The Smiley Smile Message Board

Maybe this is a foolish question, but...
While listening the new Party! Uncovered And Unplugged, CD 2 Track 38 [Fooling Around: The Boy from New York City (Party! sessions mix, session #5)], I've noticed that the piano playing sounds almost exactly the same as the piano Paul Dano plays in the scene while he is composing Good Vibrations with Mike, on the Love & Mercy film.
Could it be possible that Brian already had Good Vibrations in mind as early as September 1965?

Brian never wastes a good riff...

It's a fairly common two-chord vamp. You can draw a line from "Can I Get A Witness?" by Marvin Gaye, through  "The Boy From New York City", to "Good Vibrations", but the vamp itself was obviously one that Brian liked a lot -- he was doing variations on it as early as "Carl's Big Chance". You can sing "I'm picking up Good Vibrations" over essentially the same piano part on the intro to "Carl's Big Chance", though that track is much faster.

Yes, you are right, Carl's Big Chance would fit too. But I am not a musician, so I noticed it and I thought that it was very curious.

Yeah, I didn't mean to sound dismissive. This kind of thing is always fun to notice. It's one of those little motifs that Brian likes a lot.

A number of years ago I pointed out the link between The Boy and Vibes ... the silence was deafening so I decided I was nuts ... thanks for bringing this up!

Bill Pohlad probably noticed the link too  :)

I think that most western popular music, if whittled down to the basics, centers around 6 or 7 variations.
The same would go for eastern popular music, I expect, though it would be different variations.

So true. Along these lines, i always thought Had to Phone Ya reused elements of Trombone Dixie

Indeed.
Ahh, but, what could the source/inspiration be for the verse? ;)

You also have to add RHAPSODY IN BLUE as one of song's direct influences. I'm referring to Brian's use of ascending whole step key changes that happen in the chorus and the in section right before the fade out instrumental chorus.

Confirmed to me by David Leaf back in 1990, when "Trombone Dixie" was first released.  I can't remember if he said so in his liner notes for the 1997 PET SOUNDS SESSIONS box set, but I think he did.

Lee

I believe he did.

There used to be a Had to Phone Ya/Trombone Dixie mashup on Youtube. Don't know if it is still there.

still there!  ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXLUnSz_Xds

I think this happens with a lot of musicians. THere's the scene in A Hard Day's Night where Lennon is playing something that sounds very similar to the opening of Strawberry Fields Forever.

There's also a scene in Let It Be where Lennon is noodling on guitar and plays a riff that sounds like "The Lonely Sea"...

... and roughly a million other fifties ballads.  ;D

I'm no Beatles aficionado... but didn't he say the opening riff was inspired by a police car siren he heard one day while in the garden at Kenwood ?

No, that's the melody of I Am The Walrus. The opening of Strawberry Fields was actually thought up by Paul. (My guess -- and it is a guess, never seen anything to substantiate it -- is that it was inspired by the time pips on the radio. The rhythm's identical at first...)

Like I was saying...

I'm no Beatles aficionado, as I have just demonstrated with breathtaking incompetence.  ;D

Pretty sure Craig refers to this in his liner notes. C-man?

"...and THE BOY FROM NEW YORK CITY (the latter bearing a striking resemblance to the chorus progression for GOOD VIBRATIONS, which would be recorded the following year)." Alan suggested that be added to the essay, but yes, it's something we all noticed.

That wasn't Hard Day's Night. It was from the Beatles First US Visit documentary, either in the official documentary or the outtakes, can't quite remember.

On a melodica, l think ?

...and he sings a tiny snatch of (what became) Imagine, on his home demo of If I Fell,  at 1:16....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y42Q9vG50A

Really, it's more than just the chorus chord progression.
I you overlay "Ooh, bop bop, good vibrations, bop bop..."
on, "Ooh wah, ooh wah cool, cool kitty..."  you get a very nice groove.
The words, "bop" and "cool" both serve the same musical purpose.  When the two are overlapped, you get bop bops on 3 & 4 and cool cool on the 1 & 2 for the following bar. It's a pretty cool loop. And someone could easily sing this over a record or even in your head, if you have that ability. ;)

And....on Good Vibrations, at the break following 2nd chorus, count off two bars and you have the chord progression of the verse of Boy From New York City. Try singing to it (don't forget, the pick up notes are in the second bar of that section). You can even sing the verse up until the 'oo oo wee...' and fade yourself into the church organ part.