The Beach Boys’ 1971 album Surf’s Up features a song originally written for the abandoned Smile project.
The song “Surf’s Up” was written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks and was initially intended for Smile, the Beach Boys’ ambitious 1966–67 album. Smile was shelved before completion, leaving several songs unfinished or unreleased. “Surf’s Up” became one of the project’s most celebrated pieces.
Wilson performed part of the song at a piano for the 1967 television documentary Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution, creating anticipation for Smile. After the project was abandoned, the Beach Boys left the song off the replacement album Smiley Smile. It remained unreleased until the group revisited it in 1971.
For Surf’s Up, Carl Wilson and the band completed the track by combining the original 1960s backing material with new vocals, overdubs, and a second movement based on Brian Wilson’s piano recording. The finished song became the album’s closing track. “Landlocked” can be confusing because it was the album’s working title before the addition of “Surf’s Up,” but it was not the abandoned project that originally produced the song.