Songfacts®:

• "Surf's Up" was originally going to be part of The Beach Boys' celebrated but aborted Smile album. The song was written by Van Dyke Parks (lyrics) and Brian Wilson (music) in an hour at Wilson's Chickering piano in 1966. In 1970 the song was completed by the rest of The Beach Boys under the supervision of Carl Wilson, and it became the title track of their 22nd album. It was also released as a single but didn't chart.
• This song is about the innocent spirituality and innate love of youth, contrasted against the many imperfections and failings of adult society, who are pictured in a theater oblivious to what is going on outside. It is thought Van Dyke Parks was reflecting on the protests going on in America at the time about the Vietnam War.
• The phrase, "Are you sleeping, Brother John?' is a reference to the children's song better known as "Frére Jacques."
• The recurring phrase at the end, "The child is father of the man," is a quote of William Wordsworth's line in his poem My Heart Leaps Up.
• Brian Wilson performed this solo for a CBS News special on popular music, hosted by Leonard Bernstein in November 1966. >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Edward Pearce - Ashford, Kent, England, for all above
• Mike Love was critical of some of Van Dyke Parks lyrics, including those to this song. He told Uncut magazine March 2008: "I asked Van Dyke what a particular set of lyrics meant and he said, 'I haven't a clue, Mike.' I termed some of his lyrical contributions 'acid alliteration.' Some of the stuff was phenomenal, but I looked at things from an objective commercial point of view. Whether it's a strength or weakness. I said, 'Is it going to relate to the public to the degree that they can identify with the message and the lyrics?'"
• Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks wrote "Surfs Up" at Wilson's house. They started it around 11 in the morning and completed the song in 30 minutes.
  
  "We just wrote it spontaneously," Wilson recalled in The Beach Boys, the group's official book. "It was a masterpiece of a song. It opened on a minor seventh, unlike most songs, which open on a major. From there it just started building, I thought it rambled beautifully and said a lot in the end."
  
  "It's a song of freedom," he added. "Van Dyke and I really thought we had done something special when we finished that one."