self-serving and part of a cycle of codependency." Cash Box described the song as a "slow-shufflin' tender, romantic ode about a guy who is so much in love that he doesn't think that he could go on without his gal." Asher stated that the intended expression of the song's lyrics was I'll love you the sun burns out, then I'm gone,' ergo 'I'm gonna love you forever. Wilson commented that song was based around "being blind but in being blind, you can see more. You close your eyes; you're able to see a place or something that's happening." Composition Key ambiguity and motifs "God Only Knows" contains a weak tonal center that is closest to E major and, in other sections, A major. Adding to this, almost all of the chords are inverted. An E major triad with its bass note in the root position is never invoked, and instead, the position is favored. Of the tracks on Pet Sounds, it is the only one that lacks a strongly established primary key center (others employ key ambiguity to a lesser degree), and the only one that modulates its key up a fourth interval (others descend by a third). In his book about Pet Sounds, Charles Granata writes that some of the musical devices that "God Only Knows" employs are usually "rather ordinary" by themselves. However, in this case, they were executed in a manner that was "far more sophisticated than anything the Beach Boys—or any other modern pop vocal group—had done before." According to musicologist James Garratt, the "tonal plasticity" made the song innovative not just in pop music, but also for the Baroque style it is emulating. He credits the sense of "expansiveness" evoked by the piece to this quality, emphasized by the disuse of authentic cadences and root-position tonics. Lambert states that "a clear sense of key" eludes the listener "for the entire experience—that in fact, the idea of 'key' has itself been challenged and subverted". The song contains a recurring melodic motif that is reinforced by the lead vocal and the line played on French horn. Musician Andy Gill identified the verse and chorus melodies as variations on the same line, and added that this type of melodic variation was "very" similar to the technique as it is used in classical pieces such as Delibes' Lakmé. To Lambert, the song's use of vocal counterpoints evoked the sacred