I'm (madly obsessed with) picking up "Good Vibrations"
Think pieces abound in the wake of Brian Wilson's passing, and I hesitate to add another, but a random Beach Boys studio clip may have unlocked a new level of sonic passion in me, and I need to share
Note: Apologies for those expecting the weekly review of the latest Modern Rock Tracks chart #1 hit in my chronological series. I’ll get back to that later this week. I’ve been stuck on Beach Boys stuff the past few days and needed to get this last one out of my brain before getting back on track. In the meantime, if you’re really desperate for some ‘90s alternative rock reviews, please feel free to bask in the awfulness of Soul Asylum’s “Misery” again.
Just this past week, I started to think of musical appreciation in terms of video games, wherein you “level up” in your grasp and understanding of the intricacies of the artform of music. It’s a concept where I knew songs existed and I appreciated them, but I didn’t really appreciate them beyond a very superficial level.
I like to think I appreciate music deeply, that it wakens introspective thoughts in my soul and opens up new channels of sophisticated appreciation, that there’s transcendental bliss to be found with every bass riff and vocal performance.
I’ve had moments where, thinking back on it now, I likely “leveled up” my listening:
The moment I realized that a singer’s voice is, in essence and fact, as much of an “instrument” as a guitar or a drum set.
The 17th time I heard Radiohead’s Kid A and finally *got it*, and now can appreciate it — at least, when I’m in the right mood and the weather is just a certain type of way.
When I heard the bass line from “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” by Crosby, Stills & Nash — really listened for it — and realized that the bass guitar really sets the pace for the rest of a song. It made me appreciate some songs way more than I did before, like “Cannonball” from The Breeders, among many others.
But outside of those one-off moments where something just clicks and I *get it*, I’m just like 99 percent of the music-listening crowd out there: Song sounds good, I like it, I listen to it passively, maybe add it to a playlist or buy an album, and move on. I’ve listened passively to music for decades, loved songs so much that I’ve played them hundreds of times, but arguably never appreciated them.
And then as I was going through all the video tributes and reels about the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson this week, I came across this one, and it stopped me in my tracks:
Not long after I saw this video, another one popped across my music feed, related to the chord progression of the song:
I swear I’ve heard “Good Vibrations” at least 1,000 times in my life. Probably more, given my father’s listening habits in my adolescence and teenage years — odds are good it was on the radio at least once or twice a day, every day, for years. But I’d never once considered how it all came together. One tends to listen to the completed product and just think, “Nice song! Good on ya, Beach Boys, for creating another #1 hit.”
This was my thought before I watched those two videos above. And then, I went to the Wikipedia page for “Good Vibrations,” and … holy shit, that page is LONG! Give it a read sometime if you’re bored or become as obsessed with the song as I did in the past three days, because it is amazing. It’s longer and more complicated than the entries that exist for an artist’s entire catalog!
Things I learned about this song that blew me away:
It took seven months to record this song. SEVEN. MONTHS. That’s a long time to produce an album by today’s standards, and heck, in the ‘60s when bands were putting out two or more albums a year, that must have felt like an eternity.
Brian Wilson effectively created modern music mixing in the studio, taking 90 hours of session work, vocals, and random instruments played by multiple studio musicians and band mates and meticulously splicing hundreds of fragments into the completed song.
They used a theremin. I did not know what a theremin was before researching this song, but I knew what a theremin sounded like — it’s in a handful of songs from the era, as it turns out. But if you want to hear the isolated sound of the theremin and tambourine in “Good Vibrations,” you’ll want to check this out:
They used a cello, which apparently had never been used in a rock song before “Good Vibrations.”
Speaking of good bass lines, how about the bass line in “Good Vibrations”? Fun fact: We *think* the bass was played by Carol Kaye, a member of the famous studio recording group The Wrecking Crew. Because of Brian Wilson’s production setup for this song, it’s entirely possible Kaye’s version of the bass guitar is not the final cut that made it into the release of “Good Vibrations,” but even if it isn’t, it’s a solid component to the track.
The song basically sounds like multiple different songs interlaced perfectly: the intro portion, Mike Love’s “I’m picking up good vibrations” refrain, the second verse, the refrain, the verse “I don't know where but she sends me there,” the slow hush of “got to keep those lovin’ good … vibrations a-happenin’ with her,” and the final enthusiastic vocal/theremin blowout punctuated by the loud “aaaaaaaah” and silence. It never feels like dozens of pieces of a song — it feels whole.
I always appreciated the Beach Boys and their harmonies, but I really sat and listened to how the vocal progression went in the refrain and I just never noticed how Love keeps repeating the same two lines over and over again. It sets the tone to the vocals, but as each new layer of vocals piles on top of it, Love’s voice turns into an instrument, basically another time-keeping instrument that adds to the overall lush backdrop of the song. It’s intentional, I’m sure, but another great example of voice becoming instrument, where the lyrics are secondary to the sound of the voice.
Could just be me, but Mike Love apparently has always been an old man. Even during the studio session recordings linked above, when he was 25 years old, he looks like he’s in his 40s, and at least a decade or more older than the rest of the band.
No one, other than Brian Wilson, knew what the final song would sound like, because it came together entirely in Brian’s head. That’s fascinating, because everyone in the band (along with a handful of studio musicians) worked on it, but had no concept of what the finished product would be.
Turns out, the finished product was genius.
Brian Wilson really was ahead of his time, and “Good Vibrations” just seems to capture the peak of both his creative genius and the madness that famously drove him into reclusion. When describing the process behind the making of “Good Vibrations,” he doesn’t talk about it like music — he talks about it abstractly as feels, something that exists beyond the realm of what we consider music:
"I had a lot of unfinished ideas, fragments of music I called ‘feels.’ Each feel represented a mood or an emotion I'd felt, and I planned to fit them together like a mosaic."
And it was this idea, the concept of a musician taking abstractions and turning them into art that the general public could consume, that “leveled up” the depth of my understanding and appreciation of songs like “Good Vibrations,” albums like Pet Sounds, and artists like Brian Wilson. I hear the song now and I can imagine Brian striving to pull that song out of the ether and make it happen, willing a collection of “feels” into a finished product. And while “Good Vibrations” went to #1 on the Hot 100 and cemented its place in the pantheon of great popular music, I don’t know that many people *get it* on the level that Wilson and the Beach Boys did. Maybe not even the Beach Boys themselves. That fascinates me.
Anyway, there’s a pretty good video that breaks down the full creative process of “Good Vibrations” in a way that’s far better than I ever could. It’s 11 minutes, and well worth the watch to learn an interesting bit about music history:
I appreciate you taking the time to go down this musical rabbit hole with me. I will never attain the genius that Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys did, but I am grateful that they created something that I feel like I can appreciate even more than I did before. I don’t know if this breakdown helps you “level up” your musical experience, but this week definitely proved to be a watershed moment in my journey to better understand and appreciate the music of my lifetime.
And since it’s Father’s Day in the U.S., and since my dad was pivotal to unlocking my first “level” of musical appreciation by playing so many of his generation’s hits in my childhood home (including plenty of Beach Boys), I would be remiss if I didn’t post “God Only Knows” one more time in honor of my old man. I don’t think I ever linked the song to him while he was alive, but something about it makes me think of him every time I hear it, and fills my heart. And the link to the BBC Music performance from 2014, below the official video for the song, is just wonderful.
Here’s hoping you’re all picking up “Good Vibrations” wherever you are and whatever you’re doing.
Oh man, don’t apologize! I love your weekly post, but this was awesome!
Hi Matt, I enjoyed your twin post on Brian and Sly sufficiently that I shared it out this weekend. And therefore gravitated straight to this as part of my morning pages (i.e. reading not writing). ALso because I rewatched Love & Mercy last night, which was my partner Paula's first viewing, so the creation of this song, Pet Sounds before it and the failed Smile that followed, are very much on my mind. (Highly recommend the movie to anyone and all, for a biopic it's remarkably accurate to history.)
I come from a different place, as someone who frequently deep dives into songs and their construction, sometimes to write about them, and in recent years, also in a role directing shows where young students take them on and I need to know every last part if we want to pull off even a close approximation. And no, we never took on Good Vibrations though I would have been up for the challenge.... It is indeed a tour de force unlike anything else in modern music and I would say that among those who do study this stuff, it's always been recognized as such. A poll of music crits/professors/teachers for "greatest single production ever" would almost certainly have it up top. Watching the film, there is also a vindication in its global chart-topping success. That vindication is two-fold , however: not just for Brian's vision, after Pet Sounds stalled Top 10 in the States, but for Mike Love, who is shown in the movie as the hostile member, constantly criticizing Brian's musical ambitions, but who latches on to the initial chords of Good Vibrations (in the movie) and is credited as its lyricist (in real life).
As for the excessively long post on Wikipedia, which I also visited last night, Michel Faber has lots to say about the male nerd domination of content on Wikipedia, and I hope to write about that as part of a longer reflection on his incredible book "Listen" very soon.
Finally for now, Paul McCartney thought God Only Knows the greatest song ever, and it spurred him to write "Here, There & Everywhere" to Revolver at the last minute and then respond further with Sgt, Pepper's. Your dad had good taste. Cheers!