into the stars. “God Only Knows” was a journey through metaphysical abstractions, unafraid to tackle the most massive themes of all at a time when most pop music was content to live in the little moments of life and love.
Kanye West expressed a similar sentiment in “Jesus Walks,” rapping:
“So here go my single, dog, radio needs this/ They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus/ That means guns, sex, lies, video tapes/ But if I talk about God my record won’t get played, huh?”
Clearly, the stigma against discussing religion in pop music is still with us, but since the release of that hit song, West has only gotten bolder in his frank discussions of faith. With the imminent release of his latest album, So Help Me God, he is poised for his deepest discussion yet — but less in-your-face than in previous album Yeezus. But where The Beach Boys broke ground by using the idea of God to escape the mundane landscape of popular music, today’s pop music lives in abstractions. Listen to any top-40 anthem and notice how frequently they evoke the same massive themes.
I’m not intending to sound like your ponytailed uncle lamenting “this generation’s music.” I’m simply noting a trend that many of our most-beloved pop songs focus on ideas like “making every day count” and “living each night like it’s the last.” Those are certainly nice things to think about and explore, but the lack of substance is what can make them feel so empty at times.
West, in turn, goes the opposite way. His religious songs — “Jesus Walks” and those on Yeezus — challenge us to explore faith and the universe through the tangible reality of racism, consumerism, relationships and socioeconomics. He takes our heads out of the clouds and forces them to look upon the grim realities of modern life and ask ourselves the same questions that Brian Wilson asked as he turned his gaze upward: “Where do we fit in all this?”
West described So Help Me God as “embracing the music, embracing joy and being of service to the people” and compared it to the hymn “Amazing Grace.” Taken in concert with the soul-stirring yet deeply personal song “Only One,” we could see West take up Brian Wilson’s role of avant-garde music mastermind to lead us through pop purgatory and into the transcendent heaven of the universal consciousness. In the video for “Only One,” we see none of the trademark Kanye West grandstanding. Instead, we have only a handheld camera, perhaps held by Kim Kardashian, and West himself, emerging from the fog into the clear air, to hold his daughter close as he sings a simple song of love that passes through generations. This new album might just shape up to be a religious experience.
