THE BEACH BOYS - “Good Vibrations”
(#226, 19th November 1966)
A couple of years ago, I was in a karaoke pub. “Good Vibrations” flashed up on the screen and a confident, 40-ish businessman stepped up to sing it. He was immediately nonplussed by the intro, and as the song continued it became obvious that he knew nothing except the chorus, which he sang with brio and the help of many friends. “Good, good, good, good vibrations!”
“Good Vibrations” has a really, really, great chorus. A chorus so fine and memorable that some people - like our businessman - forget how tricksy the rest of the song is. It’s turned what might have been a beloved curio into public pop property.
In a way, the chorus affects me like it affects the businessman - when I come to “Good Vibrations” I’m almost always surprised again at its oddness, how sudden some of its second-half cuts are, like the jump at 2′13″ between the “my, my, my” bit and the light brushes that intro the “gotta keep those” section. The chorus distracts me from the detail, stops it from overwhelming, entices me back to explore it again.
So why this much detail in the first place? What’s it all for? Of course the novel structure is its own reward, and so is the prettiness, and the attention paid to making exotic instruments sound so intimate, like you’re next to Brian Wilson in his workshop. But the structure also serves the theme of the song: “Good Vibrations” is a meditation on a beloved other, a meditation interrupted by surges of joy, and which in its second half breaks down into a whirl of delightful themes, scenes, ideas, each of which is so pretty it cuts its predecessor off. So the record succeeds as a sound-impression of a mind giddily in love, restless with beauty and unable to finish its thoughts, and each thought leading anyhow to the same wonderful place. 9
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Kat on February 9th, 2006
It’s true - no matter how many times I listen to the song I always forget about the quiet bit, that starts off *extreeeemly* quietly, and think the song has finished innit. Doh!
Is a Bosh Vibrations in existence?
Tom on February 9th, 2006
Oddly enough I’m not sure there is, at least my researches into the world of bosh haven’t turned one up.
p^nk s on February 9th, 2006
it is bosh already! ur-bosh!
Steve Mannion on February 9th, 2006
i do recall a mash-up of GV and bashy junglism a couple of years ago but dunno who dunnit.
Anonymous on February 9th, 2006
On some days, this is my favourite single ever (boring, I know, but true).
On this occasion, I have a completely different take from yourself (and that businessman) though. It’s always been the verses and the “I’m pickin’ up…” bit that I considered the hookiest bits. The “Good, good, good…” sections have always seemed to me to be incidental to the song, the LEAST important part. just a bit of mortar to hold all the bricks together.
The overall ‘oddness’ and novelty feel of the song you identify stems I guess mainly from the fact that the final master is a mosaic, pieced together from numerous sessions and takes. Listening to Wilson’s very first studio run through of the song (it’s on the “Smiley Smile”/”Wild Honey” CD) reveals that the structure was in place long before he “got to work on it” the track with his splicing block and razor.
Jeff W
Tom on February 9th, 2006
I’m sort of counting “I’m picking up…” as part of the chorus.
And I don’t fully disagree with you - the chorus is the mortar and other bits are just as hooky, but it’s doing an essential job AS mortar.
Marcello on February 9th, 2006
This post has been removed by the author.
bza on February 9th, 2006
I think the thing I love about this song is the piecemeal quality some people seem to malign. Maybe it’s the fact that you can follow up even the most depressing song with this one and it is like coming out into the sun for the first time. The up and down is the singer convincing themselves of their happiness, and yet, somehow, it doesn’t make that happiness any less real. A lot of songs are built up as “pinnacles” and “revolutionary,” but I think this is one of those rare cases where the hype holds true. It’s the sound of ecstacy after the darkest of depression. Maybe what’s so amazing about the song, and why it can bring you out of that depression, is that it still has a darkness to it. Of all the songs you’ve reviewed so far, this, “I’ll Be There,” and “Paint it Black” would be my only 10s.
Lena on February 9th, 2006
A question: what is ‘bosh’?
As a native Californian, Angeleno to be precise, I can’t help but be happy and surprised that this got to #1, weird as it is. I remember watching a documentary on the theremin and Brian Wilson was so happy remembering his getting it on the song and it doing so well, kind of like a madman whose idea worked; I agree with Tom that this is a digressive and jumpy happy mess of a song. I don’t know if this means anything, but my father, who hated most rock/pop music altogether, liked this song a lot, and I grew up on Smiley Smile and Wild Honey and yet had to catch up to Pet Sounds many many years later.
And this also reminds me a bit of a druggier, deliberately weirder Sufjan Stevens, somewhat.
Chris Brown on February 9th, 2006
Apparently Capitol did contemplate a double-CD collection of takes from this one song.
It’s a slightly strange thing because it’s a song that I hear so much of that it’s almost impossible to have an opinion on at all - I too have never known a time without it. Remarkably, though, I’ve never not enjoyed it - at worst I’ve been mildly disappointed that they’re not playing something less obvious on the radio.
I think I’m still noticing things in it too. I also like the jumps; the fact that it’s so unashamed. For those interested, Keith Badman’s book dissects exactly where the cuts are.
Anonymous on February 9th, 2006
It’s beautiful. Probably my favourite band of all time. I’ll tell you what though - I don’t know anyone who’s favourite Beach Boys song is Good Vibrations…
Tommy Mack
Anonymous on February 10th, 2006
Bloody Hell, I just looked up a list of #1s to see what was coming up… the charts get pretty rum for a few years, a really odd mix of classics, curios, suprise hits from the underground (two reggae #1s in the within a year!) and gurningly piss poor tosh.
Also I reckon we’ve had the last truly great Beatles #1 (except maybe Hey Jude - Strawberry Fields famously stalling at #2)
Anonymous on February 10th, 2006
This single encapsulates everything a pop single should be - it imagines it’s own world and for 2-3 mins we are drawn into it. It isn’t a ’song’ in the conventional sense (try playing it live) much more a painting - the dramatic cuts are akin to an artist throwing paint at the canvas. As has been already pointed out Wilson produced each ‘movement’ of the song separately knowing this would allow him to craft his final masterpiece. Yes he could have cut it a million different ways (and he probably did) but his final cut is a stroke of genius. The experimental avant-garde nature of this can’t be underestimated but more than this though the ethereal vapid quality of it’s whole is far more shocking. It almost isn’t there, which for a song that is so familiar is very unnerving.
Frank Kogan on February 10th, 2006
the total is not short of two-and-a-half hours - enough to fill a 2CD Now That’s What I Call Good Vibrations compilation, if anyone’s a mind.
Not to mention the good vibration dancehall comp that would follow (incl. special remix f. Willie Nelson, Busta Rhymes, and Elephant Man), and the reggaeton video prod. by Lil Jon, featuring Fat Joe.
Frank Kogan on February 10th, 2006
The chorus is the only part of the song that actually signifies “sounds like the Beach Boys” (not that the rest isn’t Beach Boys, it just doesn’t connect you to fun fun fun and I’ll get around). And oddly, that makes the chorus something I can almost take for granted.
It is of course impossible to estimate what this must have sounded like on the 1966 radio; for those who lived in a world where “Good Vibrations” once did not exist, it must have sounded astonishing and ecstatic.
No, because all of 1966 sounded astonishing (though I’d insert “terrifying” in place of “ecstatic”), and “Good Vibrations” was just another song mixed in there with “When I Was Young” and “Sunshine Superman” and “96 Tears” and “Mother’s Little Helper” and “Turned Down Day” and “Steppin’ Stone” and “I Got Rhythm” and “Hanky Panky,” all of which had way more impact on me than “Good Vibrations” did. Believe it or not, I barely noticed “Good Vibrations.”
Mark Gamon on February 14th, 2006
I LOVED this when it came out. I was a monster for the Beach Boys. Sucked up everything they produced until it dawned on me that Brian Wilson wasn’t really with us any more. If you’d asked me just a few days ago, I’d have said this was a definite ten.
Then I saw what was number 1 the previous week: Reach Out I’ll Be There.
I dunno about Marvel comics, I really don’t. What I do know is that the more I listen to late 60s Motown, the more marvellous it becomes. And Reach Out is pretty much the most marvellous of all, give or take a couple of others. I can still picture the Four Tops on Top of the Pops, and thinking then (as I still think know) that this was a truly awesome piece of popular music. Turns out it was more than that. It was a kind of art we’d never thought of as art before.
So there you go, Tom. I’m not gonna quibble with your 9 for Good Vibrations. But if you’re asking me TODAY, at nearly forty years’ distance, which one I think has the most legs, I’d have to insist on the Four Tops getting up there among the 10s.
Dadaismus on March 25th, 2006
Well done Mike Love for coming up for that chorus everyone remembers!