“We had done something special”: The Beach Boys song Brian Wilson considered a masterpiece
Anyone who has ever dreamed of writing a hit song could practically take a class based on Brian Wilson alone. Even though The Beach Boys have become a long-forgotten memory from the 1960s for some casual fans, what Wilson did in terms of production and songwriting is still untouchable compared to the greatest artists of all time, with even The Beatles giving props to what he did in his prime. When listening to all of his acclaimed tunes, Wilson remembered this track being an absolute masterpiece right out of the gate.
But becoming one of the greatest of all time isn’t something that happens spontaneously. People can only appreciate that kind of praise after they’ve written thousands of tunes, and listening back to how Wilson operated singing about cars, surfing and sunshine, he almost needed to break out to be properly heard.
An album like The Beach Boys Today already had some moments that were edging towards Pet Sounds like ‘She Knows Me Too Well’, but by the time Wilson left the road, giving him free rein of The Wrecking Crew meant making some of the most sophisticated tunes of the time, whether that was the insane concept of putting a theremin on ‘Good Vibrations’ or the massive orchestrations behind ‘God Only Knows.’
Given how massive the album became, it’s a shame we’ll never know what Smile would have been like as a follow-up. Although revisiting the album in the 2000s was still interesting, the whole concept behind making another classic album ended up becoming too chopped in the editing process. Eventually, it ended up in some weird purgatory for years, where the songs would get recycled for later albums.
Still, listening to ‘Surf’s Up’ sounds like we missed out on another massive project. Even though Wison needed to take some time off for his own sanity and try his best to get on the right track, hearing him reach the top of his range and turn in that tearful vocal performance on the final 1970s version is one of the most earnest moments in his career.
And from a raw musical perspective, Wilson felt that he hit the nail on the head with this record, saying, “It was a masterpiece of a song. It opened on a minor seventh, unlike most songs, which open on a major. From there, it just started building. I thought it rambled beautifully and said a lot in the end. I really thought we had done something special when we finished that one.”
Although the version in its finished form is still fantastic, it’s still a shadow of what it could have been had it been placed next to other classic tracks from Pet Sounds. With all due respect to a tune like ‘Good Vibrations’ on a purely technical level, this is far more beautiful than the group’s acknowledged masterpiece, if only for Wilson’s vocal performance and the strange twists and turns it takes with the melody now and again.
Wilson may have been too far gone to make another smash hit album on the same level as Pet Sounds, but ‘Surf’s Up’ remains the perfect example of what his songwriting was like at its best. It might sound silly at times and perhaps a bit corny, but the reason it works is because you can still hear the heart coming out of him with every word he sings.
