THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,825) Brian Wilson — “Surf’s Up”
Brian Wilson’s greatest achievement? Quite possibly. Rock music’s single greatest achievement? Quite possibly. “Absolutely perfect song. Sometimes I think it’s the best song ever written.” (Versionsound, https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/what-is-it-about-surfs-up-the-beach-boys-song.1228202/) “There is no better song in the history of the universe.” (Dirk the Nightfly, https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/what-is-it-about-surfs-up-the-beach-boys-song.1228202/) “[With] Van Dyke Parks’ ‘muted trumpeter swans,’ and ‘columnated ruins domino,’ [it] is perhaps Brian Wilson’s most brilliant work. . . . [O]ne of the great achievements in popular music”. (Ken Shane, https://popdose.com/cratedigger-the-beach-boys-surfs-up/) Just ask Leonard Bernstein.
Floatupstream:
There is something about “Surf’s Up” that transports me like no other song that I have ever heard. I have no idea what the lyrics mean, I just know genius when I hear it. . . . I truly have an emotional response when I listen to the melody and the surreal harmonies on the end. This is the equal to the great classical composers. . . . one of the few songs that brings me to tears at times just from the sheer beauty of it.
https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/what-is-it-about-surfs-up-the-beach-boys-song.1228202/
Mark Richardson:
The lonely boy in his room finally gets the baroque and puzzling lyrics his most complex music deserves. For all the Phil Spector worship and industry cash lavished on fireman’s hats—and once you get past the cutesy intro—“Surf’s Up” shows all Brian needed was a piano to knock you on your can.
https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/6405-the-200-greatest-songs-of-the-1960s/?page=5
Brutally Honest Rock Album Reviews:
“[O]ne of Brian Wilson‘s greatest compositions ever, in spite of some truly deplorable lyrics by one Van Dykes Park, who never heard a Brian Wilson song he didn’t want to try and ruin with nonsense lyrics. But the instrumentation and the melody are so powerful they overcome the nonsense about “columnated ruins dominoing” and the like. One of Brian‘s most beautiful songs. . . . [W]hile Carl Wilson’s lead vocal from the [Beach Boys’ (see #667)] Surf’s Up version is great, it’s nothing compared to Brian Wilson‘s original lead vocal on the demo from 1966.
https://absoludicrousblog.wordpress.com/2020/05/10/a-title-of-some-sort-top-30-beach-boys-songs/
Ian Malin:
Leonard Bernstein, with more than a touch of hyperbole, famously called it the best piece of music he had ever heard. . . . There is a version of Brian Wilson singing Surf’s Up as early as 1966 and one recorded back in 1967 for the Smile album but the song then remained dormant for four years. That stripped-back version may be better . . . but what can’t be denied is the majesty of the composition. In a review in Rolling Stone Arthur Schmidt . . . recognises the greatness of what was to have been the pièce de resistance of Smile, the song co-written with Van Dyke Parks . . . . The production . . . with its French horns and clarinets and Brian Wilson’s soaring vocals, Schmidt believes, would have given it a run to anything on Sgt Pepper which it could have competed with had Smile seen the light of day. The words may be opaque . . . . But the music is sublime . . . .
Absoludicrous gives us some background:
“Surf’s Up” started life in 1966. Intended for Smile, the [Beach Boys’] follow-up to critical darling Pet Sounds, it, along with the rest of Smile, got put away in 1967 after Brian Wilson, the main creative force behind the album, had a mental breakdown and grew unwilling to continue working with the material. After that, it sat in limbo until 1971, when bandleader Carl Wilson fished it back out and helped Brian finish it. It then became the title track of their 17th studio album. The lyrics were penned by Van Dyke Parks, a man known for his puzzling and purposefully vague lyrics. For that reason, this song apparently became a point of contention between Brian and his bandmates. Brian did not tour with the rest of the Beach Boys, instead staying home to write and produce their music, only involving the other members when they returned to record their vocal (and occasionally instrumental) contributions. Perhaps understandably, the other members of the band wanted to know the meaning of the words they were singing, and grew frustrated that their music was drifting away from the simple, straightforward lyrics of their early career. Ironically, though, the meaning of these lyrics actually have a lot to do with these very concerns. “Surf’s Up” is a song about the beauty of simplicity and innocence. To me, the density of its lyrics serves to demonstrate its message – complicated language sounds lovely, but can never communicate meaning as effectively as the simple lyrics of a children’s song. . . . It’s a song that grapples with themes very common in Beach Boys songs – the death of innocence, a longing for simplicity…. and yes, surfing. Well… sort of.
https://absoludicrousblog.wordpress.com/2020/10/18/lyric-tober-week-3-surfs-up-the-beach-boys/
Ken Shane adds:
The impetus for the completion of the song came from the Beach Boys new manager Jack Rieley, who was determined to make the band relevant again. Brian, understandably, was not interesting in revisiting his personal hell, so it was left to Carl Wilson, the band’s newly appointed (by Rieley) Musical Director to move forward. Brian did finally emerge to help out with the song’s third movement.
Finally, Jay McDowell:
Wilson and Parks wrote the song in 1966 as they sat in the sandbox, apparently on drugs. Later, Wilson revealed he came up with melody lines, and Parks inserted lyrics on the spot. . . . Wilson recorded different sections of the song over more than a dozen sessions beginning in October 1966. He abandoned the project after the final session on April 10, 1967. He picked it back up four years later when the band and manager Jack Rieley encouraged Wilson to revisit the song. “Surf’s Up” existed in three separate sections, and they spliced the tapes together. Certain sections of lyrics seemed to be missing, and Wilson and Parks had parted ways. Wilson wasn’t sure how to complete the song. Band members questioned the lyrical content. Wilson wrote, “People say they’re too complicated, or they don’t mean anything, but that’s the thing about poetry. It’s ideas, and it makes you have ideas when you listen to it. For those kinds of lyrics, I never asked Van Dyke what they meant. I sang their meaning the way it seemed to me.” . . . Parks suggested the song’s title . . . even though the lyrics don’t exactly address the subject. The album had the working title of Landlocked but was retitled Surf’s Up. Parks . . . told Rolling Stone magazine in October 1971, “If they call that album Surf’s Up, we can pre-sell a hundred and fifty thousand copies. And Brian can keep his house on Bellagio. . . . Carl Wilson was trying to help get the song together, but Brian was not happy with it, wanting nothing to do with the sessions. Dennis Wilson continually yelled at his brother Brian, urging him to finish the song. Brian’s vocals were replaced by Carl’s and after several days, Brian got involved again. Mike Love was confused by the lyrics and told Uncut magazine in March 2008, “I asked Van Dyke what a particular set of lyrics meant, and he said, ‘I haven’t a clue, Mike.’[“] . . . . [It] failed to chart when it was released as a single. . . .
Here is Brian ’67:
Here is the sublime Feel Flows mashup. Brutally Honest Rock Album Reviews writes:
The Feel Flows box set gives us a version where Brian Wilson’s 1966 vocal has been laid over top the background instruments and backing vocals from the Surf’s Up backing, and it’s breathtaking. That’s the way the song was meant to be heard. . . . He just sings it with more passion than Carl did, and that falsetto swoop when he sings “domino” takes my breath away every time. . . . [I]t underscores how much better even that masterpiece could’ve been.
Here is Brian ’04:
Here are the Beach Boys ’71:
Here is the full Inside Pop — The Rock Revolution (with the segment on Brian Wilson and “Surf’s Up” starting at 45:07):
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