Question about "Surf's Up" (the song)
XY:
I don't have the exact quote at the moment, but Brian stated around January 1967 that he's thinking about releasing something that's just him with piano as B-side to "Heroes & Villains", so your theory makes sense. If you believe Keith Badman's book, the January '67 string overdub session was indeed for the solo performance, but Badman is Badman.
Mark H.:
If memory serves, a couple years back Peter Reum posted something to the effect that the 2nd half of SU had been unearthed so-to-speak. Then nothing....did he ever clarify this? Does he post here?
Just because there a session is logged doesn't mean "any work" was really accomplished. Clearly not a note was recorded at some sessions. Bad vibs, paranoia, etc. certainly played more and more havoc with Brian in early 1967. What did he really accomplish after 1/67...not much.
I always assumed that the solo SU performance at Columbia was for the cameras. My dream is to see that raw footage.
edit for spelling
SurfRiderHawaii:
By the sounds of this, Brian was heavily involved by the end.
From the Jack Reiley thread - http://www.smileysmile.net/index.php/jack_rieley_speaks_part_one
RE: Attn: Jack Rieley (Surfs Up)
From: Jack Rieley
To: 'pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com' (pet -sounds@lists.primenet.com)
Reply-To: pet-sounds@lists.primenet.com
Date: Oct 15 1996 - 8:45pm
Rick,
Re-read my earlier response and you'll see I was referring to him complaining, wailing MOCK emotion.
Brian Wilson loved Surfs Up. He knew very well that it may be one of the most important pieces of music in this century. He was dying for Surfs Up to be acknowledged for what it is, but terrified that it would get ignored, discarded, lost, much as Heroes and Villains was virtually ignored years earlier.
In short, Brian Wilson lived in terror of public failure. A lot has been made of his drug use/abuse, which may indeed have had searing effects upon him. But it was the public failure of Heroes to to wow Capitol and thus wow the world that caused him to withdraw. When the withdrawal began to attract notice, Brian's keen senses picked up on the fact. Soon he was feeding off the crumbs of legend available to "Brian Wilson, eccentric recluse" -- a hideous second-best to the public acclaim he was denied.
No wonder that he was unsure of my plan to complete Surfs Up and release the track.
As related earlier, I changed the album title from Landlocked to Surfs Up. The shift was to principally honor the song's greatness. But the shift was also evidence to Brian that I was serious about making his work shine. At the same time, the re-titling served to prevent Brian from giving in to his terror.
The arrangement that you hear on the album resulted from many talks with Brian, and a careful examination of the real Smile tapes -- the originals. Carl and I got Brian's explicit support to remove the originals from the vault and take them to Carl's place on Coldwater, where the two of us listened to songs and snippets, full works and outtakes, night after night after night. Without even an engineer around, we tried mending and splicing the brittle multitrack recordings. Sometimes we succeeded. With the Fire tapes, which were there but damaged (and not by fire), we had to settle for long passages and short gaps. There's much more to say about Smile, of course, but this note is about Surfs Up.
The song was in several disjointed, uncompleted sections. Child was clearly intended to be the climax. After many nights of listening -- at least two with Brian on Coldwater with us -- we set out to construct and reconstruct. I first flirted with the thought Brian should sing the lead on the first section, but Brian insisted that Carl do it, and Carl was clearly thrilled. It was the right thing to do. The Brian solo section is of course constructed around Brian's televised appearance for Leonard Bernstein. Carl played the bottom end synth, I decided to cut all effects from Brian's voice on the title line. We had lots of musicians in to redo parts of the track that had been played badly. Recording went on for several weeks, with Brian very involved but Carl heading the effort. It was going to be a masterpiece. By the time we got to Child, some of the moving parts had Brian excited and active. He chose Carl for a couple, took on a two for himself, assigned two more to me, got Marilyn for still another. Desper seemed to realize he was recording something extraordinary: his acid humor was replaced by, ahh, reverence.
Credit for the brilliance of Surfs Up, the recorded song, must be shared by Brian Wilson, who composed that incredible crown jewel, and Carl Wilson, who guided and nurtured the amazing recording project, in addition to singing a truly spectacular lead vocal. My own role was to fight through Brian's terror with honor, respect and enthusiastic persistence, so that you all could hear Surfs Up.
- Jack
Roger Ryan:
Quote from: SurfRiderHawaii on July 10, 2007, 12:37:04 AM
We had lots of musicians in to redo parts of the track that had been played badly.
- Jack
I find this quote to be particularly suspect. In listening to the finished recording, I hear the '66 backing track exactly as it appears on the GV Box Set with the moog bass overdubbed. If "lots of musicians" were brought in to redo parts, there's not much evidence on tape, unless the entire backing track was recut and performed identical to the one already in the can since '66.
LostArt:
Yeah, that's the first I've heard of this. It does indeed sound suspect. Perhaps we should take Andrew's advice. Anybody got a few grains of salt I could borrow?
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