page_title: Good Vibrations
section_title: Second episode (2:13–2:56)
hierarchical_section_title: Good Vibrations / Composition and analysis / Episodic digressions / Second episode (2:13–2:56)
caption_attribution_description: Hammond B3, Museum of Making Music
context_page_description: "Good Vibrations" is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys that was composed by Brian Wilson with lyrics by Mike Love. Released as a single on October 10, 1966, it was an immediate critical and commercial hit, topping record charts in several countries including the US and UK. Characterized by its complex soundscapes, episodic structure and subversions of pop music formula, it was the costliest single ever recorded at the time of its release. "Good Vibrations" later became widely acclaimed as one of the finest and most important works of the rock era.
  Also produced by Wilson, the title derived from his fascination with cosmic vibrations, as his mother would tell him as a child that dogs sometimes bark at people in response to their "bad vibrations". He used the concept to suggest extrasensory perception, while Love's lyrics were inspired by the nascent Flower Power movement. The song was written as it was recorded and in a similar fashion to other compositions from Wilson's Smile period. It was issued as a standalone single, backed with "Let's Go Away for Awhile", and was to be included on the never-finished album Smile.
context_section_description: Another tape splice occurs at 2:13, transitioning to an electric organ playing sustained chords set in the key of F accompanied by a maraca shaken on every beat. Sound on Sound highlights this change as the "most savage edit in the track ... 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." Harrison says: 
  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. Brian’s  [sic] own description of the song—a three-and-a-half-minute 'pocket symphony'—is a telling clue about his formal ambitions here.
  The slowed pace is complemented by the lyric ("Gotta keep those loving good vibrations a-happening with her"), sung once first as a solo voice, with the melody repeated an octave higher the second time with an accompanying harmony. This two-part vocal fades as a solo harmonica plays a melody on top of the persistent quarter-note bass line and maraca that maintain the only rhythm throughout Episode 2. The section ends with a five-part harmony vocalizing a whole-note chord that is sustained by reverb for a further four beats. Lambert calls it the song's "wake-up chord at the end of the meditation that transports the concept into a whole new realm: it's an iconic moment among iconic moments. As it rouses us from a blissful dream and echoes into the silence leading into the chorus, it seems to capture every sound and message the song has to say."
caption: A Hammond organ similar to the one heard in "Good Vibrations"
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