I saw this thread a few days ago and thought "Lonely Sea" is probably in a minor key.  So I just played the song and strummed along on the guitar with it and lo and behold, it's in D flat MAJOR, at least until the bridge where it goes to A flat minor before it changes back again before the next verse.

My point?  I am amazed by Brian's ability to make a major key song "feel" like a minor key song.  And why is Brian Wilson the only musician that ever composed anything that brings tears to my eyes?

Thanks to all for the info!

Carl is the de facto producer of Love You, I would say.

Okay, but in the early years, if something was released in true stereo, how did Brian oversee the stereo mixes? 

Newbie here, so apologies if this particular topic has come up before.  Anyhow, I am aware that Brian's almost total deafness in one ear was one of the major reasons he preferred to record in mono, but I found some of the stereo songs that he was involved with had some very fascinating stereo effects.

I'm pretty sure that Brian was very involved in the development of the songs on "Love You", and I was listening to "Johnny Carson". (great song!) I was really floored by the back and forth effect during the bridge -  "It's (nice) to (have) you (on) the (show) tonight" - which made me wonder how Brian would have came up with such an in-your-face stereo effect with his hearing loss. 

Was this actually the result of the input of somebody else?  That whole passage in "Johnny Carson"  just screams of something that Brian must have came up with, but maybe I am wrong.  Did (and does) Brian have at least some ability to sense sound in stereo when he hears it?  If he was sitting in a room with the speakers widely separated, could he sense the general direction of the differences in sound coming out of each channel?  Or perhaps it has to be a very obvious stereo pan for him to be able to recognize it.  Anyway, I was pretty much blown away by that part of the song and wondered how somebody with Brian's level of hearing impairment could have ever thought it up.

 

I've tried imagining Carl singing on many of the songs.  Especially the chorus to "Shelter".