Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Good Vibrations, by Brian Wilson


"It haunts me", Brian Wilson said in 1968, "the word vibrations". He then mentioned that his mother told him when he asked her why dogs bark at some people: "They smell and feel the vibrations of every people". So, Wilson grew up with the idea of vibrations haunting him. In 1966 he created that masterpiece, Pet Sounds, lost his mind and two years later came up with "Good Vibrations" for a project that was never released. "Good Vibrations", the version recorded in 1968, is a proof of how the mind of Wilson was working. He was thinking in terms of George Gershwin, gregorian choirs and bubble-gum pop music. The result was the most expensive single of all time; cellos, theremin, vibraphones, voices recorded over and over and over. After that, nearly 36 years of silence.
By the end of 2004, Wilson reworked his mini suite (as Derek Taylor defined it in 1969), rewrote the lyrics and rearranged the performance, making it longer, which only means one thing, the pleasure lasts four minutes and thirty six seconds instead of the original two and a half. Like with "Ring Of Fire", if more people listened to this song, the world would be so much a better place to live in. Very few songs make me feel so revitalized like this one.

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