Good Vibrations / Here Today

[David Kennedy]

I have been trying to distract myself from the sampling the sessions by going over the LLVS book and I found an article by Brad Elliot called "The Facts About Smile" and down where he talks about a sessions worksheet of Good Vibrations from the Pet Sounds session. He says "The song carries a master number 55680 the same number as Here Today,does that mean the track for Here Today is the original Brian track for Good Vibrations?" So my question, is it strange at all that they have the same master number or is it a common thing to happen? Sorry if its a dumb question,I am just trying to stop looking at the clock.  

[runnersdialzero]

I recall the BBC special, notably full of holes and errors, saying "Here Today" was originally titled something like "Good Good Good Vibrations". Not sure if that's true.

[c-man]

It's not COMMON, but also not COMPLETELY unheard of, for two of Brian's sessions to have the same master #, even though the sessions were for completely different songs; for instance, we see this happening a couple of times in "The SMiLE Sessions", but the difference is the same TITLE was also used for both songs (for instance, the second version of CHILD IS FATHER OF THE MAN was logged as a CABIN ESSENCE session, both in title & master #, and WITH ME TONIGHT was logged as a VEGETABLES session, both in title & master #...that doesn't necessarily mean that those songs were intended to be part of one another, though...but it also doesn't mean they weren't...).

But in the case of HERE TODAY and GOOD VIBRATIONS, I think we can see what happened:  the first GOOD VIBES session was on February 17-18, and master # 55680 was used.  GOOD VIBES was intended for the "Pet Sounds" album at this point.  When the track that became HERE TODAY was cut, on March 11, no master # was indicatd on the AFM sheet, however master # 55680 was shifted over & reassiged to the new track when it was determined that GOOD VIBES would NOT be included on the album.  When the next GOOD VIBES sesson rolled around, on April 9, a NEW master # (55949) was employed.  That master # would change a couple of times over the course of the ensuing months, but the final GOOD VIBES tracking session on 9/1 utilized 55949 again.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Interesting that a riff from "HT" crops up in "GV", mind...

And now, we return you to your scheduled Smile programming.