Good Vibrations

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 *
T RA CK I NG PO P
series editors: jocelyn neal, john covach, and albin zak

Listening to Popular Music: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying

and Love Led Zeppelin
by Theodore Gracyk

Sounding Out Pop: Analytical Essays in Popular Music

edited by Mark Spicer and John Covach

I Don’t Sound Like Nobody: Remaking Music in 1950s America

by Albin J. Zak III

Soul Music: Tracking the Spiritual Roots of Pop from Plato

to Motown
by Joel Rudinow

Are We Not New Wave? Modern Pop at the Turn of the 1980s
by Theo Cateforis

Bytes and Backbeats: Repurposing Music in the Digital Age

by Steve Savage

Powerful Voices: The Musical and Social World of Collegiate A Cappella

by Joshua S. Duchan

Rhymin’ and Stealin’: Musical Borrowing in Hip-Hop

by Justin A. Williams

Sounds of the Underground: A Cultural, Political and Aesthetic

Mapping of Underground and Fringe Music
by Stephen Graham

Krautrock: German Music in the Seventies

by Ulrich Adelt

Good Vibrations: Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in

Critical Perspective
edited by Philip Lambert

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 Good Vibrations
Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys
in Critical Perspective

Edited by
Philip Lambert

University of Michigan Press t Ann Arbor

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 Copyright © the University of Michigan 2016
All rights reserved

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations,

in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S.
Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written
permission from the publisher.

Published in the United States of America by

The University of Michigan Press
Manufactured in the United States of America
c Printed on acid-free paper

2019 2018 2017 2016 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-472-11995-0 (hardcover : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-472-12227-1 (e-book)

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 Preface

in 2012 , to celebrate fifty years since their music first hit

the airwaves, the surviving members of the Beach Boys set aside decades
of litigious acrimony and reunited for a months-long international tour
and the group’s first album of all-new material in twenty years. Huge
crowds danced and cheered, oblivious to a sea of incongruities: septua-
genarians calling themselves “Boys,” song lyrics seemingly aimed at the
sensibilities of their grandchildren, and striking differences between the
youthful voices on their familiar hit records and the more mature vocal-
isms of creative mastermind Brian Wilson, his cousin, lead singer Mike
Love, and lifelong friend Al Jardine. But the shows were a success for the
same reason that the band has always been a concert draw: soaring vo-
cal harmonies, infectious themes capturing the pristine innocence of an
idealized era, and a danceable blend of classic rock ’n’ roll with elements
of doo-wop and jazz. In seventeen top-ten singles and thirteen hit albums
of the group’s first four years, and seventeen more albums of new music
in the ensuing decades, the Beach Boys amassed a repertory that would
still be influencing the shape of popular music generations later, from
the 1990s indie collective Elephant 6 to millennial alternative rock bands
such as Animal Collective and Fleet Foxes. Other fiftieth anniversaries
soon followed: Brian Wilson’s first number-one single as coauthor (Jan
and Dean’s “Surf City,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1963);
the Beach Boys’ first number-one single (“I Get Around,” July 1964); the
Beach Boys’ first number-one album and first gold album (Beach Boys’
Concert, in the top spot in December 1964, certified gold in February
1965); the pinnacles of Brian Wilson’s artistic ambitions, in album for-
mat (Pet Sounds, released in May 1966), in 45 rpm (“Good Vibrations,”
number one and gold in December 1966), and in rock mythology (the
unfinished Smile, 1966–67).

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 vi Preface

The history of the Beach Boys began as an apt reflection of their

times. Their sun-soaked pop songs of the early sixties were just catchy
and distinctive enough to share airtime with the British invaders. Later
in the decade, influenced in part by a friendly rivalry with the Beatles,
they evolved toward more ambitious album projects and immersion in
the drug culture. Then, as Brian Wilson withdrew as exclusive leader, the
band flirted with variable absorptions in pop styles of the seventies and
eighties, all while releasing chart-topping greatest hits albums and con-
tinuing to thrive as a touring band. Since the late eighties, when Brian
Wilson began to record as a solo artist, the band has been splintered but
never out of the public eye. What has stayed constant throughout this
half-century is a core belief in the warmth and immediacy of blended
vocal harmony and in the myth of the California lifestyle, rich with pos-
sibility and opportunity. The Beach Boys can still sing about it because,
in their lyrics at least, they still believe in it.
Good Vibrations: Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in Critical Perspective
helps mark a milestone in this history by exploring the band’s legacy and
place in American culture. The book brings together scholars of diverse
specialties, hailing from four countries over three continents. The es-
says gathered here take on the full fifty-year range of the Beach Boys’
music, from the perspectives of music historians, music theorists, and
cultural critics. Together these new scholarly examinations will refresh
our understanding of some of the familiar tropes in the group’s history,
including the Beach Boys’ musical contributions to 1960s culture and
the California myth; the style of their music, indebted in variable propor-
tions to pop and rock traditions; and the legend of Smile, one of popular
music’s most notorious unfinished albums. The book places special fo-
cus on the individual whose creative vision brought the whole enterprise
to life, Brian Wilson, without minimizing contributions made by others,
such as frequent lyricist Mike Love. This focus helps to advance our un-
derstanding of Brian Wilson’s gifts, first displayed in well-crafted songs
of the early Beach Boys albums, equally evident in the group’s multipart
vocal arrangements, and eventually expanding to include innovations in
the recording studio.
Fifty years of biographies and rock criticism have elevated Brian Wilson
to his rightful place in the pantheon of American record-makers. After
early spurts of revelatory journalism by the likes of Jules Siegel (“The
Religious Conversion of Brian Wilson: Goodbye Surfing, Hello God,”
Cheetah, October 1967) and Tom Nolan (“The Beach Boys: A California
Saga,” Rolling Stone, October 28 and November 11, 1971), serious com-
mentary on the Beach Boys and their creative leader began in 1978 with

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 Preface vii

David Leaf’s The Beach Boys and the California Myth (New York: Grosset
and Dunlap). In 1994, Timothy White’s The Nearest Faraway Place gave
the group a deeper historical context (New York: Henry Holt), and in
2006, Peter Ames Carlin’s biography Catch a Wave sharpened the focus on
Brian Wilson and his personal triumphs and struggles (Emmaus, Penn.:
Rodale). Other authors have offered richer accounts of watershed mo-
ments in Brian Wilson’s creative evolution, notably Charles L. Granata’s
Wouldn’t It Be Nice of 2003, a study of the circumstances surrounding the
making of Pet Sounds (Chicago: Chicago Review Press), and Domenic
Priore’s investigation of the Smile story in 2005 (London: Sanctuary).
Serious scrutiny of music and lyrics began with Daniel Harrison’s es-
say “After Sundown” in 1997 (in Understanding Rock, ed. Covach and
Boone, New York: Oxford University Press) and continued with my book
Inside the Music of Brian Wilson in 2007 (New York: Continuum) and Kirk
Curnutt’s Brian Wilson in 2012 (Bristol, Conn.: Equinox).
These latter three authors begin the collection of essays presented
here. First, Kirk Curnutt explores the various critical responses to Beach
Boys songs, in light of common perceptions of Brian Wilson and his au-
thorial sensibilities. Curnutt lends a rich, personal perspective to the en-
tire corpus of Brian Wilson’s work to date, offering valuable insights into
the nature of celebrity and the limitations of biography. Daniel Harrison
then focuses very specifically on an element of Beach Boys songs that
many admirers probably haven’t thought much about: extramusical en-
hancements provided by scene-setting spoken words or sound effects.
Readers of Harrison’s essay will find serious, enlightening discussion of
cuts from Beach Boys albums that don’t usually attract much attention,
such as “Drive-In” (from All Summer Long, 1964) and “Bull Session with
‘Big Daddy’” (The Beach Boys Today!, 1965). Concluding the opening trio
of musical commentaries, my essay about the harmony of Brian Wilson
songs highlights favorite chords and progressions in music spanning the
songwriter’s entire career, encompassing Beach Boys albums, solo work,
and collaborations with other artists. It demonstrates one way of probing
a basic question: What makes a Brian Wilson song sound like a Brian
Wilson song?
The middle portion of the book is a quartet of essays focused on par-
ticular moments in Beach Boys history. Keir Keightley first brings us out
of the formative years of rock ’n’ roll and into the early 1960s, examining
the Beach Boys as contributors to, and definers of, a new culture of pop-
ular music. Bringing special focus to the Beach Boys’ All Summer Long
album (1964), Keightley situates the group within American society and
the changing face of popular music in a pivotal decade. Jadey O’Regan

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 viii Preface

then surveys trends and developments in nine of the early Beach Boys
albums, bringing the historical focus up to 1966 and Pet Sounds. O’Regan
provides rich detail for the evolution of the group’s song forms, lyri-
cal themes, and vocal styles during this crucial time period. After that,
Dale Carter takes us into the volatile politics and drug culture of the
decade’s middle years, offering a thoughtful perspective on an influen-
tial cultural milieu. Carter’s synthesis lends valuable context to what are
Brian Wilson’s most ambitious musical aspirations in album format—the
thoughtful craftsmanship and studio innovations of Pet Sounds (1966)
and Smile (1967). My essay that follows then explores his most important
achievement in the genre of the hit single: “Good Vibrations” (1966).
I focus especially on the song’s evolution after its initial release: how it
changed in live performance, and how it has been reimagined by count-
less cover artists in the fifty-odd years since its first release.
The book concludes with a duet of essays about one of pop-rock’s
most infamous musical sagas: the Smile project, filled with artistic prom-
ise but tragically abandoned in 1967, only to be rejuvenated by the Brian
Wilson Band in 2004. Andrew Flory first considers what happened to the
Smile tapes—and to the Smile myth—in the decades since Brian Wilson
walked away from them. Flory asks thoughtful questions about the na-
ture of an amorphous masterpiece, and about the role of ardent fans in
shaping the music’s legacy. Finally, Larry Starr reflects on the entirety
of the Smile legend, from initial recording sessions through occasional
releases of Smile material on subsequent Beach Boys albums, up to the
2004 “premiere.” Starr’s personal response to a compelling, convoluted
tale enriches the experience of the music for all of us.
What next for Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys? Brian was back on
tour with his band in 2013, double-billed with Jeff Beck and sharing
the stage with Al Jardine and onetime Beach Boy David Marks. In 2015,
he released a new solo album (No Pier Pressure). Mike Love and Bruce
Johnston continued playing state fairs and casinos as the “Beach Boys.”
Longtime fans danced along, a little more slowly than they once did,
while new generations of audiences had first encounters with the effer-
vescence of a jazzy vocal harmony, the exuberance of a falsetto wail. After
a half-century, the good vibrations were still resonating.

Note: Source references for all of the essays are listed together at the end
of the book.

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 Contents

Part I: Musical Commentaries

1. “Brian Comes Alive”: Celebrity, Performance, and the
Limitations of Biography in Lyric Reading 3
kirk curnutt
2. Pet Sound Effects 31
daniel harrison
3. Brian Wilson’s Harmonic Language 63
philip lambert

Part II: Historical Inquiries

4. Summer of ’64 105
keir keightley
5. When I Grow Up: The Beach Boys’ Early Music 137
jadey o’regan
6. Into the Mystic? The Undergrounding of
Brian Wilson, 1964–1967 168
dale carter
7. Good Reverberations 189
philip lambert

Part III: Smile

8. Fandom and Ontology in Smile 215
andrew flory

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 x Contents

9. A Listener’s Smile 242

larry starr

General Bibliography 263

Contributors 275
Index 277

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