Now to the slower-paced of the two pairs.
Contest #8B: Battle of the Late 1965-Early 1966 Mellow Masterpieces #2 - "God Only Knows" vs "In My Life"
"God Only Knows" - recorded March-April 1966
"In My Life" - recorded October 1965
This time I'll just add the vocals-only tracks.
"God Only Knows" - the coda of this is utterly, totally and completely u-n-b-e-l-i-e-v-a-b-l-e
"In My Life"
My verdict: It's a tie!
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EDIT 10/31/13: After spending months wondering what I could pair "Good Vibrations" against, it just occurred to me either "Penny Lane" or "Strawberry Fields Forever" would be the most obvious ones. Not sure why I didn't think of that before. "Penny Lane" is an upbeat tune like GV so I'll use that in the match-up instead of Strawberry Fields.
Since I've already got a #9, and #8A and #8B above aren't really the same category as these tunes, I'll call this "Contest #Pre-9" instead of #8C.
Contest #Pre-9: Battle of the Late 1966-Early 1967 Upbeat Singles - "Good Vibrations" vs "Penny Lane"
"Good Vibrations"
"Penny Lane"
My verdict: This is a real tough one, but I go with Good Vibrations by a small margin.