words such as "hell" or "damn". Asher said that he and Wilson had "lengthy conversations" about the lyric, "because unless you were Kate Smith and you were singing 'God Bless America', no one thought you could say God' in a song.[...] He said, 'We'll just never get any air play." He believed that Wilson agreed to the title after being told by other people that it was "an opportunity to be really far out [because] it would cause some controversy, which he didn't mind." Dillon wrote that referring to God may have also been viewed as "a square move" due to the nascent decline of traditional religion in the United States. In the lyrics, the narrator anticipates the dissolution of their romantic relationship, and asserts that life without their lover could only be fathomed by God. The deceptive opening line, "I may not always love you" was the subject of another argument between the songwriters. According to Asher, "I liked that twist, and fought to start the song that way. Working with Brian, I didn't have a whole lot of fighting to do, but I was certainly willing to fight for the end for that." In the next line, the narrator reassures that they will be with their lover "so long as there are stars above you". Marilyn interpreted the opening lines as autobiographical from Wilson's point of view: "he knew that I was there and I would never leave him, so he knew that he could abuse me, even though he didn't try to. I was never number one, I was always two or three. But if I would leave in some kind of a way, he would get totally distraught." Of the songs on Pet Sounds, "God Only Knows" is the most lyrically ambiguous. Commentators have sometimes attributed a suicidal quality to the protagonist. In the second verse, the narrator declares that "life would go on[...] should you ever leave me", but if that outcome were to occur, then "what good would living do me?" The suggested implication is that they would end their life without their lover—an interpretation that Asher said was not intended by himself or Wilson. Among other interpretations, writer James Perone, who referred to the song as "one of the more unusual expressions of love in a 1960s' pop song", believed that there is "a hint that part of [the character's] 'love' may be