Surf's Up Fade

[Dunderhead]

I had a question for you guys, just to start up a little new discussion. What does everyone think of Brian's track fadeouts on SMiLE. If I'm being honest the fades on that album are usually my favorite part. The Heroes fade, "False Barnyard", and the fades to Worms, Vega-Tables, Cabinessence are all excellent. Brian seems to have put a lot of effort into creating fades for the album, unique fades that weren't just a continuation of the main verse. I honestly think his fades represent Brian's best songwriting.

Surf's Up has another really wonderful fade, but I have to wonder what it really would have sounded like. I think we make a mistake with that song, we really have no idea what the real arrangement would have been in the second part and the fade. We just assume it was a piano but who knows what kind of crazy arrangements Brian would have put in there. The fade as it is on Surf's Up never felt right to me, not because of the vocals, but because of the lack of instruments. I imagine Brian originally wanted to have something like the other more orchestral fades on there.

What do you all make of the fades on SMiLE, why was Brian putting so much emphasis on unique fades? What do you think of the SU fade?

[Freddie French-Pounce]

I'd never considered that, but now it all makes sense! I think his main focus applying to the fades could be A: The fade is the last part you hear, so make it memorable, B: Fades can last a while, don't let them drag on, C: They allowing Brian to create a climax to each song, something that has no need to end or flow into something else, and so complete freedom is allowed for Brian to express himself musically.

With regards to the 'Surf's Up' fade, I only really realised the other day there is just piano in there (is there Bass Guitar added there and in the second 'movement' too?), and so the absolute wall of sound created through the vocals really allowed the Boys to show off, as it sounds alot fuller than it should sound.

With regards to what it could have been, was it always going to have the 'Child' vocals at the end, and how much of an explosion of instrumentation can we have expected. You anticipate the sound the horns screaming out at you, but they never come. The 'SMiLE A.D.' mixes added the 'Child' snare drum, but while this did sound cool, it really could not represent Brians idea (Very good job though!)

Outside of 'Smile',  I can't (off the top of my head - it is early morning!) think of any of these fantastic fades, but then again, the modular format of 'Smile' is what allowed him to to create them.

[Sheriff John Stone]

What does everyone think of Brian's track fadeouts on SMiLE. If I'm being honest the fades on that album are usually my favorite part. The Heroes fade, "False Barnyard", and the fades to Worms, Vega-Tables, Cabinessence are all excellent. Brian seems to have put a lot of effort into creating fades for the album, unique fades that weren't just a continuation of the main verse. I honestly think his fades represent Brian's best songwriting.

Surf's Up has another really wonderful fade, but I have to wonder what it really would have sounded like. I think we make a mistake with that song, we really have no idea what the real arrangement would have been in the second part and the fade.

The fades are among my favorite parts, too. It's Brian at his pictorial best. You can picture the ship sailing into the sunset, the train chugging over the horizon, the horse galloping away "into the rough". Even "You Are My Sunshine" has a feel of the sun going down. The fades were essential, IMO.

Of course, utilizing those fades would've meant stand alone tracks. Not to go off topic, but sacrificing those fades renders BWPS unlistenable to me, at least the recorded version. I understand why they were sacrificed for the live presentation. And, if the fade to "Surf's Up" doesn't sound right or complete to you (and maybe it wasn't), well, Brian had the opportunity to make it right when he "finished" SMiLE in 2004. So, maybe that IS the way he wanted it.

[Cabinessenceking]

I think the closest we will ever get to an original fade for SU is by listening to the live versions of the early 70's. The snare drum and the horns which have long drawn notes is possibly the way it would've ended? I think Brian did not have in mind to add more instruments to the fade given there is such a strong vocal blend. He would not want that to be overshadowed.

[Alan Smith]

What does everyone think of Brian's track fadeouts on SMiLE. If I'm being honest the fades on that album are usually my favorite part. The Heroes fade, "False Barnyard", and the fades to Worms, Vega-Tables, Cabinessence are all excellent. Brian seems to have put a lot of effort into creating fades for the album, unique fades that weren't just a continuation of the main verse. I honestly think his fades represent Brian's best songwriting.

Surf's Up has another really wonderful fade, but I have to wonder what it really would have sounded like. I think we make a mistake with that song, we really have no idea what the real arrangement would have been in the second part and the fade.

The fades are among my favorite parts, too. It's Brian at his pictorial best. You can picture the ship sailing into the sunset, the train chugging over the horizon, the horse galloping away "into the rough". Even "You Are My Sunshine" has a feel of the sun going down. The fades were essential, IMO.

Of course, utilizing those fades would've meant stand alone tracks. Not to go off topic, but sacrificing those fades renders BWPS unlistenable to me, at least the recorded version. I understand why they were sacrificed for the live presentation. And, if the fade to "Surf's Up" doesn't sound right or complete to you (and maybe it wasn't), well, Brian had the opportunity to make it right when he "finished" SMiLE in 2004. So, maybe that IS the way he wanted it.

Wow, I just bought a new "CD" player and indulged in a SS disc 1 refresher.  One of my key observations was the fades on these tracks, and how Brian may have (consciously or no) used yet them to bookend the thoughts/ideas raised in the songs.

The fades are as engaging as Brian's none or half/1 bar intros; the intros sweep you off your feet, the fades ease you out as you collect your thoughts.

Kudos to Alan and Mark for retaining the fades on SS, ideally to document in-vogue techniques but it allows the set to also remain faithful to the way Brian presents his music.

I also noted how unsatisfying the merge into Plymouth, and the end of Surf's Up on BWPS are in contrast to the SS presentation.

[Autotune]

I had a question for you guys, just to start up a little new discussion. What does everyone think of Brian's track fadeouts on SMiLE. If I'm being honest the fades on that album are usually my favorite part. The Heroes fade, "False Barnyard", and the fades to Worms, Vega-Tables, Cabinessence are all excellent. Brian seems to have put a lot of effort into creating fades for the album, unique fades that weren't just a continuation of the main verse. I honestly think his fades represent Brian's best songwriting.

Surf's Up has another really wonderful fade, but I have to wonder what it really would have sounded like. I think we make a mistake with that song, we really have no idea what the real arrangement would have been in the second part and the fade. We just assume it was a piano but who knows what kind of crazy arrangements Brian would have put in there. The fade as it is on Surf's Up never felt right to me, not because of the vocals, but because of the lack of instruments. I imagine Brian originally wanted to have something like the other more orchestral fades on there.

What do you all make of the fades on SMiLE, why was Brian putting so much emphasis on unique fades? What do you think of the SU fade?

Brian is a master fader. He was creating specific fades as far back as the Surfer Girl album. Perhaps there's an example or two in the Surfin USA album, can't remember now. In fact, one of the first things that had me hooked to the BBs music early on was the care in the structure: everything thought out, so dynamic, so intergrated and yet so natural and loose.
The Surf's Up one sounds like a skeleton. Could have been so elaborate with that walking bass line fully produced and all sorts of syncopated rhythms.

[lance]

I see what you are saying but personally I feel that it is perfect the way it is.

[DonnyL]

Yeh, the fade doesn't seem like a BW thing at all.  I can kind of hear ideas of what I think it might have been like in my mind but it's hard to explain.  But certainly much shorter, with more detail and dynamics in the smaller time frame.  short, abrupt low/high counterpoint things, etc.  like a bass harmonica/cello, then a glock/coke bottle back & forth or something.  with flutes.

[Dunderhead]

I always thought that the second part would have been much more orchestral, featuring only strings. Or only traditional accompaniment. Considering the lyrics in that part talk about going back in time and experiencing history, or seeing the way people used to live.
The song is actually pretty brilliant, the way the second part breaks free of the strophic form of the first section.

In general I feel like fades have a lot to do with the lyrical content of SMiLE. There are a lot of random references to someone being lost, or missing. The lyrics of Worms for example have "waving from an ocean liner...", and in Surf's Up there are references to "Brother John" and then "adieu or die". The sun is taken away in My Only Sunshine. "Lost and found you still remain there" on Cabinessence. Even the title "Holidays" implies leaving, and going off to someplace faraway, as does "I Ran". This culminates in the lyrics for Heroes, the "I've been in this town so long that back in the city/I've been taken for lost and gone/and unknown for a long long time".

I think in some way the use of fades might be connected to all those different references.

[runnersdialzero]

I always thought that the second part would have been much more orchestral, featuring only strings. Or only traditional accompaniment. Considering the lyrics in that part talk about going back in time and experiencing history, or seeing the way people used to live.
The song is actually pretty brilliant, the way the second part breaks free of the strophic form of the first section.

In general I feel like fades have a lot to do with the lyrical content of SMiLE. There are a lot of random references to someone being lost, or missing. The lyrics of Worms for example have "waving from an ocean liner...", and in Surf's Up there are references to "Brother John" and then "adieu or die". The sun is taken away in My Only Sunshine. "Lost and found you still remain there" on Cabinessence. Even the title "Holidays" implies leaving, and going off to someplace faraway, as does "I Ran". This culminates in the lyrics for Heroes, the "I've been in this town so long that back in the city/I've been taken for lost and gone/and unknown for a long long time".

I think in some way the use of fades might be connected to all those different references.

You're wrong. All the Smile (excuse me, ~*~sMiLe~*~) songs are about smoking weed, especially "Vegetables" because marijuana is a vegetable.

[Dunderhead]

I always thought that the second part would have been much more orchestral, featuring only strings. Or only traditional accompaniment. Considering the lyrics in that part talk about going back in time and experiencing history, or seeing the way people used to live.
The song is actually pretty brilliant, the way the second part breaks free of the strophic form of the first section.

In general I feel like fades have a lot to do with the lyrical content of SMiLE. There are a lot of random references to someone being lost, or missing. The lyrics of Worms for example have "waving from an ocean liner...", and in Surf's Up there are references to "Brother John" and then "adieu or die". The sun is taken away in My Only Sunshine. "Lost and found you still remain there" on Cabinessence. Even the title "Holidays" implies leaving, and going off to someplace faraway, as does "I Ran". This culminates in the lyrics for Heroes, the "I've been in this town so long that back in the city/I've been taken for lost and gone/and unknown for a long long time".

I think in some way the use of fades might be connected to all those different references.

You're wrong. All the Smile (excuse me, ~*~sMiLe~*~) songs are about smoking weed, especially "Vegetables" because marijuana is a vegetable.

I do think that vegetables are a euphemism for drugs, there are a lot of hints for that. I don't really think SMiLE is "about" anything though. This whole idea of meaning really confuses some people more than it should. A work of art can have many valid, and sometimes contradictory meanings all intended simultaneously by the artist. To say that a work of art has a single literal meaning is foolish, and as foolish as saying that art has no meaning at all. Art reflects a complicated range of feelings and ideas that reflect eachother in meaningful ways.
Also, there's no reason to get so sarcastic about it. If you want to have a discussion then discuss, but don't post bitter and condescending remarks.

[Runaways]

I think the closest we will ever get to an original fade for SU is by listening to the live versions of the early 70's. The snare drum and the horns which have long drawn notes is possibly the way it would've ended? I think Brian did not have in mind to add more instruments to the fade given there is such a strong vocal blend. He would not want that to be overshadowed.

i don't think so, they would have been free to add that to the recording if they wanted but didn't.  I have no doubt that the 2nd part of surf's up would have had a lot of strings and stuff but it's hard for me to put anything over the fade because it just seems so perfect.  Maybe it even would have brought the horn section back

[pixletwin]

Maybe it would have had double basses and cellos doubling the piano's bass part and brass doubling his voice (with harmony filled in) and the Boys' voices filling in the rest. That would sound kind of Smile-ish. Prolly something going on with percussion akin to Child is the Father of the Man.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Brian was such a creative dynamo during that period, I find it hard to guess what the second section of part 2 would have sounded like. I do think though that it would have sounded quite different than anything we've heard and, if I may be so bold, I don't think it would have included the Child ending. Certainly not in the November/December period where (correct me if I'm wrong) there were no songs in the Smile project that directly incorporated other songs like that. That seems to be the Smile characteristic that came well after the fact. I love BWPS but it really solidified that conception of the project - Song for Children and Surf's Up both reference Child. Holidays references Worms and Wind Chimes. Little instrumental refrains harken back to other pieces, such as the Cantina section that prefaces Great Shape and the Wind Chimes section that prefaces Good Vibes. I don't see much evidence that the album in late 1966 was going in that sort of direction but who knows.


If I may be completely speculative, people like to talk about how different the instumentation in Surf's Up would have been but what about considering how different the vocals might have been? There are hardly any harmonies on the track as we know it. You know the little up-and-down vocal lines behind "over and over the crow cries" on Cabinessence? Something like that could have been interesting in "Grass was raised the fired rose" part in Surf's Up. Or how about a more choral "domino"? When you think about all the elaborate backing vocals on Smile (Heroes and Villains, Vegetables, Cabinessence, Wonderful), I would be surprised if there were never any planned for Surf's Up.

And that's why Surf's Up is perhaps the most frustrating song in the whole Smile story. Heroes and Villains is close though. And The Elements. Okay, now I'm angry.

[Al Jardine: Pick Up Artist]

The thing is, I really like the semi-unfinished Surf's Up now. The simplicity of it just seems to say a lot.

[runnersdialzero]

I always thought that the second part would have been much more orchestral, featuring only strings. Or only traditional accompaniment. Considering the lyrics in that part talk about going back in time and experiencing history, or seeing the way people used to live.
The song is actually pretty brilliant, the way the second part breaks free of the strophic form of the first section.

In general I feel like fades have a lot to do with the lyrical content of SMiLE. There are a lot of random references to someone being lost, or missing. The lyrics of Worms for example have "waving from an ocean liner...", and in Surf's Up there are references to "Brother John" and then "adieu or die". The sun is taken away in My Only Sunshine. "Lost and found you still remain there" on Cabinessence. Even the title "Holidays" implies leaving, and going off to someplace faraway, as does "I Ran". This culminates in the lyrics for Heroes, the "I've been in this town so long that back in the city/I've been taken for lost and gone/and unknown for a long long time".

I think in some way the use of fades might be connected to all those different references.

You're wrong. All the Smile (excuse me, ~*~sMiLe~*~) songs are about smoking weed, especially "Vegetables" because marijuana is a vegetable.

I do think that vegetables are a euphemism for drugs, there are a lot of hints for that. I don't really think SMiLE is "about" anything though. This whole idea of meaning really confuses some people more than it should. A work of art can have many valid, and sometimes contradictory meanings all intended simultaneously by the artist. To say that a work of art has a single literal meaning is foolish, and as foolish as saying that art has no meaning at all. Art reflects a complicated range of feelings and ideas that reflect eachother in meaningful ways.
Also, there's no reason to get so sarcastic about it. If you want to have a discussion then discuss, but don't post bitter and condescending remarks.

I wasn't condescending, I was just joking. I didn't even read any of your post before responding to it. Relax, d00d.

[Micha]

The fade as it is on Surf's Up never felt right to me

That's interesting, because the fade is the only part of Surf's Up that does feel right to me. That and the horns arrangement on part one. To me Surf's Up is the biggest loss from SMiLE, it has such a potential of grandness, and it's being stitched together from sketches. I enjoy listening to it way less than many of you here do, as I want it to sound as great as, say, IJWMFTT from Pet Sounds does, preferably with lots of strings and group vocals. Alas, it doesn't. That's of course all MHO.

[hypehat]

I think in terms of the bands intentions in '71, they weren't trying to put their own stamp on it excessively - they used Brian's track from '66 as it was, (bar an organ overdub) and tried to get Brian to sing the lead (first by using him, then by syncing up Brian's demo lead) to that track. Is my memory fuzzy, or did they also try to re-record the first half in 71?

The alternative being, they could have arranged the second half of it as they pleased, but they stuck with the only version of it they knew - Brian's demo. This is probably due to Reprise, as they wanted maximum Brian involvement and that's why Surf's Up was going on the record in the first place.

Didn't Brian also tell them about the Child vocals? Certainly the evidence from TSS suggests that something of that nature was going to crop up again in the album (Even in Cool Cool Water/Dada!) so why not Surf's Up. I'm just thinking out loud.

Again, something to consider - Brian's doing BWPS, and he tells his crew he wants strings on the second half. Sure, the arrangement is new and str8 Mertens. But he wanted strings on it.