Surf's Up

Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks wrote it for Smile, most of it in one night, as a two-movement piece. Nothing in it concerns surfing. The title plays on the group shedding their image. The first tracking session was at Western Studio 3 on 4 November 1966 with the engineer Chuck Britz. On 17 December 1966 Wilson sang it alone at his piano for the CBS documentary Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution, which Leonard Bernstein hosted and which aired on 25 April 1967.

After Smile was shelved Wilson left the song off Smiley Smile. In June 1971, with the album then called Landlocked, he allowed Carl and Jack Rieley to finish it. Carl overdubbed a lead vocal on the first part, over the November 1966 backing track, and the second movement was Brian's December 1966 piano performance with new vocals and Moog synthesizer. Carl reworked the refrain of another Smile song, Child Is Father of the Man, into the coda, with Al Jardine on lead. Brian helped complete the coda near the end of the sessions, and the closing lines about a children's song were added, with Stephen Desper crediting Brian and Rieley crediting himself. It was the last time the band reworked Smile material. Bruce Johnston recalled they ended up doing vocals to sort of emulate themselves without Brian Wilson.

The song closed the album on 30 August 1971. Released as a single in November 1971 with Don't Go Near the Water on the B-side, it did not chart. Richard Williams wrote in Melody Maker that he had rarely heard a more perfect, more complete piece of music. Pitchfork put Wilson's piano performance at number 134 on its list of the best songs of the 1960s in 2006 and the album version at number 122 for the 1970s in 2016. Mojo's staff voted it the greatest Beach Boys song in 2011. Elvis Costello said hearing a bootleg of Wilson alone at the piano was like hearing a tape of Mozart. 51 logged setlists include it, from September 1971 to 2015. Wilson rerecorded it in 2004 for Brian Wilson Presents Smile, and Mark Linett mixed the 1966 backing track with Brian's piano-demo vocals for The Smile Sessions.