Brian initially refused to participate in the recording of "Surf's Up", and insisted that Carl take the lead vocal. The group attempted to rerecord the song from scratch. "But we scrapped it", Rieley later said, "because it didn't quite come up to the original." Carl overdubbed a new vocal in the song's first part, the original backing track dating from November 1966. The second movement consisted of a December 1966 solo piano demo recorded by Brian, augmented with vocal and Moog synthesizer overdubs. Johnston recalled, "We ended up doing vocals to sort of emulate ourselves without Brian Wilson, which was kind of silly." To the surprise and glee of his associates, Brian emerged near the end of the sessions to aid Carl and Desper in the completion of the coda, and contributing the song's missing, final lyric. With the song completed, "Landlocked" was given the new title of "Surf's Up".