"Surf's Up" was the second song Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks wrote together. It was composed as a two-movement piece, most of it in one night while they were high on Wilson's Desbutols, and originally intended for the Beach Boys' album "Smile". In a self-penned 1969 article, former band associate Michael Vosse wrote that "Surf's Up" was to be the album's closing track, and that the song would have been followed by an "choral amen sort of thing." Biographer Byron Preiss wrote that the song was envisioned as part of "The Elements" and was "briefly considered" to be paired with "Love to Say Dada".