Originally released on The Beach Boys Today! (1965), the song just exudes joy. The bootleg Unsurpassed Masters Vol. 8 lets us hear Brian conducting his Wrecking Crew studio musicians (plus Carl on guitar) through a killer guitar-driven backing track that took 19 takes to complete in an awfully quick session on January 13, 1965. In 2001 they finally showed the backing track some love by releasing it on Hawthorne, CA, a collection of rarities and alternate mixes. They used the slate for take 17, but take 19 is what we get. This YouTube video uses that audio with a nice montage of pictures of some of those great session musicians.
"Good To My Baby" was originally credited to Brian Wilson alone, but Mike Love said he wrote the lyrics. He sued Brian in 1992 to have his name added to a number of song credits and receive lost royalties. This is one of the 35 songs to which a Mike Love composer credit was added. The wonderful vocal arrangement was recorded on January 19, 1965. Brian takes the first half of each verse and Mike handles the rest. Carl, Al, and Dennis join in on the background harmonies. Brian's voice is strong, confident and unmatched.
The lyrics in the verses aren't magnificent, but they do the job. The words are a bit teeny-bopper compared to the melancholy on side two. Mike didn't give himself the greatest lines, for example: "And when I give her my love it's between her and me." The gold is in the chorus: "She's my girl and I'm good to my baby, she's my girl and I'm good to my baby, and I know she's happy with me."
This is one example where listening to the session tapes helped my appreciation of the song. A lot of the production subtleties get buried in the original mono mixes and there are revelations to be had all over the place. Imagine standing in that studio and hearing those guitars, pianos, organ, drums, congas, bass, tambourine, and saxophones. For some reason I get a kick out of that saxophone that comes in the left channel at 1:56. I never would have noticed that without the stereo mix and session tapes. It's just a great production all-around that is possibly overlooked because it's on an album full of great productions.
