LogFAQs > #957082036

49. The Beach Boys Surfs Up (1971)
from the album Surfs Up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v75f5W6LgLM

Key lyrics:
The music hall a costly bow
The music all is lost for now

Surfs Up is among the most effective titles I know, painting this track as The Beach Boys statement of purpose when the lyrics themselves are too dense to interpret. No matter how many boundaries they pushed on even their most radio-friendly hits, their origins as a carefree surf rock band would always hang over them. Surfs Up lives in an opera house at risk of a tidal wave; how far must a band go to change their popular image? The phrase plays on so many levels, from a mocking callback to a lament. The surf is up, meaning it is over.

Where many of their classics around this era play with a constant soundscape, Surfs Up maintains a sparse arrangement. Like Good Vibrations, this shifts between several distinct movements, but Surfs Up plays to the most extreme of their baroque sensibilities. An extended middle section consists of nothing but a piano and voice. This is the sound of a popular band shedding their image entirely to stew in their own artistic notions. A constant shift in key leaves even the quiet moments unpredictable. For this one track, The Beach Boys have truly left their popular audiences behind.

But then we reach the finale, which expands into one of their strongest harmonic arrangements. They know what their audiences want, and they know what works. Surfs Up captures The Beach Boys as introspective masters. Leaving the harmonizing for an explosive finale may have sabotaged their chance at chart success, but it stands fifty years later as their boldest statement.

---

My top 100 games (with write-ups): https://foolfantastic.com/top-100-video-games-project/