Smile Recording
An apparently complete backing track for the first (2:20) section was recorded and mixed in November 1966, but vocals and other overdubs were still to be added, and work on the middle and closing sections was either never undertaken, or never finished. It is notable that the flourishes played on muted trumpet in the verses of "Surf's Up" are almost identical to the familiar 'laughing' refrain of the theme for the Woody Woodpecker cartoon series. This musical reference recurs in the instrumental piece "Fall Breaks And Back To Winter" on the album Smiley Smile, (which was in fact subtitled "W. Woodpecker Symphony").
The song was certainly fully composed by November 1966, when Brian Wilson was filmed performing a complete 'demo' solo version of the song on piano for a CBS News special on popular music. The show was hosted by Leonard Bernstein, but it was the show's producer, David Oppenheim, who expressed his admiration for the song through voice-over, describing it as "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 original studio recording of the song was never completed. A fully finished (or near-complete) backing track for the first section was recorded in late 1966 and early 1967 under the production of Brian Wilson, and other vocal and instrumental segments were also recorded, but a final edit was apparently never made.
An infamous piano demo recorded by Wilson in December 1966 was later released in its entirety on The Beach Boys 1993 box set release Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of The Beach Boys and again in 2011 for The Smile Sessions. Brian Wilson, evidently referring to this solo version, would comment "Surf’s Up’? Ahh... Atrocious! I’m embarrassed... totally embarrassed. That was a piece of shit. Vocally it was a piece of shit. I was the wrong singer for it in the first place." Years later adding, "The vocal on that was a little bit limited. It's not my favorite vocal I ever did, but it did have heart."
Read more about this topic: Surf's Up (song)
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