Surf's up

Song ratings

Rating Comments Author Date
Average song rating As "Good Vibrations" was to provide the rousing and brilliant climax to the Smile project (as it finally did in the 2004 release), "Surf's Up" was to be the alternate showstopper, an exotic and pessimistic piece bringing the Westward expansion theme of the first part ("Heroes and Villains", "Cabinessence") to a calamitous conclusion of aristocracy and moral decay. Removed from the initial concept, the song is attached to the end of this album (giving the album its ironic title), but loses none of its incandascence. Stated simply, one of the most uniquely amazing listening experiences in all music. Bruce Beatlefan November 17, 2008

Lyrics

A diamond necklace played the pawn
Hand in hand some drummed along, oh
To a handsome mannered 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 trumpeter 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-roast
The fullness of the wine, the dim last toasting
While at port adieu or die

A choke of grief heart 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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Surf's up
Surf's up