The Smiley Smile Message Board

I love both songs (and CCC is much better, IMO, since Brian had evolved so much in that short time), but I've always wondered why Land Ahoy was dropped from being on Surfin Safari. I think it's more interesting sounding and a better composition than maybe half the tracks on SS.

Was this due to the song's subject matter? Was the term "matey" just not gonna cut it as a song lyric? Could Brian just not deal with Denny's late drum fill which starts the song?  :)

I've pondered if there was any type of political reasons (not band politics, but politics politics) that made Brian or Capitol second guess having a song about a sailor be released (maybe it was thought that kids wouldn't like an innocent band to be talking about anything remotely related to the US Navy).

Thoughts?

 You'll just have to save this for the next BW Q&A session....

well to my ears it seems like the part where they are singing "Land ahay etc." sounds a lot like "Give me some root beer.." from "Chug a lug" so maybe that was one reason it wasn't on it...

It was going to be on the LP until they got the rights to the original Surfin' and stuck it on there

If so, it seems to have been a "We Got Love" type of situation then. If a song had to get cut to make room for "Surfin'", IMO it's surprising that Land Ahoy was the one that got cut, since it's musically stronger than many others.  I'd think lyrical subject matter must've been a determining factor.

Land Ahoy = fine as it is

Cherry Cherry Coupe = under developed