A fully-developed recording of the song's second movement has never been found. In 2004, Darian Sahanaja said that a tape for the instrumental tracking of the section was rumored to exist somewhere, while Mark Linett stated, "If it does exist, we haven't found it." Asked decades after the fact, Wilson responded that he did not think that he ever recorded it. As of 2020, there are at least two known "Surf's Up" recordings that have been presumed missing or lost: a vocal session at Columbia Studio from December 15, 1966, and two sessions at Western from January 23, 1967. According to Badman, the December 15 session included vocal and piano overdubs onto the first movement backing track, as well as further recording on the song "Wonderful". Siegel later claimed that the session "went very badly".