Surf’s Up is a very strange album for The Beach Boys.\u00a0 It came at a time when Brian Wilson was not in a good place.\u00a0 This led to the rest of the band writing more than on many previous albums.\u00a0 This yielded some very interesting lyrics to say the least.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t Go Near the Water\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t Go Near the Water\u201d is lyrically quite unlike most everything that came before for The Beach Boys, even after such varied albums as Friends<\/em>, 20\/20<\/em>, and Smiley Smile<\/em>.\u00a0 In fact, it seems to have been intentionally written to contrast with many of their early songs about summer, surf, and sun.\u00a0 The lyrics additionally show an attempted greater consciousness of societal issues which is a common thread throughout the album; this specific song deals with water pollution.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the song does not do much artistically with this theme which leaves it to feel more like an afterschool PSA than an artistic statement.\u00a0 A specifically interesting line is, \u201ctoothpaste and soap will make our oceans a bubble bath.\u201d\u00a0 This line in particular stands out as more ridiculous than the rest.\u00a0 While it seems like it could be a reference to microbeads, this controversy did not arise until recent years and would not have been known in 1971 when the album was released.\u00a0 Instead, this line reveals that the song was written without much research done into the subject.\u00a0 This like a number of other lines seems to reveal that the writers were not taking the subject very seriously, and an audience cannot be expected to take something seriously if its creator cannot.<\/p>\n 4\/10<\/p>\n \u201cLong Promised Road\u201d<\/p>\n The second track on the album, \u201cLong Promised Road,\u201d feels like a much more genuine effort lyrically than the first.\u00a0 It too deviates from the expectations set for The Beach Boys by their early work, but it does so in a way that seems more for the sake of the song itself and not simply for the sake of doing so as the case seemed to be in \u201cDon\u2019t Go Near the Water.\u201d\u00a0 The lyrics are sung from the point of view of a person who desperately wants to be happy but is weighed down by the troubles that surround him.\u00a0 Though he acknowledges the difficulty, he is able to overcome his personal troubles and not allow them to affect his well-being.\u00a0 The song has a strong sense of optimism about it that feels very honest.\u00a0 Unlike the early, happy songs from The Beach Boys, this song\u2019s lyrics feel much more mature.\u00a0 They acknowledge problems, and happiness prevails despite them.\u00a0 There are moments in the song that seem somewhat over-embellished and clunkily worded such as the lines, \u201cSo hard to lift the jewelled sceptre When the weight turns a smile to a frown So hard to drink of passion nectar When the taste of life’s holding me down.\u201d\u00a0 These lines carry meaning, but they feel as if they\u2019re trying to be something more than they should be.\u00a0 The metaphors used feel somewhat melodramatic and end up making the lyrics more difficult to relate to.\u00a0 Overall, the song is not a bad one despite its flaws.\u00a0 Unlike the song\u2019s protagonist, however, these troubles do weigh it down.<\/p>\n 7\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Surf’s Up is a very strange album for The Beach Boys.\u00a0 It came at a time when Brian Wilson was not in a good place.\u00a0 This led to the rest of the band writing more than on many previous albums.\u00a0 This yielded some very interesting lyrics to say the least. \u201cDon\u2019t Go Near the Water\u201d … Continue reading “Surf’s Up by The Beach Boys – Lyrical Review”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4308"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4309,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4308\/revisions\/4309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}