The song Leonard Bernstein called a “symbol of change” in pop music
Leonard Bernstein may well have been a classical composer, but in the 1960s, he knew all too well that the times had changed and pop music was taking the mantle. “For a long time now I’ve been fascinated by this strange and compelling scene called pop music,” Bernstein told CBS’ Inside Pop. “I say strange because it is unlike any scene I can think of in the history of all music.”
He continued: “It is completely of, by, and for the kids. And by kids, I mean anyone from eight years old to 25. They write the songs, they sing them, own them, record them. They also buy the records, create the market. They set the fashions in the music, in dress, in dance, in hairstyle, lingo, social attitudes. And I say compelling because it shows no sign of abatement. The fads change, the groups change, but the songs keep coming increasingly odd, defiant and free.”
This, of Bernstein, was typified by the Beach Boys classic, ‘Surf’s Up’. As the composer declared at the time: “There is a new song, too complex to get all of first time around. It could come only out of the ferment that characterizes today’s pop music scene. Brian Wilson, leader of the famous Beach Boys, and one of today’s most important musicians, sings his own ‘Surf’s Up’. Poetic, beautiful even in its obscurity, ‘Surf’s Up’ is one aspect of new things happening in pop music today. As such, it is a symbol of the change many of these young musicians see in our future.”
The Beach Boys were part of the “5%” of pop music that Bernstein said he not only enjoyed but saw as revolutionary in the world of music, and art at large for that matter, albeit the other 95% he wasn’t quite so hot on, but then isn’t that the case with all art? This new strand was emblematic of the times. When listing the masterpieces of the era, he declared: “All the truly great works of our century have been borne of despair, or of protest, or of a refuge from both, but anguish informs them all.”
Nothing says that quite like The Beach Boys. The band turned their tortured childhoods at the hands of an abusive father into transcendent art that spoke of sunny escapism. It remains a beacon of hope for millions. The beaming nature of ‘Surf’s Up’ masks the complexity of their innovation in the best possible way, and the song ranks firmly in Brian Wilson’s own favourite Beach Boys songs. The song looks at the innocence of youth, centring on the William Wordsworth line, “The child is father of the man.” And it paired that with melodic layering comparable to Schubert.
This, according to Bernstein, and anyone else with ears for that matter, makes it a masterpiece. And it also seems very fitting of the 1960s that the two-movement track was written mostly in one night when Wilson and Van Dyke Parks were high on Desbutols. Their thoughts in this feverish state were to write a song about a man in a concert hall overtaken by the healing joys of music to the extent that he returns to a state of child-like bliss.
Sadly, the praise that Bernstein heaped upon Wilson had the opposite effect. He was blown away by his hero calling him a master, and the pressure of delivering on that promise eventually derailed Smile and, indeed, Wilson himself for a while.
