#feel flows

1. Don’t Go Near the Water - Even before this album begins, when we see the title ‘Surf’s Up’, we immediately think of a rose-tinted world of the 50s & 60s of a perfect summer utopia, even back when The Beach Boys were king- but now, the very same Beach Boys warn the listener, that that summer-filled utopia is long gone: pollution has gotten so bad in the oceans that it’s no longer fun (or safe) to swim in it, and that pollution now even threatens life on land. The song ends telling the listener “To do what we can and ought to, let’s start today”...

2. Long Promised Road - The very next song talks about just that- working hard, as hard as you can to ensure a better future, but the one thing that gets in the way is that very future’s uncertainty- something exacerbated by seeing the pollution in the rivers and sea in the previous song, and not only that, but with the numerous, growing civil rights and anti-war struggles that have emerged since those “good old days”...

3. Take A Load Off Your Feet - The next track almost doesn’t seem like a continuation or response to ‘Long Promised Road’. It talks about the numerous things your feet can do for you, but that you ultimately need to take care of them well. However, the feet later turn out to be a metaphor for taking care of *yourself* in general - something that’s paramount *after* you’re committed to fighting struggles against injustice, you need to cool off and “take care of your life, because nobody else will”...

4. Disney Girls (1957) - Afterwords, the listener is taken back to the “good old days”, remembering an idealized time of summer fun- making wine in the garage, spending time with the girl you loved, and spending time at Disney when it was still such a new and magical place. But, this trip down memory lane turns out to have darker meaning, and is more of a detriment than not, as it is confessed by the singer that this is all to explicitly escape to reality- the reality that we witnessed in the very beginning of the album. We’re led to believe that this dreaming will continue, forever, and ever, and ever, and ever...

5. Student Demonstration Time - ...Except this dreaming is immediately shattered, and only in a language that this person trapped in a 50s fantasy-world can understand: A literal 50s song namedropping all the student demonstration protests that were happening right at the album’s release- even mentioning the Kent State shootings that happened only months prior. It’s abrasive and (maybe a little too) in your face, but maybe it needed to be to show that there was ultimately no escaping from the harsh realities of the world, no matter how hard you tried to run away...

6. Feel Flows - After being violently and unpleasantly thrust back to the real world, the listener is taken through a string of visually-inducing emotions by the singer, as he tries to keep hold of hope and a positive attitude...but is plagued by the return of depression and negative emotions that are near-impossible to run away from in this world. A turn to psychedelia, like running away to a 50s-fantasyland, may be different in substance, but it is equally futile to escape the hurts of the world...

7. Lookin’ At Tomorrow (A Welfare Song) - Another song recounting the current struggles of life in America: In the beginning of the 1970s, unemployment and inflation were starting to rise. Not only were there civil rights and environmental issues, but *now* economic struggles are facing our singer as well. Despite all attempts to stay positive, and looking for work, the singer can find none, as all the good paying jobs have been taken already. After ‘Feel Flows’ and at the end of ‘Welfare Song’, the singer can only keep looking towards tomorrow...

8. A Day In The Life Of A Tree - But, tomorrow is threatened like never before. In one of the more unusual and haunting Beach Boys songs, the tone of the album turns for the worse, as we hear a tree’s painful mourning for his and his fellow tree’s lives. Voiced by The Beach Boys’ then-manager Jack Rieley, we barely hear a Beach Boy’s member’s voice the whole song, we as listeners step away from the group- and world we knew completely, to listen to a solemn, mournful hymn about the environment. The Earth as we know it is in grave danger, and as the trees sing about in the song, environmental harm is already happening. It’s not hypothetical: We were warned about it in “Don’t Go Near the Water”, Trees cannot live in a world of pollution, and as it’ll continue...all life on Earth will die along with the trees...

9. Till I Die - The singer- and listener (and Brian Wilson, really) are hit to their lowest point in the whole album, the world as we knew it is deteriorating: war rages on, student & civil rights protests resulted in the deaths of countless peace activists, and now the climate is worsening, the beginning of a poisoning that threatens a world embroiled in crisis. The only thing the singer can do is ponder their place in a world that is becoming ever-hostile, leading us into a full-blown existential crisis after the turbulent emotions we’ve experienced in the album. At the end of the day (at least in the singer’s eyes) he as a single individual is totally and woefully insignificant in the events of the world- and universe. We can all only wait for death...

10: Surf’s Up - And now, the closer to the whole album. Originally from the legendary ‘Smile’ album, and a deeply personal song to Brian Wilson, you’d think that transporting a 60s song, from a hyped-up, unreleased album would go against the album’s themes and sound. But Surf’s Up works surprisingly well as a closing track for this album’s whole story. The whole point of the song describing a man, after a concert experiencing a spiritual enlightenment. However right after this, he experiences a re-emergence of a serious sorrow and depression from the insignificance of his life in the world (explored in the previous track). And yet even after the whole album, and constant themes of suffering (it’s a familiar feeling that we all know by now listening to it)- at the end of the song, takes an optimistic tone. As the song closes, the singer is able to find a new lease on life as he looks a little closer to what the future holds in store. A lot of it is frightening and very uncertain... And yet, we see the hope the future generations hold- “A children’s song” as we’re told. And even after the turbulent years of the 60s, and even with larger struggles on the horizon, younger generations offer a glimmer of hope for real, positive change.

The conclusion of Surf’s Up (for both the song and the album as a whole) isn’t overtly positive, and isn’t completely a happy ending- the “children’s song” having bittersweet and cautious sound to it, but there’s still an aura for hope. The inclusion of Surf’s Up at the whole album sheds a different light on the original song, capturing the cautious and uncertain optimism of younger generations entering adulthood and facing an uncertain future that maybe, only they can change. It’s a theme that still rings true today in a post-2020 world. The song, and the Surf’s Up album is an endearing metaphor with how people were emotionally handling various struggles in the US as the 1970s were just beginning. There’s many sharp twists and turns in emotions in how people deal with trauma and being in a world filled with crisis, and the album is able to depict that in a cohesive flow, in numerous songs and examples, in just 34 minutes.