‘Surfin”: The Beach Boys song that earned Brian Wilson a failing grade in high school
It’s difficult to imagine a world in which Brian Wilson isn’t one of the most accomplished and acclaimed names in music. In the 1960s, he was the driving creative force behind the Beach Boys, penning songs about sun, sea and surfing while changing pop composition forever in the process. His dense compositions, full of eerily gorgeous harmonies and unexpected instrumentation, have rightly been helmed as some of the best songs ever created.
Take ‘God Only Knows’, for example. The 1966 track has left some of the greatest songwriters of all time in awe. Paul McCartney cites it as his favourite song of all time, while Margo Guryan credits it with inciting her interest in pop music. Other pioneering pop pieces like ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ and the truly seminal Pet Sounds have received similar acclaim, renowned for their reinvention of composition itself.
But Wilson’s compositional abilities weren’t always so widely acclaimed. Long before his name found its way onto every list of the greatest songwriters of all time, long before he sold millions of records and won multiple Grammys, he was a highschool student barely passing his music classes. In fact, one composition even earned him a failing grade, a decision that the teacher would soon regret when it became a Beach Boys hit.
In 1961, the Beach Boys made their debut with ‘Surfin’’, an aptly titled track that would introduce the world to their sunlit sound. “Surfing is the only life, the only way for me,” the song begins, “Now surf, surf with me.” Instrumentally, it features those soon-to-be familiar Beach Boys harmonies and gorgeous guitar strums. Particularly in hindsight, the track is a quaint first offering from the band that introduced their trademark sound.
But Wilson’s music teacher, Fred Morgan, was less than impressed with the track when the future Beach Boy presented it to him in high school. With no idea that ‘Surfin’’ would kickstart the legacy of one of the biggest pop bands of all time, Morgan gave Wilson a particularly poor grade for the song. “Brian wrote a composition for me and it turned out to be ‘Surfin’’,” the teacher recalled in a quote shared to Wilson’s Instagram.
“That composition got an F,” he added, “but it made a million dollars.” Despite Morgan’s lack of belief in ‘Surfin’’, the song made its way into the charts in the United States. But this was only the beginning for the Beach Boys. In the years that followed, Wilson and his bandmates would continue to hone their penchant for pop composition, improving upon the foundations set in place by ‘Surfin’’.
In 2018, over half a century after the release of the Beach Boys’ debut track, Wilson returned to Hawthorne High School, where he had been given a failing grade. A new teacher, Dr Landesfeind, corrected the F that Morgan had given him to an A, reflecting the huge success he achieved following his time at Hawthorne.
Although the grade has now been rectified, it’s refreshing to know that even a musician as talented as Wilson received some poor grades during his time at school. ‘Surfin’’ may not have found favour with his teachers during his teenage years, but it would endear itself to the entire world in the early 1960s. That failing grade has been completely overshadowed by one of the most successful careers in music history.
