stbartshopper
Senior Insider
[h=1]How the Beach Boys Made Their No. 1 Hit ‘Good Vibrations’[/h][h=2]Members of the Beach Boys recall creating their 1966 hit, ‘Good Vibrations,’ the euphoric flower-power love song with densely layered instrumentals and vocal harmonies[/h]
The Beach Boys, circa 1966. Top: Dennis Wilson, Al Jardine; middle: Mike Love, Bruce Johnston; bottom: Carl Wilson, Brian Wilson PHOTO: REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES
By MARC MYERS
Sept. 12, 2016 4:47 p.m. ET49 COMMENTS
In 1966, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys spent seven months producing “Good Vibrations” at an estimated cost of more than $400,000 in today’s dollars—a record at the time for a single. Despite the expense, the euphoric flower-power love song with densely layered instrumentals and vocal harmonies pioneered new standards for rock recording and studio experimentation.
Released 50 years ago, on Oct. 10, 1966, “Good Vibrations” reached #1 on Billboard’s pop chart that December. It also appeared on the Beach Boys’ “Smiley Smile” album in 1967. The song, written by Mr. Wilson and Mike Love, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1994.
Recently, the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson (author of “I Am Brian Wilson,” a new memoir), Al Jardine and Mike Love (author of “Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy”) along with original lyricist Tony Asher and musicians Hal Blaine, Don Randi and Tommy Morgan talked about the song’s evolution. Edited from interviews.
Brian Wilson: When I was 14, a neighbor’s dog barked at my mom. I couldn’t figure out why. My mom said, “Brian, sometimes dogs pick up vibrations from people and if they feel threatened, they bark.” About nine years later, in 1965, I was at home at my piano in L.A. after smoking a joint. I wrote a chord pattern for a song based on what my mom had said about vibrations.
WSJ+: See Beach Boys Co-Founder Mike Love at the WSJ Cafe
Mike Love: At the end of 1964, Brian no longer wanted to tour with the Beach Boys. The stress of the planes, airports and screaming fans at concerts was too much for him. So when the band went on tour in ’65, Brian stayed in L.A. and wrote, arranged and produced songs for us. We added our vocals when we returned from the road.
Mr. Wilson: When rehearsals began for “Good Vibrations” at Western Recorders [in February 1966], I used many of the same great studio musicians I had been recording with for years. Most had worked with [producer] Phil Spector.
I had watched Phil work at Gold Star studio in the early ’60s. I was blown away. Phil was a master. He combined guitars and pianos to create brand new sounds. That’s what I wanted to do on “Good Vibrations”—but much bigger and better.
[h=4]BEACH BOYS CO-FOUNDER MIKE LOVE AT THE WSJ CAFE[/h]
Hal Blaine (drummer):We did more than 20 instrumental sessions for “Good Vibrations.” At some, we’d record just four bars. Other sessions went on all day. The musicians got Brian’s genius. He’d come in with musical parts written out, and we’d play them as written. Then he’d sit with us to explain the feel he wanted and listen to suggestions. He knew exactly where that song was going.
Don Randi (keyboards): There were no vocals when I recorded on “Good Vibrations.” Occasionally, I’d hear Brian in the control room singing falsetto over the monitor speaker as we played. I guess he was test-driving what we were doing.
At one point, Brian wanted me to hold down a bass pedal on the Hammond organ for long, drawn-out tone. There were screens in front of me, so Brian and I couldn’t see each other. I just heard him over the studio’s monitor speaker.
He asked me to do this over and over again. Finally, I leaned over and grabbed a pillow. I set it on the pedal, rested my head and conked out for about a minute. I woke up when Brian came on the speaker and said, “Don, that was great, thanks.”
Mr. Wilson: Combining a cello and electro-theremin on the song’s chorus was my brother Carl’s idea. When I put the two instruments together in the studio early on, we wound up with this cool vibrating sound, like a humming sonic wave [he illustrates the wave with his hand].
Al Jardine: At the time, we were recording a lot of material for “Pet Sounds.” But Brian wanted to hold “Good Vibrations” for “Smile,” our next scheduled album. We begged Brian to put “Good Vibrations” on “Pet Sounds,” due for release in May. But Brian felt the song was too far-out for the album. Capitol was reluctant to release “Pet Sounds” without a hit single, so they inserted “Sloop John B.” This gave Brian the entire summer of ’66 to work on “Good Vibrations.”
Mr. Wilson: Eventually, I needed lyrics for the song. I was writing with Tony Asher then, who I had met months earlier at Western Recorders.
The Beach Boys in Copenhagen in 1967 PHOTO: JAN PERSSON/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES
Tony Asher: I first met Brian in the fall of ’65, at Western, when I was working for the Carson/Roberts ad agency. I knew who he was. Brian was funny. When I told him I wrote jingles, he said, “I’d love to do some jingles, man.” He asked if I also wrote song lyrics. I said for him I’d give it a try. Soon after, he called and asked me to come over to his house. When I arrived, we talked for an hour. Then he got a demo of the music he had been working on for the Beach Boys’ next album. We started tinkering with a song.
Mr. Wilson: That afternoon, we had “God Only Knows” written in a half hour. Tony was amazing. Over the coming months Tony wrote the lyrics to most of the songs on “Pet Sounds.”
Mr. Asher: At some point, Brian asked me to write lyrics for a song called “Good Vibes.” He had a tape of the music and I took it home. I felt that “vibes” was a cheap word and trivialized the song. I suggested “vibrations.”
My lyrics to the first verse and chorus were: “She’s already working on my brain / I only looked in her eyes / But I picked up something I just can’t explain / I pick up good, good, good, good vibrations, yeah.” But it wasn’t quite gelling and we set it aside.
Mr. Wilson: Tony’s original lyrics were good. The reason I asked Mike [Love] for lyrics had nothing to do with Tony’s. I just wanted to see what Mike had. In the end, I liked Mike’s better. They were more poetic for a song about good vibrations, you know? And “Excitations” was very off the wall [he laughs].
Mr. Love: Brian called me sometime in the summer of ’66. He said that the instrumental tracks for “Good Vibrations” were ready, and he wanted to see what I could come up with for lyrics. He never mentioned that Tony had written a set or that he wasn’t satisfied with them or why. All I knew is that the song was called “Good Vibrations.”
While playing an acetate of the music at home, my ear went to the walking jazz bass line, and I came up with lyrics for the chorus [Mr. Love talk-sings]: “I’m pickin’ up good vibrations / She’s giving me excitations.” I knew “excitations” wasn’t a real word when I jotted it down. It just sounded like “excitement” and “vibrations” squeezed together.
By then, the drug culture had emerged with hippies and flower power. All of this created an image of a girl in a field of flowers, bathed in sunlight, who was into peace and love.
That’s what was on my mind when Suzanne, my wife then, and I drove to the studio [on Aug. 24] in my yellow Jaguar XKE to record the vocal tracks with the guys. I still hadn’t written the song’s verses. I should have worked on them sooner, but I was the prince of procrastination then.
Suzanne and I had been visiting her parents in the San Fernando Valley. The drive to the studio was about a half hour. Before we drove off, I listened to the composite instrumental acetate one more time on the mini 45-rpm turntable installed under the dashboard. Then I turned it off. Otherwise I would have been distracted.
0:00 / 0:00
Beach Boys co-founder Mike Love, author of the new memoir "Good Vibrations," reacts to the news that Brian Wilson thought that the group’s hit song “Kokomo” was about a real place (it's not).
As I drove, I dictated lyrics to Suzanne. In the spirit of a flower-power poem, I said, “I, I love the colorful clothes she wears / and the way the sunlight plays upon her hair.” The double “I” was purposeful. The first “I” is there to grab your attention. It’s almost like an ecstatic sigh—“Ahhh.”
The rest of the first verse was, “I hear the sound of a gentle word / On the wind that lifts her perfume through the air.” At first I wanted to use “incense” instead of “perfume,” but I thought that would be a little much for middle America.
The second verse I wrote went like this [he talk-sings]: “Close my eyes / She’s somehow closer now / Softly smile, I know she must be kind / When I look in her eyes / she goes with me to a blossom world we find.”
At the studio, I copied over Suzanne’s notes and wrote out the lyrics for Carl, Dennis, Brian, Al, Bruce [Johnston] and me. Brian arranged the vocals.
The only change Brian made to my lyrics was dropping the words “we find” from the end of my second verse. He did this to let the bass and drums come pounding through. I thought it was weird at first, but I came to appreciate the missing lyrics, since it made the rest seem like a haiku.
[h=4]MORE IN ANATOMY OF A SONG[/h]
Mr. Wilson: Listening back to the vocals, the song needed a downshift—a ballad section for contrast. So Mike [Love] and I sang a duet that I added as a bridge to the final chorus. It was pure and ethereal, in the style of Stephen Foster’s Americana songs [he sings] “Gotta keep those lovin’ / good vibrations a happenin’ with her.” Dennis played the organ chords, and Tommy Morgan played the harmonica solo.
Tommy Morgan: Brian let me do what I felt was right there. I played high on my chromatic harmonica and bent the notes. It created this unusual sound that he liked.
Mr. Love: On a later session [Sept. 21st], Brian decided Carl should record the lead vocal, since it was in his range. His mellifluous voice had this soft beauty.
Mr. Jardine: Brian was wise to have Carl sing lead on the recording. Carl would be singing the song on tour. We recorded Carl at Columbia, one of the only studios in town with an 8-track recorder. Most of the others had only 4-track recorders.
Mr. Wilson: Producing “Good Vibrations” took a long time because I didn’t want to copy anybody, you know? I wanted the song to sound totally original. The night I heard everything together [Sept. 21st] was one of the highlights of my life. The guys kept saying it was going to be a #1 hit. I said, “I know, I know.”
[/COLOR]
The Beach Boys, circa 1966. Top: Dennis Wilson, Al Jardine; middle: Mike Love, Bruce Johnston; bottom: Carl Wilson, Brian Wilson PHOTO: REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES
By MARC MYERS
Sept. 12, 2016 4:47 p.m. ET49 COMMENTS
In 1966, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys spent seven months producing “Good Vibrations” at an estimated cost of more than $400,000 in today’s dollars—a record at the time for a single. Despite the expense, the euphoric flower-power love song with densely layered instrumentals and vocal harmonies pioneered new standards for rock recording and studio experimentation.
Released 50 years ago, on Oct. 10, 1966, “Good Vibrations” reached #1 on Billboard’s pop chart that December. It also appeared on the Beach Boys’ “Smiley Smile” album in 1967. The song, written by Mr. Wilson and Mike Love, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1994.
Recently, the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson (author of “I Am Brian Wilson,” a new memoir), Al Jardine and Mike Love (author of “Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy”) along with original lyricist Tony Asher and musicians Hal Blaine, Don Randi and Tommy Morgan talked about the song’s evolution. Edited from interviews.
ADVERTISING
[COLOR=#AAAAAA !important][COLOR=#79BBE9 !important]inRead
invented by Teads[/COLOR]
Brian Wilson: When I was 14, a neighbor’s dog barked at my mom. I couldn’t figure out why. My mom said, “Brian, sometimes dogs pick up vibrations from people and if they feel threatened, they bark.” About nine years later, in 1965, I was at home at my piano in L.A. after smoking a joint. I wrote a chord pattern for a song based on what my mom had said about vibrations.
WSJ+: See Beach Boys Co-Founder Mike Love at the WSJ Cafe
Mike Love: At the end of 1964, Brian no longer wanted to tour with the Beach Boys. The stress of the planes, airports and screaming fans at concerts was too much for him. So when the band went on tour in ’65, Brian stayed in L.A. and wrote, arranged and produced songs for us. We added our vocals when we returned from the road.
Mr. Wilson: When rehearsals began for “Good Vibrations” at Western Recorders [in February 1966], I used many of the same great studio musicians I had been recording with for years. Most had worked with [producer] Phil Spector.
I had watched Phil work at Gold Star studio in the early ’60s. I was blown away. Phil was a master. He combined guitars and pianos to create brand new sounds. That’s what I wanted to do on “Good Vibrations”—but much bigger and better.
[h=4]BEACH BOYS CO-FOUNDER MIKE LOVE AT THE WSJ CAFE[/h]
Hal Blaine (drummer):We did more than 20 instrumental sessions for “Good Vibrations.” At some, we’d record just four bars. Other sessions went on all day. The musicians got Brian’s genius. He’d come in with musical parts written out, and we’d play them as written. Then he’d sit with us to explain the feel he wanted and listen to suggestions. He knew exactly where that song was going.
Don Randi (keyboards): There were no vocals when I recorded on “Good Vibrations.” Occasionally, I’d hear Brian in the control room singing falsetto over the monitor speaker as we played. I guess he was test-driving what we were doing.
At one point, Brian wanted me to hold down a bass pedal on the Hammond organ for long, drawn-out tone. There were screens in front of me, so Brian and I couldn’t see each other. I just heard him over the studio’s monitor speaker.
He asked me to do this over and over again. Finally, I leaned over and grabbed a pillow. I set it on the pedal, rested my head and conked out for about a minute. I woke up when Brian came on the speaker and said, “Don, that was great, thanks.”
Mr. Wilson: Combining a cello and electro-theremin on the song’s chorus was my brother Carl’s idea. When I put the two instruments together in the studio early on, we wound up with this cool vibrating sound, like a humming sonic wave [he illustrates the wave with his hand].
Al Jardine: At the time, we were recording a lot of material for “Pet Sounds.” But Brian wanted to hold “Good Vibrations” for “Smile,” our next scheduled album. We begged Brian to put “Good Vibrations” on “Pet Sounds,” due for release in May. But Brian felt the song was too far-out for the album. Capitol was reluctant to release “Pet Sounds” without a hit single, so they inserted “Sloop John B.” This gave Brian the entire summer of ’66 to work on “Good Vibrations.”
Mr. Wilson: Eventually, I needed lyrics for the song. I was writing with Tony Asher then, who I had met months earlier at Western Recorders.
The Beach Boys in Copenhagen in 1967 PHOTO: JAN PERSSON/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES
Tony Asher: I first met Brian in the fall of ’65, at Western, when I was working for the Carson/Roberts ad agency. I knew who he was. Brian was funny. When I told him I wrote jingles, he said, “I’d love to do some jingles, man.” He asked if I also wrote song lyrics. I said for him I’d give it a try. Soon after, he called and asked me to come over to his house. When I arrived, we talked for an hour. Then he got a demo of the music he had been working on for the Beach Boys’ next album. We started tinkering with a song.
Mr. Wilson: That afternoon, we had “God Only Knows” written in a half hour. Tony was amazing. Over the coming months Tony wrote the lyrics to most of the songs on “Pet Sounds.”
Mr. Asher: At some point, Brian asked me to write lyrics for a song called “Good Vibes.” He had a tape of the music and I took it home. I felt that “vibes” was a cheap word and trivialized the song. I suggested “vibrations.”
My lyrics to the first verse and chorus were: “She’s already working on my brain / I only looked in her eyes / But I picked up something I just can’t explain / I pick up good, good, good, good vibrations, yeah.” But it wasn’t quite gelling and we set it aside.
Mr. Wilson: Tony’s original lyrics were good. The reason I asked Mike [Love] for lyrics had nothing to do with Tony’s. I just wanted to see what Mike had. In the end, I liked Mike’s better. They were more poetic for a song about good vibrations, you know? And “Excitations” was very off the wall [he laughs].
Mr. Love: Brian called me sometime in the summer of ’66. He said that the instrumental tracks for “Good Vibrations” were ready, and he wanted to see what I could come up with for lyrics. He never mentioned that Tony had written a set or that he wasn’t satisfied with them or why. All I knew is that the song was called “Good Vibrations.”
While playing an acetate of the music at home, my ear went to the walking jazz bass line, and I came up with lyrics for the chorus [Mr. Love talk-sings]: “I’m pickin’ up good vibrations / She’s giving me excitations.” I knew “excitations” wasn’t a real word when I jotted it down. It just sounded like “excitement” and “vibrations” squeezed together.
By then, the drug culture had emerged with hippies and flower power. All of this created an image of a girl in a field of flowers, bathed in sunlight, who was into peace and love.
That’s what was on my mind when Suzanne, my wife then, and I drove to the studio [on Aug. 24] in my yellow Jaguar XKE to record the vocal tracks with the guys. I still hadn’t written the song’s verses. I should have worked on them sooner, but I was the prince of procrastination then.
Suzanne and I had been visiting her parents in the San Fernando Valley. The drive to the studio was about a half hour. Before we drove off, I listened to the composite instrumental acetate one more time on the mini 45-rpm turntable installed under the dashboard. Then I turned it off. Otherwise I would have been distracted.
0:00 / 0:00
Beach Boys co-founder Mike Love, author of the new memoir "Good Vibrations," reacts to the news that Brian Wilson thought that the group’s hit song “Kokomo” was about a real place (it's not).
As I drove, I dictated lyrics to Suzanne. In the spirit of a flower-power poem, I said, “I, I love the colorful clothes she wears / and the way the sunlight plays upon her hair.” The double “I” was purposeful. The first “I” is there to grab your attention. It’s almost like an ecstatic sigh—“Ahhh.”
The rest of the first verse was, “I hear the sound of a gentle word / On the wind that lifts her perfume through the air.” At first I wanted to use “incense” instead of “perfume,” but I thought that would be a little much for middle America.
The second verse I wrote went like this [he talk-sings]: “Close my eyes / She’s somehow closer now / Softly smile, I know she must be kind / When I look in her eyes / she goes with me to a blossom world we find.”
At the studio, I copied over Suzanne’s notes and wrote out the lyrics for Carl, Dennis, Brian, Al, Bruce [Johnston] and me. Brian arranged the vocals.
The only change Brian made to my lyrics was dropping the words “we find” from the end of my second verse. He did this to let the bass and drums come pounding through. I thought it was weird at first, but I came to appreciate the missing lyrics, since it made the rest seem like a haiku.
[h=4]MORE IN ANATOMY OF A SONG[/h]
- The ‘Magic Carpet Ride’ July 12, 2016
- How John Mellencamp Wrote ‘Small Town’ June 22, 2016
Mr. Wilson: Listening back to the vocals, the song needed a downshift—a ballad section for contrast. So Mike [Love] and I sang a duet that I added as a bridge to the final chorus. It was pure and ethereal, in the style of Stephen Foster’s Americana songs [he sings] “Gotta keep those lovin’ / good vibrations a happenin’ with her.” Dennis played the organ chords, and Tommy Morgan played the harmonica solo.
Tommy Morgan: Brian let me do what I felt was right there. I played high on my chromatic harmonica and bent the notes. It created this unusual sound that he liked.
Mr. Love: On a later session [Sept. 21st], Brian decided Carl should record the lead vocal, since it was in his range. His mellifluous voice had this soft beauty.
Mr. Jardine: Brian was wise to have Carl sing lead on the recording. Carl would be singing the song on tour. We recorded Carl at Columbia, one of the only studios in town with an 8-track recorder. Most of the others had only 4-track recorders.
Mr. Wilson: Producing “Good Vibrations” took a long time because I didn’t want to copy anybody, you know? I wanted the song to sound totally original. The night I heard everything together [Sept. 21st] was one of the highlights of my life. The guys kept saying it was going to be a #1 hit. I said, “I know, I know.”
[/COLOR]
