For so many reasons. First pop song to be recorded in a modular style. The song was recorded in five different recording studios taking more than 6 weeks to complete.....bouncing from 4 track to 8 track machines...try to hear that on the final recording. Brian Wilson somehow got the same sound from all 5 studios. Any recording engineers here will realize the difficulty of doing that in 2006, but in 1966??? The tempo changes so many times in a 3.5 minute span it's amazing. The song starts in the key G flat major (six flats) and starts with the verse descending from the relative minor: E flat minor. It was probably played in the key of F (one flat) with the verse starting on the chord of D minor and sped up at the mixdown stage. The song uses a solo cello and a theremin to build the rhythm section for one section, and in another section doubles a honky-tonk piano with a jaw's harp (this, at a time when typical pop songs used bass guitar, electric guitar, sometimes piano and drums) The instrumentation changes radically from section to section; the bass plays in some parts but not in others, drums and vocals drop in and out, and the voices sometimes accompany fully developed backing tracks (such as in the chorus) and are in parts almost a cappella. The beat, although the standard four-to-the bar, has a triplet feel, a three's over fours type thing. The second eight bars have a broken drum pattern, and the 16-bar chorus was edited into the multitrack master tape at some point during the construction of the track. When my ears first heard this Brian Wilson masterpiece in 1966, they took notice. This song forever changed not only my musical direction, but also changed the way music was recorded. Still quite an accoplishment even by todays standards. Great song, amazing production.
