Good Vibrations
About The Song
Throughout 1965, while the other Beach Boys were out on the road, Brian Wilson stayed home, instead pouring his energies into a new kind of writing and production. Out went surf, girls and fun fun fun, and in came a preoccupation with webs of sound, complex arrangements and classical textures. As Wilson’s consciousness bloomed – a spiritual awakening fuelled by acid and weed – so had the music.
By the following February, in the middle of sessions for Pet Sounds, the 23-year-old began tinkering with a new song. Its inspiration was a childhood memory of a dog barking at him while out with his mother. “Don’t act scared,” she told him. “They pick up the vibes.”
The idea of tuning in to others’ vibes now fascinated Wilson. The song became a work-in-progress, snatched at during breaks in recording. Returning to it in April, Beach Boy Mike Love wrote fresh lyrics, and as Wilson smothered his cousin’s words with fuzz bass, clarinet, cellos, harp and a theremin, “Good Vibrations” began to take shape.
For his three-plus minutes of pop perfection (“his whole life’s performance in one track” according to engineer Chuck Britz) Wilson had used up 90 hours of tape from 17 separate recording dates with LA’s top sessioneers. The cost of recording was phenomenal: between $50,000 and $75,000.
“Good Vibrations” became the biggest Beach Boys single ever, and the media branded Wilson “a genius”. “I’m not a genius,” he countered at the time. “I’m just a hard-working guy.”
“Good Vibrations” received a Grammy nomination for Best Vocal Group performance in 1966 and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1994. The song was voted number one in Mojo’s “Top 100 Records of All Time” and number 6 on Rolling Stone’s 2004 and 2010 editions of its “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” lists.