Rieley encouraged them to write songs with more socially conscious and topical lyrics, although he stated in a 2013 interview, "It was not part of a master plan. ... We never had any 'What are we gonna write about?' meeting. Never once did anything like that ever occur." He assigned the project the brief working title of "Landlocked" to represent "a demarcation line, separating striped-shirted bullshit that had become irrelevant, an object of public scorn, from artistry, creativity and great new songs." An album cover was designed with this title, featuring white san-serif letters printed atop a photograph of a dark field. It was ultimately discarded in favor of a different design. Rieley said that the final cover "was something that caught my eye at an antique record shop near Silver Lake. It was a painting and I bought it. It reminded me a bit of the Brother Records logo, but it was different." "Surf's Up" was the first album for which the group printed the lyrics of each song on the record sleeve.