“Surf’s Up” – Brian Wilson
(Words/music: Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson, available on Smile, Nonesuch 2004) 

Brian Wilson’s rerecorded Smile, one of popular music’s greatest “lost albums,” came out right around the same time that I started to look at the Beach Boys as more than a kitchy’60s act.  I have a vivid memory driving around northern Rhode Island trying to match a washer for a drum set, listening to late period Beach Boys albums and discussing the efficiency in the arrangements with a friend of mine.  I asked him about Smile and he gave me the run through of unofficial sequences and alternate recordings, rattling off a few of the songs he thought I’d know, almost stopping cold on some major road when I looked back blankly at “Surf’s Up.” 

Now, I regularly listen to Wilson’s piano demo of “Surf’s Up” from the Good Vibrations box and marvel at the way he threads the song’s different sections together.  I’ve never really focused on the lyrics, so I’ve let Wilson’s voice and the different, often overlapping, melodies wash over me.  When I first heard Smile, I was curious to hear how “Surf’s Up” would sound decades later.  Remarkably, it sounds like the original with a little more shine on it.  The harmonies are flawless and perfectly balanced with each other, but it still comes down to Wilson and his piano.  His voice, particularly in every television performance I’ve seen over the last six years, feels worn both by age and by decades of demons, but when paired with one of his melodies, it sounds as arresting as ever.  Certainly as captivating as it sounded that one night stopped dead in traffic somewhere in Rhode Island.

More on Brian Wilson: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm