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Rating:
Published in 1971, "Surf's Up" is the last decent work of a group now divided by internal dissensions and the slow, inexorable mental deterioration of Brian Wilson. An ambiguous work and difficult to fully appreciate critically as it follows the excellent "Sunflower," a work that was underestimated at the time, rich in sublime musical early offerings.
"Surf's Up" is an album that contains both quite frivolous and pretentious tracks like the initial environmentalist "Don't Go Near the Water" and delightful pieces like Carl Wilson's choral and determined "Long Promised Road" or the universal and mystical "Feel Flows." The emotionally rich moments present on the record certainly don't end here, evidenced by the innocent "Take A Load Off Your Feet" by Al Jardine, the melancholic and vulnerable "A Day In The Life Of A Tree," and Bruce Johnston's successful "Disney Girls (1957)," with its nostalgic sounds that let us savor once again the great musical talent of the Beach Boys in pairing harmonies and chords. However, the record maintains an uneven course and, at times, unnecessarily eccentric. This is due to Mike Love's stubbornness, who in this case tries to stir public opinion on civil rights with the sarcastic tones of "Student Demonstration Time," a useless rewrite of "Riot In Cell Block Number Nine," an old R&B track by the Leiber & Stoller duo. Also noteworthy is the absence of Dennis Wilson at the compositional level, who in the previous "Sunflower" had gifted the band's repertoire with the energetic "Slip On Through" and the timeless melody of "Forever."
But it’s at this point that something unexpected and wonderful happens to "Surf's Up." Brian Wilson emerges just for a moment from his mental silence and remembers that just a few years earlier he was considered a musical genius. Almost as if by magic, he returns to doing what he does best, which is composing music at a higher level. Brian thus offers, in the finale, his personal paranoid confessions in the splendid "Til I Die," a track completely immersed in the contemplative solitude of its author, and retrieves, from the lost masterpiece "Smile," the majestic and legendary "Surf's Up," which gives this record a triumphant, superb, unexpected, and well-deserved conclusion.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
06 Feel Flows (04:48)
Unfolding enveloping missiles of soul
Recall senses sadly
Mirage like soft blue like lanterns below
To light the way gladly
Whether whistling heaven's clouds disappear
Where the wind withers memory
Whether whiteness whisks soft shadows away
Feel flows (White hot glistening shadowy flows)
Feel goes (Black hot glistening shadowy flows)
Unbending never ending tablets of time
Record all the yearning
Unfearing all appearing message divine
Eases the burning
Whether willing witness waits at my mind
Whether hope dampens memory
Whether wondrous will stands tall at my side
Feel flows (White hot glistening shadowy flows)
Feel goes (Black hot glistening shadowy flows)
Encasing all embracing wreath of repose
Engulfs all the senses
Imposing, unclosing thoughts that compose
Retire the fences
Whether wholly heartened life fades away
Whether harps heal the memory
Whether wholly heartened life fades away
Whether wondrous will stands tall at my side
Whether whiteness whisks soft shadows away
Feel goes (White hot glistening shadowy flows)
Feel flows (Black hot glistening shadowy flows)
Feel goes (White hot glistening shadowy flows)
Feelings to grow (White hot glistening shadowy flows)
White hot glistening shadowy flows
White hot glistening shadowy flows
White hot glistening shadowy flows
10 Surf's Up (04:11)
A diamond necklace played the pawn
Hand in hand some drummed along, oh
To a handsome man and baton
A blind class aristocracy
Back through the opera glass you see
The pit and the pendulum drawn
Columnated ruins domino
Canvass the town and brush the backdrop
Are you sleeping?
Hung velvet overtaken me
Dim chandelier awaken me
To a song dissolved in the dawn
The music hall a costly bow
The music all is lost for now
To a muted trumperter swan
Columnated ruins domino
Canvass the town and brush the backdrop
Are you sleeping, Brother John?
Dove nested towers the hour was
Strike the street quicksilver moon
Carriage across the fog
Two-Step to lamp lights cellar tune
The laughs come hard in Auld Lang Syne
The glass was raised, the fired rose
The fullness of the wine, the dim last toasting
While at port adieu or die
A choke of grief hard hardened I
Beyond belief a broken man too tough to cry
Surf's Up
Aboard a tidal wave
Come about hard and join
The young and often spring you gave
I heard the word
Wonderful thing
A children's song
Child, child, child, child, child
A child is the father of the man
Child, child, child, child, child
A child is the father of the man
A children's song
Have you listened as they played
Their song is love
And the children know the way
That's why the child is the father to the man
Child, child, child, child, child
Child, child, child, child, child
Na na na na na na na na
Child, child, child, child, child
That's why the child is the father to the man
Child, child, child, child, child
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