Question about "Surf's Up" (the song)
Glenn Greenberg:
So it's 1971, and the Beach Boys want to include "Surf's Up" on the follow-up to Sunflower.
They want Brian to sing lead, but he refuses.
We know Carl ended up singing the first section over the existing backing track from 1966, and Brian's solo piano performance from 1966 was used for the second section.
But here's my question:
If they wanted to have Brian sing the whole song, why didn't they just use his 1966 solo piano performance for the entire song (since they were using part of it anyway, for the second section) and just create a new instrumental backing track for the first section? Had they done so, they would have had a completed version of the song with Brian doing all the lead vocals.
All they had to do was what Phil Spector had done with some of the Beatles' "Let it Be" tracks--create new orchestrations for pre-existing performances.
Anyone have insight on this?
MBE:
Desper told me the first half wasn't in as good of shape as the second so Carl had to redo the first part for sonic clarity.
Roger Ryan:
I suspect nobody wanted to either spend the studio time or the money to recreate the backing track. In the end, they only had to add a moog bass and the vocals to complete the track.
Glenn Greenberg:
I think your explanation makes a lot of sense, Roger. Thanks!
pixletwin:
Slightly on and slightly off topic: Does anyone think Carl sang better (like in Surf's Up) when he was trying to immitate Brian? I have always felt like in recordings such as Surf's Up, Good Vibrations, God Only KNows, etc... that Carl was trying to sing like Brian and sometimes to greater affect than Brian would have achieved.
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