User:ILIL/sandbox/Good Vibrations

"Good Vibrations" is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys that was produced and composed by Brian Wilson with lyrics by Mike Love. It was released as a single on October 10, 1966 and was an immediate critical and commercial hit, topping the charts in many countries including the United States and the United Kingdom. Promoted as a "pocket symphony" for its complex soundscapes and episodic structure, "Good Vibrations" blurred the distinctions between pop and art to mass audiences and became widely acclaimed as one of the finest and most important works of psychedelia, rock, and popular music.

The R&B-influenced song derived from Wilson's fascination with extrasensory perception, cosmic vibrations, and recreational drugs such as LSD. Its making was unprecedented for any kind of recording. Wilson produced dozens of music fragments with his bandmates and a host of session musicians at four different Hollywood studios from February to September 1966, a process reflected in the song's abrupt shifts in key, instrumentation, textures, and mood. With these fragments, he then assembled many different edits of the song before settling on a final composite take. Over 90 hours of tape was consumed in the sessions, with the total cost of production estimated to be in the tens of thousands of dollars, making it the costliest and longest-to-record pop single ever. It was to be included on the band's aborted Smile album, but instead, to Wilson's displeasure, appeared on the September 1967 release Smiley Smile.

One of the most influential recordings in popular music history, "Good Vibrations" effectively launched the progressive pop genre and further developed the use of the studio as an instrument, heralding both a wave of pop experimentation and the onset of psychedelic and progressive rock. With its flower power-inspired lyrics, the song reinforced the Beach Boys as avatars for the contemporary counterculture, while the phrase "good vibes", which had originated as local drug slang, spread into mainstream lexicon. The track featured a novel mix of instruments, including cello (a first in rock music) and Electro-Theremin, and although the latter is not a true theremin, the song's success led to a renewed interest and sales of theremins and synthesizers.

"Good Vibrations" has received numerous industry awards and accolades, and is included on many "greatest of all time" polls and rankings. A 1976 cover version by Todd Rundgren peaked at number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100. The Beach Boys followed up "Good Vibrations" with another single pieced from sections, "Heroes and Villains" (1967), but it was less successful.

"Good Vibrations" was composed by Brian Wilson, who conceived the song while he was playing piano under the influence of marijuana.^[1] The song was essentially a reflection of his fascination with mysticism, spirituality, and recreational drugs.^[2][3] Wilson stated that he had purposefully used drugs to create the song, thinking "If I can create Pet Sounds on drugs, I can create something [even] greater on drugs."^[4] The title phrase itself ("good vibrations" or "good vibes") had originated as local drug slang.^{[5][nb 1]} In a 2007 interview, Wilson stated that the song, like "California Girls", had been inspired by his use of LSD (or "acid"),^[6] but in a 2012 interview, he stated, "I don't accredit it to LSD, I accredit it to marijuana. I smoked marijuana just before I wrote it."^[7]

Pet Sounds had represented a shift in Wilson's creative process, as he recalled in his 1991 memoir, "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."^[8][9] To a similar end, he envisioned "Good Vibrations" as an attempt to surpass Phil Spector's writing and production on the Righteous Brothers' 1964 hit "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'".^[10] He explained, "It goes through stages. So it was a record like 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'' that went through stages of music."^[11] Moreover, his 1991 memoir states that he had conceived "a grand, Spector-like production" for the song while tripping on LSD.^{[12][nb 2]} Biographer David Leaf drew a connection between the song's rapid changes in mood and Wilson's bipolar disorder.^[15]

Wilson said that he had based the song's lyrical premise on a remark from his mother about dogs and their ability to sense "vibrations" from people.^{[17][18][nb 3]} He first brought the concept to Pet Sounds lyricist Tony Asher early in 1966.^[17] According to Asher, "Brian played for me a bunch of chords that would become "Good Vibrations." He didn't have a title for it [...]".^[17] Wilson had only the basic chorus of the song^[21] and the words "I get vibes, I get good vibes".^[22] He proposed calling the song "Good Vibes", but Asher thought that the phrase sounded "trendy" and "lightweight", and instead suggested the non-abbreviated form, "Good Vibrations".^[21] Asher then turned the chorus lyrics into "Good, good, good, good vibrations".^[22]

Asher wrote more words for the verses, but these were ultimately discarded in favor of a new set of lyrics penned by Mike Love.^[17] Love said, "I was later told that Tony Asher had taken a crack at the words, but Brian wasn't satisfied."^[23] In Asher's recollection, before Pet Sounds had been completed, Wilson's bandmates had "felt that Brian's decision to write with me was a bad decision", and so he and Wilson did not extend their collaborations afterward, leaving the song unfinished for a time.^{[24][nb 4]}

After much procrastination, Love penned the completed lyrics to "Good Vibrations" on August 24, 1966 during the twenty-minute drive to the studio.^[26][27] This included the lines in the verses and the chorus hook, "I'm picking up good vibrations / she's giving me excitations".^{[28][nb 5]} However, although Love cites the chorus hook as his own "musical contribution" to the song,^[7] he had adapted the melody from the bass line that Wilson had already composed.^[13][29] By then, Wilson had enlisted session musician Van Dyke Parks as the lyricist to the Beach Boys' next planned album, Smile.^[30][31]

Mike Love described the lyrics as "just a flowery poem" in a similar vein to Scott McKenzie's 1967 hit "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)".^[32] "Good Vibrations" begins with a description of a woman's "colorful clothes", the sunlight shining on her hair, "the sound of a gentle word", and a wind that spreads the scent of her perfume.^[28] Wilson commented, "Those are sensual things. And then you go, 'I'm pickin' up good vibrations,' which is a contrast against all the sensual – there's what you call the extrasensory perception which we have. And this is what we're really talking about."^[33][34]

The alternate Asher-penned lyrics had different lines in the verses, starting with "She's already working on my brain / I only looked in her eyes / But I picked up something I just can't explain". The second verse had "It's weird how she comes in so strong / And I wonder what she's pickin' up from me".^[35][25] Music historian Clinton Heylin opined, "Not exactly 'Norwegian Wood', let alone 'Like a Rolling Stone'. Yet clearly a song about a girl who affects the singer just like a certain drug."^[25]

In Love's revision of the second verse, he wrote the lines, "Softly smile, I know she must be kind / When I look in her eyes / She goes with me to a blossom world we find".^[36] During the editing stage, Wilson excised the last two words, "we find".^[13] Love said, "I preferred the rhyme, but I can't argue with ending on 'blossom world' — evoking the peace movement that was gaining steam while suggesting the euphoria of being in love."^[13] Heylin writes that the "blossom world" line represents the last remaining "vestige of the hallucinogenic quality Wilson originally had in mind".^[5] Academic Larry M. Starr suggests that the lyrics of "Good Vibrations" are "the only remotely conventional thing about the song", although "there is something otherworldly [...] at least when they claim, 'I don't know where, but she sends me there,' or when they refer to 'a blossom world,' not to mention the 'good vibrations' themselves."^[37]

Alternative interpretations of the lyrics have been offered by the band and their associates. During a 1971 concert, Bruce Johnston introduced "Good Vibrations" as a song that "reflects these really fucked up times".^[38] Lorren Daro, a former acquaintance of Wilson's, wrote in a 2012 blog post that "Good Vibrations" had been "written about my wife, Lynda". Daro explained that because he had supplied LSD to Wilson, "Brian could not mention my name in public, or to any of them, except in 'regretting' his LSD experience. Brian’s mother, Audrey [sic], became the inspiration for ‘Good Vibrations’. Just reading the lyrics will explode that myth."^[39]

Love said, "I'll be the first to acknowledge that excitations is not really a word, but it rhymed."^[40] According to Parks, he was asked by Wilson to revise Love's words because "he was embarrassed with the 'excitation' part Mike Love had insisted on adding. But I told Brian that I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole and that nobody'd be listening to the lyrics anyway once they heard that music."^[41]

"Good Vibrations" has been variously categorized as pop,^[42][43][44] rock,^[45] progressive pop,^[46][47] art pop,^[48][49] pop art,^[50] psychedelic rock,^[51][52] acid rock,^[51][53] psychedelic pop,^[54][42] avant-pop,^[55][56] and R&B.^[57][58][59] Partly due to the nature of its recording, each section of "Good Vibrations" features a distinct musical texture.^[60] An uncredited writer for the publication Sound on Sound argued that the song "has as many dramatic changes in mood as a piece of serious classical music lasting more than half an hour". It explained that the song subverts standard pop conventions to a considerable degree:

Typical pop songs of that era (or indeed any era) usually have a basic groove running throughout the track which doesn't change a great deal from start to finish [...] pop records were either guitar, bass and drum combos or traditional orchestrated arrangements for vocalists [...] The exotic instruments, the complex vocal arrangements, and the many dynamic crescendos and decrescendos all combine to set this record apart from most pop music. In short, if there's an instruction manual for writing and arranging pop songs, this one breaks every rule.^[61]

Wilson himself described the song as "advanced rhythm and blues" and "modern, avant-garde R&B".^[33][64] Since its release, it has been more commonly classified as pop rather than rock. Academic Lorenzo Candelaria surmised that this is "possibly because it comes across relatively innocent compared with the hard-edged rock we have since come to know."^[65] Wilson acknowledged, "It's a real funny thing—nobody ever really called 'Good Vibrations' a rock 'n' roll record. But it was a rock 'n' roll record. It rocked. It really rocked."^[66] Biographer Jon Stebbins agreed, "unlike Pet Sounds, the chorus of 'Good Vibrations' projects a definite 'rock and roll' energy and feel."^[67]

Comparing "Good Vibrations" to Wilson's past work, musicologist John Covach traces the song's "intensely experimental quality" to Wilson's lush, quasi-symphonic production of "California Girls".^[68] Music historian Luis Sanchez writes, "In its conviction and nuance, there is little that distinguishes 'Good Vibrations' from [...] Pet Sounds."^[59] Musicologist Philip Lambert writes that the "basic feel" of the verses are similar to the Pet Sounds track "Here Today".^[69]

Mike Love's first impression of "Good Vibrations" was that it sounded like the type of "very heavy R&B" associated with the singer Wilson Pickett.^[70] In a 1978 interview, Love opined that the song was "rather logical and sequential after Pet Sounds which was rather sequential and logical after 'I Get Around'."^[71] However, in 2012, he recalled feeling apprehensive about the "avant-garde" nature of the track. "I wondered how our fans were going to relate to it. How’s this going to go over in the Midwest or Birmingham? It was such a departure from 'Surfin’ USA' or 'Help Me Rhonda'."^[7]

In the belief of biographer Peter Ames Carlin, Wilson came to view the song as "a smaller, psychedelic version" of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.^[72] AllMusic reviewer John Bush compared the track to the cut-up technique employed by experimental composers such as William S. Burroughs.^[73] American Songwriter contributor Tom Rowland described "Good Vibrations" as "a sort of pop version of the classical sonata, consisting of a series of musical movements".^[74]

"Good Vibrations" established Wilson's new method of recording and song composition.^[76][77] Instead of working on whole songs with clear large-scale syntactical structures, Wilson limited himself to recording short interchangeable fragments (or "modules"). Through the method of tape splicing, each fragment could then be assembled into a linear sequence, allowing any number of larger structures and divergent moods to be produced at a later time.^{[78][nb 6]} Biographer Mark Dillon likened Wilson's methods to "a film director finding his story in the editing room".^[80] Such an approach was unprecedented in the history of record production and popular music,^[76][63][81] including within the fields of jazz, classical recordings, and soundtracks.^{[63][nb 7]} To mask each tape splice, vast reverb decays were added at the mixing and sub-mixing stages.^[61]

"Good Vibrations" took longer to record than any other pop single in history.^[82] At a time when pop singles were typically recorded in a day or two,^[83] the production for "Good Vibrations" spanned approximately twenty recording sessions at four different Hollywood studios over the course of seven months.^[72] Asked why he used this many studios, Wilson replied, "Because we wanted to experiment with combining studio sounds. Every studio has its own marked sound. Using the four different studios had a lot to do with the way the final record sounded."^[33] He explained that the track took so long to complete because "the more we created, the more we wanted to create [...] there was no real set direction we were going in."^[84][78] Dillon summarizes,

Brian seemed able to conceive limitless variations on the song's main theme, recording wildly disparate fragments in styles from woodwind-based Eastern mysticism to Sunday morning church service to comical Roaring Twenties jazz. [...] The transitions between fragments were sometimes seamless, other times startling in their juxtaposition of tone and tempo.^[80]

Per usual, to assist with the recording of the backing tracks, Wilson employed the services of session musicians active in Los Angeles at that time, a group later known as "the Wrecking Crew".^[54] Session drummer Hal Blaine said, "We had no idea what the finished piece was going to sound like. I think we were working on the song for six months, and this was the same bunch of musicians that [would later] cut 'MacArthur Park' in two takes."^[23] Carlin writes that Wilson himself would occasionally arrive at a session, consider a few possibilities, and then leave without recording anything.^[72] Over 90 hours of recording tape was consumed in the process.^[85][64]

Wilson reported that some of his bandmates "had resisting ideas" and "didn't quite understand" the process of using different studios or how he envisaged the completed record.^{[33][64][nb 8]} These arguments were effectively an extension of what had occurred during the recording of Pet Sounds earlier in the year.^[64] He remembered, "There was a lot of 'oh you can't do this, that's too modern' or 'that's going to be too long a record.' I said no, it's not going to be too long a record, it's going to be just right."^[33][64] Wilson's 1991 memoir, Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story, states of his bandmates' reactions, "Al didn't like it, Carl [...] thought it was bizarre, and Mike called it more avant-garde crap and too long."^[87]

Wilson envisioned for "Good Vibrations" to feature a theremin early in its production. He said, "When 'Good Vibrations' was forming itself in my mind, I could hear the theremin on the track. It sounds like a woman's voice or like a violin bow on a carpenter's saw. You make it waver, just like a human voice. It's groovy!"^[88] On February 15, 1966, he recorded the backing track to the Pet Sounds song "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times"; the occasion marked his first usage of the Electro-Theremin, an electronic theremin-soundalike instrument that was performed by its inventor, Paul Tanner.^[89]

"Good Good Good Vibrations"

Excerpt from a discarded alternate edit of "Good Vibrations" created on March 3, 1966.^[75] Musicologist Philip Lambert writes that this version resembled the records of Motown through its "driving beat" and "bluesy" vocals.^[69]

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Three days later, on February 17, Wilson recorded the first version of "Good Vibrations" (logged on the AFM contract as "Untitled #1") at Gold Star Studios.^[10] Tanner was once again employed to play his Electro-Theremin. There was some difficulty in maintaining a consistent volume for the instrument, and the track required 26 takes before Wilson completed the session with a rough mono mix.^[90] On March 3, vocals were overdubbed by Brian and Carl.^[75][91] Also overdubbed at this session was Fender bass (in the chorus) and jaw harp.^[75]

A Capitol Records memo, dated February 23, indicates that a song titled "Good Good Good Vibrations" was planned for inclusion on Pet Sounds.^[88] By March 3, plans had changed.^[92] With the track still unfinished, Wilson decided to excise "Good Vibrations" from the Pet Sounds line-up, much to the dismay of his bandmates.^[93] Al Jardine recalled that Wilson instead delivered "Sloop John B" after Capitol had demanded that a "hit single" be included on the album.^[93] Jardine thought that Wilson made "a big mistake", a sentiment shared by Bruce Johnston, who surmised that including "Good Vibrations" would have sold more copies of the album.^[94] However, the song was not completed until several months later, and after much reworking.^[77]

For the next several weeks, Wilson focused his efforts on completing the remaining Pet Sounds tracks.^[88] Later in March, he recorded "Here Today", which Dillon describes as "the most direct precursor [sic] to 'Good Vibrations'".^[95] On April 9, Wilson returned to Gold Star to rerecord "Good Vibrations" from scratch.^[75] This second version had a 2:28 duration^[96] and featured an ocarina, an accordion, a 12-string electric guitar, and a piano with taped strings, among other instruments.^[75] At the end of the month, Pet Sounds was completed and mastered without "Good Vibrations" in the running order.^[97]

Starting on May 4, with a session held at Western Studio, Wilson began recording "Good Vibrations" in sections, rather than tracking the full piece all the way through, with the intention of later splicing the fragments into a composite track.^[100] Logged with the titles "First Chorus", "Second Chorus", and "Fade", this session was intended to produce the record's choruses, bridges, and fade-out.^[75] Music historian Keith Badman describes this version as "an R&B number that many of the session musicians present will later recall as being as good as the released record."^[101] Western staff engineer Chuck Britz said, "That song was [Brian's] whole life's performance in one song. [...] Basically, it was a hit song the minute he cut it. But at that period of time, he was striving to do something that was totally different than what he'd done before."^[64]

Still dissatisfied, from May 24 through June 2, Wilson recorded several more "Good Vibrations" fragments across four sessions held at Western and Sunset Sound Recorders.^[102] These sessions produced an assortment of different choruses, bridges, and codas.^[75] By May 25, Wilson had conceived the lyric "gotta keep those lovin' good...".^[103] The late May sessions were variously given the labels "Part C", "Chorus", and "Fade Sequence",^[75] while the June 2 tape was logged as "Inspiration".^[103]

Former MGM Records executive David Anderle recalled, "When I first got in with Brian, it was right around the time of the fourth [attempt at] 'Good Vibrations'. I heard it, and it knocked me out, and I said, "Uh oh, there's something happening here that is unbelievable."^[104] Some time later, Wilson informed Anderle that he had scrapped "Good Vibrations" and planned to sell the song to Warner Brothers Records, "to be put out as an R&B song, sung by a colored group."^{[104][nb 9]} After consulting with singer Danny Hutton, whom Anderle managed at the time, Anderle proposed that Wilson finish and produce the record for Hutton. Wilson declined, and ultimately chose to complete the song himself. According to Anderle, "I don't personally think [my proposal] caused him to decide to finish [the song], but [it might have given] him a different perspective."^{[104][106][nb 10]} Heylin speculates, "In all likelihood Wilson felt that that the song's lyrics were too much of a throwback to the old Beach Boys formula – cars and girls."^[108]

On June 12, a cello, played by session musician Jesse Ehrlich, was overdubbed onto the "Inspiration" track from June 2.^[109][75] There are conflicting reports as to whether Brian or Carl had suggested using a cello.^[80] Brian stated in a 1988 interview that Carl had suggested hiring a cello player, and Brian himself "instantly decoded it into a triplet thing".^[110] Conversely, Parks credited himself with suggesting that the celloist play a triplet figure.^[111] Furthermore, Parks explained that "exploiting the cello to such a hyperbolic degree" was what led himself and Wilson to collaborate on the album that became Smile.^[112] On June 16 and 18, several more rerecordings of various sections were tracked, none of which made the final edit.^[75] After this, Wilson took a nine-week break from the production of "Good Vibrations".^[109]

Carl Wilson told a reporter at the time that the song "should have been our next single, [but it] didn't turn out the way Brian wanted", so Capitol instead issued "Wouldn't It Be Nice" as a single on July 18.^[113] Brian returned to the studio in early August, but only to record the tracks "Wind Chimes" and "Look", occasions which unofficially marked the beginning of the Smile sessions.^[114] Although Wilson rarely (if ever) mentions the Beatles' Revolver in interviews and other media,^[115] music journalist Barry Miles speculates that the album (released in the U.S. on August 8) acted as an impetus for Wilson to finish "Good Vibrations".^[116] Alternatively, Carlin offers that Wilson felt galvanized to complete the single after collaborating with Parks on "Wind Chimes".^[117]

About a dozen or more different versions of "Good Vibrations" were completed before Wilson settled on a final edit.^{[13][118][nb 11]} On August 11, the touring members of the Beach Boys played a concert at the Civic Memorial Auditorium in Fargo, North Dakota. Carl remembered that he received a call from Brian later that night. "He called me from the recording studio and played this really bizarre sounding music over the phone. There were drums smashing, that kind of stuff, and then it refined itself and got into the cello. It was a real funky track."^[119]

Unused "fuzz bass bridge"

Excerpt from a discarded alternate edit of "Good Vibrations" created on August 24, 1966.^[75]

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At least two group vocal sessions followed at Columbia Studios between August 24 and September 1.^[75] Mike Love said, "I can remember doing 25 to 30 vocal overdubs, of the same part, and when I say part, I mean the same section of the record, maybe no more than two, three, four, five seconds long!"^[119] A discarded edit from August 24 contained a "fuzz bass bridge" that was nearly included in the final master.^[75] Dissatisfied with the initial recording, Wilson subsequently had the group rerecord their whole vocal performance.^[119]

On September 1, the second (or "church organ") bridge, which replaced the "fuzz bass bridge" from before, was recorded at Western.^[75] Badman states that the master tapes of "Good Vibrations" went missing in September, but were "mysteriously" found inside Wilson's home two days later.^[118] The backing track of the master "Good Vibrations" tape was then compiled as follows:

• verses: February 17 at Gold Star
• first and second choruses: June 2 at Western
• first bridge: May 4 at Western
• '"church organ" bridge: September 1 at Western
• third chorus: June 2 at Western
• third bridge: May 27 at Western
• chorus fade: May 27 at Western^[75]

The lead vocal had been planned to be sung by Dennis Wilson, but because he suffered from laryngitis at the time, he was replaced by Carl shortly before the last run of vocal sessions.^[118] On September 12, the group recorded their final vocals. Nine days later, on September 21, another overdubbing session was held for additional vocals and an Electro-Theremin part.^[75] This seven-hour session, which lasted from 7:00pm to approximately 3:00am, also included work on the track's final mixdown.^[120] Wilson reflected in a 1976 intervew,

It was at Columbia. I remember I had it right in the sack. I could just feel it when I dubbed it down, made the final mix from the 16-track down to mono. It was a feeling of power, it was a rush. A feeling of exaltation. Artistic beauty. It was everything [...] I remember saying, "Oh my God. Sit back and listen to this!"^[33][29]

The total runtime, 3:35, was unusually long for a pop record, and it far exceeded the three-minute limit that had been imposed by the music industry's record executives and radio programmers.^[121][13] Wilson stated in his interview for the 1995 documentary Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey,

I had no idea that it'd be a hit record. We had thought we weren't even going to release it, because it was so bizarre. Capitol Records said, "It's too long." [...] They wanted to release "Barbara Ann" or something like that [instead]. We said, "No!" We had gotten people over to our houses listening. People were flipping, they were going "Woo! That's a great fuckin' record, man!" And I said, "But our company doesn't want to release it." And they said, "Well you shouldn't listen to your company, force them to put it out!"^[66]

"Good Vibrations" was the most expensive single ever recorded,^[77][82] with the budget far exceeding that of a typical pop album.^[46] Mike Love remarked, "I doubt Brian had any idea about the cost, nor did he care".^[13] Estimates of the total production costs range from $10,000 to $50,000 (equivalent to $90,000 and $470,000 in 2023).^[122][13] By comparison, Pet Sounds had cost an unprecedented $70,000 (equivalent to $660,000 in 2023).^[123]

Contemporary advertisements reported $10,000 as the track's total production costs.^[124] Biographers John Tobler and Timothy White cite a figure of $16,000,^[125][126] while Domenic Priore says that the track cost between $10,000 and $15,000.^[127] Other reports claim that "Good Vibrations" had cost up to $75,000 (equivalent to $700,000 in 2023).^[12][128][7] In a 2018 interview, Wilson disputed the $50,000 figure, saying that the overall expenses were closer to $25,000 (equivalent to $230,000 in 2023).^[129] Asked in a 2005 interview if it was true that the Electro-Theremin work alone cost $100,000, Wilson replied "No. $15,000."^[130]

Identifying formal patterns in "Good Vibrations" is problematic due to the abstract nature of the song structure.^[67][37] Covach, who opted for numerical labels, writes, "Taken as a whole, the song does not fit neatly into any conventional pop formal pattern, except in the most general sense that contrasting material often follows the second statement of the chorus."^[132] Starr agrees, "There is no name for the form of 'Good Vibrations'; it is as individual and distinctive as everything else about this recording."^[37] He proposes that "development", a term normally reserved for classical music, would be appropriate in describing the piece's formal structure.^[133]

"Good Vibrations" starts with a traditional verse-chorus (or verse-refrain) structure in the key of E♭ minor.^[8][82] Despite being in a minor key, the music does not project sadness or drudgery.^[134] It begins with the voice of Carl Wilson, whose singing is characterized by biographer Mark Dillon as "so airy, it could be floating on cloud of marijuana smoke".^[122] Some of Carl's lines later in the song ("I hear the sound of a ..." and "when I look ...") are doubled by Brian.^[75]

Carl sings the word "I" as a triplet eighth note before the first downbeat.^[61] He is then joined by a repetition of chords played on a Hammond organ filtered through a Leslie speaker; underneath is a two-bar Fender bass melody. This sequence repeats once (0:15), but with the addition of two piccolos sustaining over a falling flute line.^[60] For percussion, bongo drums double the bass rhythm and every fourth-beat is struck by either a tambourine or a bass-drum-and-snare combination, in alternation.^[60] The beat projects a triplet feel despite being in ⁴
₄ time; this is sometimes called a "shuffle beat" or "threes over fours".^[61]

The verse chord progression is i–♭VII^add6–♭VI^add6–V.^[135][134] Lambert cites this progression as an example of Wilson's tendency for whole-step root movement, previously heard in "Lonely Sea" and "Don't Hurt My Little Sister".^[135] A passing D♭ (V) chord appears at the very end of the "Good Vibrations" verses, which prepares the listener for the key modulation that follows in the chorus.^[8]

The chorus (0:25) begins in the newly tonicized relative major key of G♭ major, which, in the context of the previous verses, suggests ♭III.^[134] Carlin notes that the introduction of the theremin evokes "the vibrations zooming around on the psychic plane",^[35] an interpretation shared by Starr.^[133] Simultaneously, a cello and string bass plays a bowed tremolo triplet, a feature that Everett calls an "exceedingly rare effect" in pop music,^[136] while marking the first time in history that a cello was used in a rock song.^[64][13] Musician Jace Lasek commented, "In the 1960s, having the cello chug along like that was shocking. It was an innovative use of a classical instrument, but it still sounded like rock 'n' roll."^[22] Wilson himself compared the effect of the cello triplets to the Crystals' "Da Doo Ron Ron".^[137]

Meanwhile, the Fender bass is steady at one note per beat while tom drums and tambourine provide a backbeat. This time, the rhythm is stable, and is split into four 4-bar sections which gradually build its vocals.^[61] The beginning of the chorus consists of only the couplet "I'm picking up good vibrations / she's giving me the excitation", sung by Mike Love in his bass-baritone register.^[61] Wilson likened Love's singing to the bass vocal on the Dell-Vikings' "Come Go with Me",^[138] while Love himself felt that the chorus evoked the work of James Brown and the Famous Flames.^[13] Love's hook is repeated a second time, but with an added "ooo bop bop" figure, sung in multiple-part harmony. A third repeat adds a "good, good, good, good vibrations" in yet a higher harmony.^[61] Each repeat of the transposes the song up by a whole step, ascending from G♭ to A♭ and then B♭.^[134] It then returns to the verse, thus making a perfect cadence back into E♭ minor.^[134]

At the end of this part of the song, both the verse and chorus repeat without any changes to the patterns of its instrumentation and harmony. This is unusual, in that normally, a song's arrangement adds something once it reaches the second verse.^[61]

Stebbins says that the next part of the song "might be called a bridge under normal circumstances, but the song's structure takes such an abstract route that traditional labels don't really apply."^{[67][nb 12]} Lambert refers to these two sections as part of an overall "dream sequence".^[139] Harrison elected to call them "episodic digressions".^[131]

The last chord in the second chorus, B♭, which had received a dominant (V) charge, is maintained as a tonic (I) in the section that follows. There is harmonic ambiguity, in that the chord progression may be either interpreted as I–IV–I (in B♭) or V–I–V (in E♭).^[8] A new sound is created by tack piano, jaw harp, and bass relegated to strong beats which is subsequently (1:55) augmented by a new electric organ, bass harmonica, and sleigh bells shaken on every beat.^[140] The lone line of vocals (aside from non-lexical harmonies) is "I don't know where, but she sends me there" sung in Mike Love's upper-register baritone. This section lasts for ten measures (6 + 2 + 2), which is unexpectedly long in light of previous patterns.^[8]

Lambert identifies this part as the song's "ascent" and the next part as its "meditation".^[139] Harrison notes of the next section,

The appearance of episode 1 was unusual enough but could be explained as an extended break between verse and refrain sections. Episode 2 however, makes that interpretation untenable, and both listener and analyst must entertain the idea that "Good Vibrations" develops under its own power, as it were, without the guidance of overdetermined formal patterns. [The term] "pocket symphony" is a telling clue about [Brian's] formal ambitions here.^[131]

At 2:13, the song transitions to the sounds of an electric organ playing sustained chords, in the key of F,^[131] with a maraca shaken on every beat.^[141] Sound on Sound highlights this change as the track's "most savage edit". The writer explains, "most people would go straight into a big splash hook-line section. Brian Wilson decided to slow the track even further, moving into a 23-bar section of church organ [...] Most arrangers would steer clear of this kind of drop in pace, on the grounds that it would be chart suicide, but not Brian."^[61] Carl remembered that their father "was worried about the bridge section. You know, the time change, 'They can't dance to it.'"^[86]

The sequence ends with a choral "ah" singing the chord E♭/F, then followed with a general pause.^[142] This momentary break creates tension which leads into the final sequence of the song.^[131]

Following the break, the chorus reappears for an additional five measures, marching through a transpositional structure that begins in B♭, repeats at A♭, and then ends at G♭ for an unexpectedly short single measure.^[131] The section uses a descending progression, which mirrors the ascending progression of the previous two refrains. There follows a short section of vocalizing in three-part counterpoint that references the original refrain by reproducing upward transposition. However, this time it settles on A♭, the concluding key of the song.^[131]

Wilson recalled, "as soon as we got to [singing] that [ending choir] part I said, 'This is a masterpiece record.'"^[105] By the end of "Good Vibrations," all seven scale degrees of the opening E♭ minor tonic are activated on some level.^[131]

Band publicist Derek Taylor, who had spearheaded a British media campaign for Pet Sounds, contributed greatly to the success of "Good Vibrations" with his continued promotional efforts.^[144][145] To promote the single, Taylor coined the phrase "pocket symphony", which Wilson thought "encapsulated the record perfectly".^[146] On July 2, 1966, the Beach Boys ran a Pet Sounds advertisement in Billboard that thanked the industry for the album's sales. The advertisement included the first publicized hint of the forthcoming single: "We're moved over the fact that our Pet Sounds brought on nothing but Good Vibrations".^[147]

During the summer, Wilson told journalist Tom Nolan: "Our new single, Good Vibrations, is gonna be a monster. [...] Of course, it’s still sticking pretty close to that same boy-girl thing, you know, but with a difference. And it’s a start. It's definitely a start."^[59][148] On August 26, Brian and Carl Wilson met Paul McCartney and George Harrison at Taylor's home.^[27] At this meeting, Brian played a work-in-progress acetate of "Good Vibrations". Taylor later reported of the song, "it impressed Paul, who asked for the dub 'as a souvenir.' Brian said he'd rather not part with it. He wasn't completely happy with the sound. Oh well."^[149][150]

Once the record was completed, Wilson, accompanied by his personal assistant Michael Vosse, reportedly appeared on the local television program It's Boss, hosted by Sam Riddle.^[151] In Anderle's recollection, "They went down, and they actually got on TV and played it. And Brian was eating carrots while it was [playing] [...] he was doing his whole vegetable thing to Sam Riddle. That was the beginning of the moment. And it was tremendous watching it on TV. And we all know what happened to 'Good Vibrations'."^[151] Conversely, Carlin's 2006 biography of Wilson states that Wilson and Vosse had instead appeared on "Lloyd Thaxton's locally televised dance show".^[152] Carlin writes, "The appearance turned odd when Brian insisted on bringing out an enormous basket of vegetables he'd had [his wife] Marilyn prepare and spoke at length to a very confused Thaxton about the benefits of eating plenty of roughage."^[152]

The "Good Vibrations" single (backed with the Pet Sounds instrumental "Let's Go Away for Awhile") was then released in the U.S. on October 10, 1966.^[153] In Britain, "Good Vibrations" (backed with the All Summer Long track "Wendy") was issued on November 2.^[154] Soon afterward, Wilson told a reporter, "I'm most proud of "Good Vibrations". It exemplifies a whole era. It's a whole, involved piece of music that says something."^[155][156]

On October 21, 1966, eleven days after the single had been released, Wilson accompanied his bandmates to the University of Michigan in Lansing, where they performed "Good Vibrations" in concert for the first time. Wilson supervised the rehearsals and attended two shows there as a member of the audience.^[157] At the end of the second show, he was persuaded to walk onstage and join his bandmates for the encore, "Johnny B. Goode". He received a standing ovation from the audience.^[157] On his return flight to Los Angeles, he ordered his wife to assemble as many of his friends as possible for an impromptu photoshoot held at LAX.^{[158][nb 13]}

The group, without Brian, then embarked on a three-week tour of Europe, including stops in France, Germany, Austria, Denmark, and Sweden, as well as their first performances in the United Kingdom.^[161] On October 26, the band mimed "Good Vibrations" for an appearance on the French television program Tilt Magazine, which aired the following January. It was their only appearance on European television for the duration of the tour.^[154]

Reviewing their late October concert in Paris, Melody Maker's Mike Hennesy wrote that the Beach Boys had "a tough time on stage" reproducing their studio sound, and that their rendition of "Good Vibrations" "sounded a little thin compared with the recorded [version]."^[154] Fearing embarrassment, the group then cancelled several appearances on Ready Steady Go! and Top of the Pops, which had been scheduled for November.^[154]

As "Good Vibrations" rose on the charts, the Beach Boys' touring revenue rapidly approached $2 million annually (equivalent to $18.8 million in 2023).^[162] Capitol ran a two-page magazine advertisement proclaiming, "'Good Vibrations'—No. 1 in the USA, No. 1 in England".^[163] On November 6, the band performed their first-ever UK shows at the Finsbury Park Astoria in London, a concert whose attendees included Brian Epstein, Spencer Davis, John Walker, the Shadows, and Cathy McGowan.^[164] Ray Coleman of Disc & Music Echo rued, "'Good Vibrations' was less successful [than their other concert renditions]. But then nobody expected them to sound as good 'live' as on record. And this was where they fell down. Their stage act was nil."^[164]

Four different promotional films for "Good Vibrations" were produced.^[153] The first film, produced on October 23, 1966, begins by showing the group asleep at a fire station, after which they slide down fire poles and traverse the streets of Los Angeles, attempting to jump on the back of a moving firetruck.^[165] It aired on Top of the Pops on November 24, 1966.^[166] The second film shows the group working in the studio. It aired on the French news program Cinq Colonnes à La Une in February 1967.^[166]

The third and fourth films were compiled from footage originally captured for Peter Whitehead's documentary The Beach Boys in London. Both of these promos show candid footage of the Beach Boys during their tour of Britain in November. The shorter edit aired on Top of the Pops on November 10 and the German program Beat Club on December 31. The extended edit includes additional footage, including a scene where Al Jardine and Dennis Wilson visit Portabello Road, a scene where the group travel to an EMI press conference on November 7, and clips from the band's November 14 concert at the Hammersmith Odeon. This edit aired on Top of the Pops on November 17.^[166]

"Good Vibrations" sold over 293,000 copies within the first four days of release.^[153] It debuted on Cash Box at number 62, on October 22,^[153] and the Billboard Hot 100 at number 38, on October 28.^[167] By the end of November, it had become the Beach Boys' first million-selling single,^[45][151] topping every British chart for two weeks.^[46] On December 3, the record was certified silver by the BPI.^[168] From November to December, the record also peaked at number 1 in France, number 2 in Canada and Australia, and number 4 in Germany.^[169]

On December 10, 1966, the record topped the Billboard Hot 100, displacing the New Vaudeville Band's "Winchester Cathedral" and giving the Beach Boys their third U.S. number-one hit, following "I Get Around" and "Help Me, Rhonda".^[170] It was also their first number-one hit in both the U.S. and the UK.^[171] Eleven days later, on December 21, "Good Vibrations" was certified gold by the RIAA.^{[172][nb 14]} It remained among the top ten positions for seven weeks (two at number one before being overtaken by the Monkees' "I'm a Believer").^[174] Having sold over two million copies, the record began dropping off the charts in January 1967.^[175]

In June 1976, Capitol reissued "Good Vibrations" with the B-side "Wouldn't It Be Nice". This time, the single peaked at number 18.^[176] As of 1997, "Good Vibrations" was still the band's best-selling UK single.^[177] "Good Vibrations" remains Wilson's last song to reach the U.S. top 10.^{[178][nb 15]}

Music journalist Peter Doggett writes that "Good Vibrations" was "greeted universally as the most breathtaking and adventurous piece of pop music ever released."^[180] Conversely, biographer Steven Gaines states that "the reaction was less certain" in America.^[70] According to Leaf, some radio programmers had initially refused to play the song due to concerns "that it might be both too long and too progressive".^[151] Bruce Morrow, New York's preeminent disc jockey, was said by Mike Love to have "hated" the record, "because it was so different. He wanted to hear 'I Get Around' or 'Surfin' USA' one more time, or 'California Girls Part Two'."^[71] Another biographer, Timothy White, acknowledges that while there were disc jockey in Los Angeles who were skeptical of the record, they "immediately made it the Pick Hit of the Week".^[126]

On October 15, 1966, five days after the single was issued in the U.S., Billboard predicted that "Good Vibrations" would reach the top 20 on their Hot 100 chart before concluding, "[There's] a sure-fire hit in this off-beat and intriguing rhythm number. Should hit hard and fast."^[181] Cash Box called the song a "catchy, easy-driving ditty loaded with the Boys’ money-making sound."^[182]

Ahead of the band's November 18 concert in Indianapolis, Variety magazine reported that the song had "topped last week's list of disk faves among local high school students".^[183] Jon Stebbins remembered his initial reaction to the single being that it must have been recorded by a "new psychedelic group"; after realizing it was the Beach Boys, he thought, "Man, those guys have really freaked out."^[43] James B. Murphy, author of the 2015 biography Becoming the Beach Boys, recounted that he had purchased the single at his older brother's urging. Murphy, then a ten-year-old living in The Bronx, later wrote of his experience listening to the record for the first time,

We didn't speak [as we listened together]. It was like a sacred experience. As if we were alone in St. Ann's Church and it would have been a sin to shatter the silence. If someone had recorded Heaven this is what it would sound like. [...] We must have played "Good Vibrations" fifty times in a row.^[184]

Among the early rock journalists in America, Crawdaddy! founder Paul Williams raved in his magazine, "No matter what you've heard, all the BEACH BOYS sing on 'GV'; the instrumental work, however is done by studio musicians. Some of the stranger sounds are from a theremin [sic]; now Brian wants a cathedral organ for the next album."^[185] One of the record's few detractors was San Francisco jazz critic Ralph J. Gleason, who had recently shifted his focus to writing about Bob Dylan.^[186] Gleason disregarded the Beach Boys as "LA hype" before adding "I think I liked them better before, if only for sociological reasons".^[187]

In Britain, "Good Vibrations" received favorable reviews from the New Musical Express, Melody Maker, and The Sunday Express.^[188] The headline of the Sunday Express's review proclaimed, "They've Found the New Sound at Last!"^{[85][151][189]} NME said that the record was "technically brilliant" and "impeccably performed".^[154][190]

In 1967, one month after Jann Wenner had launched Rolling Stone magazine, he favorably referred to "Good Vibrations" as "an honest-to-God monster" and "a song you can bathe in".^[191] Cheetah contributor Jules Siegel wrote in 1967 that the song had "marked the beginning of a new era in pop music", however, among the majority of American music critics, "everybody agreed that Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys were still too square. It would take more than 'Good Vibrations' and Pet Sounds to erase three and a half years of 'Little Deuce Coupe'".^[192]

In December 1966, "Good Vibrations" was voted the best single of 1966 by readers of Disc & Music Echo and Valentine.^[193] The Beach Boys were also voted the number one band in the world in the NME readers' poll, ahead of the Beatles, the Walker Brothers, the Rolling Stones, and the Four Tops.^[194][193] Billboard said that the NME's result was probably influenced by the success of "Good Vibrations" when the votes were cast, together with the band's recent tour, whereas the Beatles had neither a recent single nor had they toured the UK throughout 1966; the reporter added that "The sensational success of the Beach Boys, however, is being taken as a portent that the popularity of the top British groups of the last three years is past its peak."^{[195][nb 16]}

The band were also voted the top vocal group in similar polls conducted in Russia, Western Europe, Japan, and the Philippines.^[167] In a readers' poll conducted by a Danish newspaper, Brian Wilson won the "best foreign-produced recording award", marking the first time that an American had won in that category.^[197]

At the 9th Annual Grammy Awards, "Good Vibrations" was nominated in four categories: "Best Performance by a Vocal Group", "Best Contemporary (R&R) Group Performance, Vocal or Instrumental", "Best Contemporary (R&R) Recording", and "Best Arrangement Accompanying a Vocalist(s) or Instrumentalist(s)".^[198] It lost in the category of "best rock song" to "Winchester Cathedral", even though "Winchester Cathedral" was not a rock song.^[45][199] The same ceremony did not nominate Pet Sounds in any category.^[200]

In the months following the release of "Good Vibrations", Wilson faced a significant decline in his personal and professional life.^{[202][77][nb 17]} He intended to extend his modular recording techniques to the making of an entire album, Smile, which would have featured "Good Vibrations".^{[203][204][nb 18]} At Capitol's behest, the LP sleeve design had "Good Vibrations" inscribed three times on the top of the front cover.^[206] Advance magazine advertisements promised the addition of "other new and fantastic Beach Boys songs" consistent with "the 'Good Vibrations' sound".^[207]

Band publisher Murry Wilson, father of the Wilson brothers, told a reporter in late 1967 that "after 'Good Vibrations' Brian lost a lot of confidence. He didn't think he could ever write anything as good as that again".^{[208][nb 19]} Anderle's account differed, saying that Wilson did not feel that he had reached the pinnacle of his career. "I think he really had a sense of it being a beginning. [...] Which is what I loved about him."^[151] Harrison writes that Wilson had felt compelled to outdo himself and "now could only enter an extremely dangerous phase".^[210]

From late 1966 through mid-1967, two other would-be album tracks, "Heroes and Villains" and "Vegetables", were projected as follow-up singles, and both records were intended by Wilson to surpass his production achievements with "Good Vibrations".^[211] However, the release of the follow-up was delayed for eight months due to Wilson's creative indecision, among other issues.^{[212][213][nb 20]} Some of the Smile recording sessions were devoted to improvisational comedy sketches, including one premise which involved Wilson's colleagues ordering from a psychedelic ice cream truck that played a "Good Vibrations" jingle (simulated by Wilson on a piano).^[216] In Stebbins' description, "Brian was given carte blanche for a short time. He exploited the opportunity by moving full speed ahead into the avant garde."^[217] Heylin echoes, "Wilson no longer knew when to stop, the success of 'Good Vibrations' having turned any largesse from the label into a license to never let go."^[218]

Ultimately, "Heroes and Villains" was released in July 1967 and failed to match the commercial and critical success of "Good Vibrations".^[219][220] Smile was left unfinished by the Beach Boys. Instead, in September, the band released Smiley Smile, which included "Good Vibrations" at Capitol's insistence.^[221] Wilson reportedly objected to the track's inclusion, but, for the first time, he was outvoted by his bandmates on such a matter.^[222][223] Anderle explained that "something [Brian] never wanted to do is put a single onto the album, but he was forced to do that. For sales. That was another, I'm sure, a minor tragedy for him."^[224] The Beach Boys would not enjoy another number-one hit until 1988's "Kokomo", which was written and produced without involvement from Wilson.^{[225][226][227]}

"Good Vibrations" had an immediate, long-term impact on popular culture.^[29] The 2004 book Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer describes "Good Vibrations" as "one of the most influential pop singles of all time",^[228] while Rikky Rooksby's Inside Classic Rock Tracks (2001) calls it "a landmark in the development of popular music" particularly for its "unpredictable transitions and exotic instrumentation".^[229] In Strange Sounds: Offbeat Instruments and Sonic Experiments in Pop (2005), Mark Brend writes:

Other artists and producers, notably the Beatles and Phil Spector, had used varied instrumentation and multi-tracking to create complex studio productions before. And others, like Roy Orbison, had written complicated pop songs before. But "Good Vibrations" eclipsed all that came before it, in both its complexity as a production and the liberties it took with conventional notions of how to structure a pop song. Crammed into its three and a half minutes are previously untried mixes of instruments, unexpected jumps from one section to another, and of course, unparalleled harmony pop vocals. Yet in all of this, the real triumph of the recording is that it fits together as a catchy, hummable, radio-friendly pop song.^[230]

In his 2006 book American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3, Larry Starr argues it "may well be the most thoroughly innovative single" of the 1960s and marked "an important milestone" in music production. "Virtually every aspect of the record is unusual, from the vocal arrangement to the instrumentation, from the chordal vocabulary to the overall form."^[231] Peter Ames Carlin writes that the track's "contrasting moods and rhythms [...] exploded even the most progressive notions of how a pop song could be written, constructed, and performed".^[29]

Wilson's methods, while unorthodox for the era, were subsequently absorbed into standard practice.^[76][78] Musicologist Marshall Heiser explains the song was among "ushered in new standards of popular record making practice whereby ever-increasingly it was required of listeners to suspend their disbelief of the productions' obvious acoustic implausibility."^[78] David Leaf states that the single elevated Wilson to become "the foremost composer/producer on the music scene, surpassing even Phil Spector",^[232] while Charles Granata writes that it "redefined the production of pop music, and singles in particular."^[155] Creem editor Ben Edmonds felt that the record proved "fun could be art and still be fun too."^[3] Carlin characterized the impact as a "a kind of mirror image" to Bob Dylan's 1965 hit "Like a Rolling Stone", whose runtime had doubled that of "Good Vibrations":^[29]

[I]f the rollicking, roaring "Like a Rolling Stone" seemed determined to destroy everything in its path, the meandering, crystalline "Good Vibrations" stood on the same ground pointing blithely in the opposite direction, building a new utopia of its own. Where Dylan's voice was tart and piercingly intellignet, the Beach Boys were sweet and boyish. Where his music was visceral and rough, Brian's was sophisticated and honed to a high shine. And while it was the Minnesota poet's wild, psychedelic language that would transform the culture, it was the California studio whiz's equally wild, equally psychedelic music that sounded like a vision of the future.^[189]

Mark Prendergast, author of The Ambient Century: From Mahler to Moby (2003), acknowledges that the single "changed the course of rock and popular music" and earned Wilson the reputation of being "one of the great sound-shapers of the century, influencing The Beatles and the whole production of rock and pop from then on."^[234] Similarly, Jon Stebbins writes that "despite the obvious gifts" of certain innovative artists of the mid-1960s, such as the Beatles and Spector, "it's safe enough to say that no single influence was stronger than Brian Wilson. [...] he goaded virtually everyone else in the business, including the Beatles, to strive for a higher level of artistic achievement."^[76]

According to Timothy White, when "Good Vibrations" was released, "every producer in town was talking about the 45 because it was a four- of five-part song that broke new ground."^[126] Among the Beach Boys' contemporaries,

• Blood, Sweat and Tears founder Al Kooper said, "I stole millions of things from that song. It just changed my whole outlook of what you could do."^[235]
• Singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb posited that "Good Vibrations" expanded "the boundaries of the three minute record. [...] It definitely pointed the way [and] said, 'Hey, the drums don't have to play all the way through the record. You can have a slow part; you can have a choir part."^[236]
• Ambient musician Max Eastley remarked that the record "struck me like a bolt [and] finished my folk career!"^[237]

Further to the single's impact on the Beach Boys' rivals, Clinton Heylin suggests that the Beatles crafted their 1967 double A-sided single "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane" as a direct response to "Good Vibrations".^[238] Paul Williams concurred that Wilson's production of "Good Vibrations" provided "the dominant inspiration and goad that drove the Beatles to create some of their most ambitious works."^[239]

Less impressed, the Who frontman Pete Townshend feared that the single would lead to a trend of overproduction. He was quoted in Disc & Music Echo, "'Good Vibrations' was probably a good record but who's to know? You had to play it about 90 bloody times to even hear what they were singing about."^[167] Record producer Jonathan King echoed in a 1966 issue of Arts Magazine,

With justification, comments are being passed that 'Good Vibrations' is an inhuman work of art. Computerized pop, mechanized music. Take a machine, feed in various musical instruments, add a catch phrase, stir well, and press seven buttons. It is long and split. [...] impressive, fantastic, commercial—yes. Emotional, soul-destroying, shattering—no.^[240]

Together with the Beatles' Revolver, "Good Vibrations" was a prime proponent in rock's transformation from live concert performances to studio productions that could only exist on record.^[242] Musicologist Charlie Gillett called it "one of the first records to flaunt studio production as a quality in its own right, rather than as a means of presenting a performance".^[243] Gene Sculatti declared in 1968 that it was the "ultimate in-studio production trip" and "a primary influential piece for all producing rock artists".^[233]

Although "Good Vibrations" does not technically contain a theremin, the song is the most frequently cited example of the instrument in pop music.^{[244][nb 21]} Nonetheless, in Tobler's estimation, the song's inextricable connotations with the theremin "effectively prevented just about everyone else in rock from using the instrument".^[125] Additionally, according to authors Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco, the song "popularly connected far-out, electronic sounds with rock 'n' roll."^[245]

"Good Vibrations" prompted an unexpected revival in theremins and raised the public's awareness of analog synthesizers.^[246] When the Beach Boys needed to reproduce its sound onstage, Wilson first requested that Paul Tanner play the Electro-Theremin live with the group, but Tanner declined due to commitments.^[230] The group then requested the services of Walter Sear, who asked Moog Music founder Robert Moog to design a ribbon controller, since the group was used to playing the fretboards of a guitar. Sear remembered marking fretboard-like lines on the ribbon "so they could play the damn thing." Moog then began manufacturing his own models of theremins. He later noted: "The pop record scene cleaned us out of our stock which we expected to last through Christmas."^[246]

In Steven M. Martin's 1993 documentary Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey, in which Wilson makes an appearance, it was revealed that the attention being paid to the theremin due to "Good Vibrations" caused Russian authorities to exile its inventor, Leon Theremin.^[247]

With "Good Vibrations", the Beach Boys ended 1966 as the only band besides the Beatles to have had a high-charting psychedelic rock song, at a time when the genre was still in its formative stages.^[52] The song came to be strongly associated with the contemporary youth culture and its surrounding movements.^[248] Stebbins credits the Beach Boys with having gotten "the jump on the whole flower-child movement by several months".^[249] Leaf supported, "That one song captured the emerging feelings of the almost-acid generation, and the title of the song soon became a cliched byword."^[151] Carlin explains that the Beach Boys "found themselves teetering unexpectedly near the leading edge of the burgeoning youth movement", however, "the arbiters of serious culture were not prepared to speak of the Beach Boys in the same breath as Bob Dylan. Certainly, a significant percentage of the literati still dismissed the group as little more than candy-striped tools of consumerism." ^[189]

"Good Vibrations" effectively launched progressive pop, a music genre later taken up by acts such as Sparks, Electric Light Orchestra, Supertramp, Kate Bush, and Tears for Fears.^[47] Academic Bill Martin suggested that the Beach Boys were clearing a pathway toward the development of progressive rock, writing: "The fact is, the same reasons why much progressive rock is difficult to dance to apply just as much to 'Good Vibrations' and 'A Day in the Life.'"^[250] In Leaf's description, the release of "Good Vibrations" helped solidify the Beach Boys as "the leaders of a new type of pop music, Art Rock."^[251] Atlantic Records executive Phillip Rauls recalled, "my very first recognition of acid rock—we didn't call it progressive rock then—was, of all people, the Beach Boys and the song 'Good Vibrations' [...] That [theremin] sent so many musicians back to the studio to create this music on acid."^[53]

"Good Vibrations" became widely used in commercial jingles, television and film.^[252] In 1978, the song was licensed to Sunkist to promote the company's brand of soft drinks across the U.S.^{[253][254][nb 22]} By 1980, the multimedia campaign had succeeded in making Sunkist the best-selling orange soda in America.^[255] Love commented that he enjoyed the advertising campaign, but not the product itself. Asked by a Sunkist executive if he drank the soda, Love responded, "If I was driving my Range Rover through the Mojave Desert, and it broke down, I would first drain my radiator fluid and drink that before I had a Sunkist."^[256]

Regularly featured on "greatest-of-all-time" critics' rankings,^[42] virtually every pop music critic recognizes "Good Vibrations" as one of the most important compositions and recordings of the rock era.^[258] It is commonly regarded among the greatest rock "masterpieces"^[259] and it is widely viewed as one of the finest pop records in history,^[42][43][44] as well as Brian Wilson's opus.^[82][42] In 1997, a panel of artists, producers, and music industry figures, surveyed by Mojo magazine, voted "Good Vibrations" as the greatest single of all time.^[260] As of 2022^[update], it is listed as the fourth highest rated song of all time on Acclaimed Music, a website that statistically aggregates hundreds of published lists.^[42][261]

Walter Everett, author of The Foundations of Rock (2008), decreed that Wilson is "rightly praised" for his "monumental" achievements with "Good Vibrations".^[262] In his 2009 book Waiting for the Sun: A Rock 'n' Roll History of Los Angeles, Barney Hoskyns deems "Good Vibrations" to be "the ultimate psychedelic pop record to come out of Los Angeles in this heady period [...] taking pop to the outer limits of production while keeping it within the bounds of Top 40 catchiness."^[54] Writing in Understanding Rock (1997), Daniel Harrison calls it "the most successful intersection of the Beach Boys’ commercial appeal with Brian's artistic ambitions."^[263] The 2004 book The Pleasure of Modernist Music, edited by Mark Arved Ashby, states that it was "Wilson's first and unquestionably most brilliantly successful work under the heavy influence of drugs".^[264]

Among the band's biographers, White describes "Good Vibrations" as a "delightful synthesis of the thematic and stylistic strong points of the [mid-1960s] psychedelic surge", adding that it contains "enough exotic instruments [...] to make Phil Spector envious". ^[126] Stebbins views it as the band's greatest single and "a pure leap forward".^[265] In his 2014-published 33⅓ book about Smile, Luis Sanchez writes that the single's "massive success hurled the Beach Boys into an ambit of pop beyond any obvious explanation of how such an event should have happened."^[59] Philip Lambert praised "Good Vibrations" as "more than just a cultural phenomenon; it’s also a resounding success as a work of art, a rich tapestry of masterfully crafted, interrelated musical ideas."^[266]

Some of Wilson's contemporaries have been tempered in their praise.^[42] For example, in a 2008 interview, Phil Spector compared the record unfavorably to the work of Alfred Hitchcock. "It’s like, Psycho is a great film, but it’s an ‘edit film.’ Without edits, it’s not a film; with edits, it’s a great film. But it's not Rebecca. It's not a great story, it’s not a beautiful story."^[42] Asked about "Good Vibrations" in a 1990 interview, Paul McCartney said it was "a great record" before adding, "it didn’t quite have the emotional thing that Pet Sounds had for me".^[267][42]

On the single's fiftieth anniversary, Billboard contributor Andrew Unterberger praised "Good Vibrations" as "radioactive with brilliance throughout, in a manner essentially unprecedented for a Top 40 hit at the time." Unterberger felt, however, that the perceived absence of an emotional pathos akin to the "proto-emo anthems" from Pet Sounds "really gets to the heart of why a good number of rock fans keep 'Good Vibrations' at a relative distance".^[42] Sanchez argued that the record "shows an impulse to pleasure and accessibility that make whatever countercultural requirements rock history could foist into it look like the inanities they are."^[268]

Discussing the Beach Boys' song catalog in a 1970 interview, Wilson indicated that "Good Vibrations" had remained his favorite, "just [for] that cello on that song alone."^[269] In one anecdote about the song, Terry Melcher recalled that Wilson arrived to a California Music session in 1975 and immediately sat down at a piano and performed "Good Vibrations". Melcher said, "And a kind of chill went through me, and Brian looked at me and said, 'Do you remember this song?' And I said, 'Do I!' And then he just hugged me [...] and said hello. And we got on with it; that was that."^[270]

The song has been covered by artists such as Groove Holmes, the Troggs, Charlie McCoy, and Psychic TV.^[73] John Bush commented: "'Good Vibrations' was rarely reprised by other acts, even during the cover-happy '60s. Its fragmented style made it essentially cover-proof."^[73]

In 1976, a nearly identical cover version was recorded by Todd Rundgren for his album Faithful. It was released as a single that peaked at number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100.^[271] Asked for comment, Brian Wilson said: "Oh, he did a marvelous job, he did a great job. I was very proud of his version."^[272] Rundgren explained,

I used to like the sound of the Beach Boys, but it wasn't until they began to compete with the Beatles that I felt that what they were doing was really interesting—like around Pet Sounds and 'Good Vibrations' ... when they started to shed that whole surf music kind of burden and start to branch out into something that was a little more universal. ... I tried to do [the song] as literally as I could because in the intervening 10 years, radio had changed so much. Radio had become so formatted and so structured that that whole experience was already gone.^[273]

In 2012, Wilson Phillips, a trio consisting of Wilson's daughters Carnie and Wendy, and John Phillips' daughter Chynna, released an album containing covers of songs by the Beach Boys and the Mamas & the Papas titled Dedicated.^[274] Their version of "Good Vibrations", with Carnie on lead vocals, was released as a single from the album and peaked at number 25 on Billboard's A/C chart.^[275]

As a solo artist, Wilson rerecorded "Good Vibrations" as the closing track on his album Brian Wilson Presents Smile.^[276][277] Wilson's new extended rendition adopted the previously discarded lyrics that had been penned by Tony Asher in 1966 as well as a longer bridge section based on a vintage "Good Vibrations" outtake.^[171]

Asher was not initially credited for his contributions.^[278] According to Carlin, "The decision [to use a different set of lyrics] not only served as a public slap to Mike [Love] but also resulted in a bruising conflict between Melinda [Ledbetter] and Asher, who had never signed a publishing contract for his percentage of the song."^[279] Asher's publishing credit for this version was subsequently restored.^[280]

In celebration of its 40th year, the Good Vibrations: 40th Anniversary Edition EP was released. The EP includes "Good Vibrations", four alternate versions of the song, and the stereo mix of "Let's Go Away for Awhile".^[281] The EP artwork recreates that of the original 7-inch single sleeve. In 2016, the EP was reissued as a 12" record for the single's 50th anniversary.^{[citation needed]}

Due to the loss of the original multi-track tape, there had never been an official true stereo release of the final track until the 2012 remastered version of Smiley Smile. The stereo mix was made possible through the invention of new digital technology by Derry Fitzgerald, and received the blessing of Brian Wilson and Mark Linett. Fitzgerald's software extracted individual instrumental and vocal stems from the original mono master—as the multi-track vocals remained missing—to construct the stereo version that appears on the 2012 reissue of Smiley Smile.^[282][283]

This list (which may have dates, numbers, etc.) may be better in a sortable table format. Please help improve this list or discuss it on the talk page. (October 2022)

• The 1973 live album The Beach Boys in Concert included a contemporary performance of "Good Vibrations".^[284]
• The 1993 box set Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of the Beach Boys included a recording of the band's second-ever public performance of "Good Vibrations".^[266]
• The 1998 compilation Endless Harmony included a rehearsal take of "Good Vibrations" sourced from the band's December 8, 1968 concert at the Astoria Theatre in London.^[285]

• On November 26, 1976, Wilson was the featured music guest on NBC's Saturday Night (later known as Saturday Night Live), where he performed "Good Vibrations" by himself on a piano located in a giant sandbox.^[286][287] Off-screen, psychologist Eugene Landy held cue-cards in front of Wilson that read "RELAX" and "SMILE".^{[288][nb 23]}
• The 1983 compilation Rarities included an alternate edit of "Good Vibrations".^[289]
• The 1993 box set Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of the Beach Boys included several different outtakes from "Good Vibrations".^[290][291] The song was also selected as the opening track of the box set's attempt to approximate a completed version of the Smile album.^[292]

The details in this section are adapted from The Smile Sessions liner notes, which includes a sessionography compiled by band archivist Craig Slowinski,^[75] and the website Bellagio 10452, maintained by music historian Andrew G. Doe.^[91]

The Beach Boys

• Al Jardine – backing vocals
• Bruce Johnston – backing vocals
• Mike Love – lead and backing vocals
• Brian Wilson – lead and backing vocals, tack piano (choruses), overdubbed tambourine (choruses)
• Carl Wilson – lead and backing vocals, electric rhythm guitar (choruses and chorus fade), shaker (second bridge)
• Dennis Wilson – backing vocals, Hammond organ (second bridge)

Additional players

Technical staff

• Chuck Britz – engineer
• Cal Harris – engineer
• Jim Lockert – engineer

• Limbic resonance
• "Brian's Back"^[314]