| "Surf's Up" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by The Beach Boys from the album SMiLE | ||||
| Released | November 1, 2011 | |||
| Genre | Progressive rock[1], baroque pop | |||
| Length | 4:12 | |||
| Label | Capitol | |||
| Composer | Brian Wilson/Van Dyke Parks | |||
| Producer | Brian Wilson | |||
| Cover versions | ||||
| Brian Wilson | ||||
| SMiLE track listing | ||||
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| "Surf's Up" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by The Beach Boys | ||||
| from the album Surf's Up | ||||
| Released | November 8, 1971 | |||
| Format | Vinyl | |||
| Recorded | 1966–1967, 1971 | |||
| Genre | Progressive rock, baroque pop | |||
| Length | 4:12 | |||
| Label | Brother/Reprise | |||
| Producer | The Beach Boys | |||
| The Beach Boys singles chronology | ||||
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"Surf's Up" is the title of a song written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks. The song was intended as one of the centrepieces for the aborted Beach Boys' album Smile, which was begun in late 1966 but shelved in mid-1967. It was reworked and used as the title track for the twenty-second official album by The Beach Boys, Surf's Up, released in 1971. It also appears as the tenth track in Brian Wilson's re-recorded Smile, released in 2004.
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"Surf's Up" was written in a single night at Brian Wilson's piano in his sandbox. Brian believes; "the lyrics for 'Surf's Up' were very Van Dyke; only he could have done that – only Van Dyke could have written those lyrics. We wrote that at my Chickering piano, I think, in my sandbox and it took us about an hour at most to write the whole thing. We wrote it pretty fast; it all happened like it should." In Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Story of Smile, when asked by Van Dyke Parks what Wilson was feeling when he wrote the music for "Surf's Up," he responded with, "I just felt some love, I felt a whole lot of love, there was a whole lot of love going on at the time." An apparently complete backing track for the first (2:20) section was recorded and mixed in November 1966, but vocals and other overdubs were still to be added, and work on the middle and closing sections was either never undertaken, or never finished. It is notable that the flourishes played on muted trumpet in the verses of "Surf's Up" are almost identical to the familiar 'laughing' refrain of the theme for the Woody Woodpecker cartoon series. This musical reference recurs in the instrumental piece "Fall Breaks And Back To Winter" on the album Smiley Smile, (which was in fact subtitled "Woody Woodpecker Symphony"). The title of "Surf's Up" was intended as an ironic gesture on the part of the two writers, pairing the dense, compositionally sophisticated piece with a title suggestive of the Beach Boys' earlier, simpler surfing-related material. The song is noted for quoting the two lines from the French song Frere Jacque", the lines: "Are you Sleeping/ Brother John?". The song also quotes the title of the Scottish song, "Auld Lang Syne".
The original studio recording of the song was never completed. A fully finished (or near-complete) backing track for the first section was recorded in late 1966 and early 1967 under the production of Brian Wilson, and other vocal and instrumental segments were also recorded, but a final edit was apparently never made. Although the second section of the song features the demo version of the song from 1966–67, with Brian Wilson on lead vocals, the entire demo version remained unreleased until it was included on the Beach Boys 1993 box set release Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of The Beach Boys.
The song was certainly fully composed by November 1966, when Brian Wilson was filmed performing a complete 'demo' solo version of the song on piano for a CBS News special on popular music. The show was hosted by Leonard Bernstein, but it was the show's producer, David Oppenheim, who expressed his admiration for the song:
There is a new song, too complex to get all of first time around. It could come only out of the ferment that characterizes today's pop music scene. Brian Wilson, leader of the famous Beach Boys, and one of today's most important musicians, sings his own 'Surf's Up.' Poetic, beautiful even in its obscurity, 'Surf's Up' is one aspect of new things happening in pop music today. As such, it is a symbol of the change many of these young musicians see in our future.
The demo version of the song obviously does not feature any additional vocal or instrumental overdubs, and, at the conclusion of the song, Brian can be heard singing the original ending to the "Surf's Up" song without the "Child is Father of the Man" vocal overdubs.
A later composite version of the song was completed by The Beach Boys under the supervision of Carl Wilson in 1971. The song was credited as being produced by The Beach Boys, though most of the production for the new instrumental sections of the song was done by Carl. The first section featured a new lead vocal by Carl dubbed over the original 1966 backing track, as well as additional instrumentation. It's said that the band asked Brian to do the lead vocal as he would have originally, but he was unwilling to or possibly felt he was unable to perform it at this point in time.
The second section ("Dove nested towers"...) featured mainly Brian's double-tracked vocal and piano from a December 1966 demo recording (pointedly not the same demo that Brian performed for CBS), plus new vocal and instrumental overdubs. The third section combined the closing section of Brian's demo with newly-recorded vocals and other additions, with the lead vocal ("A children's song, have you listened as they play?") being done by Al Jardine. Oddly enough, despite being completely unwilling to work on the rest of the song and do the lead vocal, the new ending of the 1971 version was entirely Brian's work. It is based on another Smile era track, "Child is the Father of the Man". It is unknown whether the song was originally to end this way or if it was a newer addition by Brian. An additional line to this section, "The father's life is done, and the children carry on," was written but was removed at Brian's request.
The newly-finished song was released as a single and also appeared on the 1971 album of the same name, Surf's Up. The B-side of the single was "Don't Go Near the Water". Evidently referring to the solo 'demo' version, Brian stated, "The vocal on that [Surf's Up] was a little bit limited. It's not my favorite vocal I ever did, but it did have heart. Nevertheless, it'll be out there again with this reissue, and I'll be naked to the world!"
Writing for The Guardian in October 1971, Geoffrey Cannon praised the song's music and the group's vocal harmonies, highlighting it as a standout track from Surf's Up, despite his criticism of its co-writer, Van Dyke Parks:[2]
Van Dyke Parks, who writes pretentious words, messed Brian up in 1967, particularly on the album Smiley Smile. The title track of "Surf's Up" was written by Van Dyke Parks around that period, and Brian sat on it until now... Its delicacy is close to Pet Sounds, released in 1966, especially to "You Still Believe in Me" and "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" on that album. Its subtle shifts of pace and timing, and delicate harmony singing, put it in the top flight of Beach Boys' numbers.
On Brian Wilson's 2004 recording of Smile, the musical arrangement is very similar to the 1971 release, but with the clarity of modern recording technology. The vocal arrangement is slightly altered for the highest parts. This melody runs a full octave plus a minor third, sweeping up a minor sixth (five whole steps) at one point, and peaking at the second F above Middle C. As Brian Wilson was then 62, with a naturally reduced vocal range, the part was rearranged for harmonies, with additional voices blending in smoothly, allowing Wilson to sing a lower part. In the concert performances, this approach was used many other times during the Smile material, with his younger backup singers doubling many of his parts in unison (similar to the recording technique of doubletracking), blending in and taking over for the high parts that were more difficult for Wilson to reach on stage than in the studio.
A Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound version of the song was released on the Endless Harmony DVD as a bonus track. The track, along with the other 5.1 surround sound mixes, were produced and mixed by Mark Linett. On An All-Star Tribute to Brian Wilson (2001), a cover version was made by David Crosby, Vince Gill, Jimmy Webb. Gill sang the first part, Webb & Gill sang the second, and David Crosby sang the coda in an extended version.
Some fan mixes and bootlegs sync Brian's original vocal demo with the original 1967 backing track.
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