"Surf's Up" (The Beach Boys)

"Surf's Up," a 1966 composition by Brian Wilson and lyricist Van Dyke Parks, was slated to be a focal point of the ambitious SMiLE—a song cycle that was, as Wilson called it, a "teenage symphony to God" and the intended follow up to Pet Sounds (1965).

Using clever wordplay, the song's lyrics describe someone feeling hollow inside after watching a staged performance, questioning the meaning of existence and human constructs, and then having a spiritual, transcendental awakening after hearing children singing.  
Quite simply, it's about death and rebirth.  Literally, a migration away from the surfing songs that had made them famous into something brand new.

But Wilson's new compositions for SMiLE, particularly "Surf's Up," sparked ire within the band.  It was especially hated by Wilson's bandmate/cousin, Mike Love.  

As Parks recounts in the 2004 documentary Beautiful Dreamer about the making—and Wilson's eventual 2004 revival—of SMiLE, Love took Parks to task for the lyrics of "Surf's Up," feeling the words were purposely inscrutable and too artsy for The Beach Boys' longtime fans.

Parks comments, "It sure is tedious to have to explain lyrics to people, and it wasn't something I wanted to do for a living."

Unfortunately, the SMiLE project was abandoned by Wilson before its completion.  Record label pressure to deliver the album, tensions within the band about his new art pop leanings (and his growing use of psychedelic drugs), as well as his deteriorating mental state all fueled the decision to shelve the album, which he deemed "inappropriate music."

(Regarding Wilson's mental health: one of the portentous events that led to the project's and his own breakdown was the recording of an evocative, chaotic instrumental piece for SMiLE called "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow," named for the infamous bovine that knocked over a gas lantern and sparked the 1871 Great Chicago Fire.  Intended as a symbolic embodiment of "fire" for a suite called "The Elements," Wilson convinced himself that the song had caused—on some metaphysical level—a warehouse across the street from the recording studio to burn to the ground, as well as a string of other fires across Los Angeles.  The incident marked the beginning of a slide into depression, culminating in Wilson retreating from both songwriting and the public eye for several years.)

After the project disintegrated, snippets of SMiLE popped up on various Beach Boys albums, including 1967's Smiley Smile—a disjointed, gutted version of Wilson's vision.  In 1971, Wilson's younger brother, Carl, worked to resurrect "Surf's Up" for an album of the same name, recording new vocals over existing backing tracks.  While that version is respectable, actually hearing the track in the context of Wilson's SMiLE from 2004 and being able to connect the dots musically to other tracks in the work (especially a song called "Child Is Father of the Man," which is reprised in the coda of "Surf's Up") illuminates the true genius of its creator.

(There are a number of versions of "Surf's Up" out there on the web, including "official" versions that people have edited together from 1966 demo tapes and the 1971 recording.  The one below appeared on 2011's The SMiLE Sessions, an album featuring outtakes, snippets, and songs that were awaiting final mixing from the SMiLE project.  This version is the closest to the arrangement on 2004's SMiLE and features the vocals of the band in its prime.)