Sax von Stroheim writes:
The last album in their Early Surfin’ Trilogy. We have moved from the Specific to the Mythic. Of the title song, Mike Love tells us “the words were found on a tablet in a field in Hawthorne, California”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxf6pcGSwOs
This cover of the song by Pere Ubu certainly sounds as if David Thomas learned it off of a stone tablet. This is what folk music sounds like:
The Beach Boys tell us it’s “not a fad ‘cause it’s been going on so long”. The lyrics are about surfing, but the fad they’re singing about is rock and roll, rising up from America, and spreading out all over the world. “All the surfers are going strong/They said it wouldn’t last too long/They’ll eat their words with a fork and spoon/And watch ‘em they’ll hit the road and all be surfin’ soon.”
How could there be any doubt? It’s a genuine fact that rock and roll rules:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmL9vejCgvI
And then the move from the ideal back to the real. Make your own Southern California Summer Dream come true:
In the middle of this, the second (chronologically, that is) great Brian Wilson song: “In My Room”. The vastness of “The Lonely Sea” caused an existential crisis for Brian: now he must turn inward in retreat. This turn inward is the first step towards the heart-breaking solipsism of Pet Sounds.
Blowhard, Esq.
Callowman
Sherbrooke
Eddie Pensier
Enzo Nakamura
Epaminondas
Fabrizio del Wrongo
Fenster
Brundle Guy
Glynn Marshes
Paleo Retiree
Atypical Neurotic
Question Lady
Sax von Stroheim
Sir Barken Hyena
The Mistaken
Uncouth Reflections 
A nice overview of the Beach Boys’ first great album.
I would add, though, that “The Surfer Moon” features Brian Wilson’s first use of orchestration on record so, musically speaking, it’s as much of a precursor to Pet Sounds as “In My Room” was lyrically. Also, this album is their first to have album cuts as good, if not better, than the singles on it. “Hawaii” and “Your Summer Dream,” I think, are two of the best songs in the band’s catalog. And “Surfer’s Rule,” while not a great song, proved they could rock hard (for that time), especially when Dennis was on lead vocals.
This album and several other early ones, get dismissed by some people for being “surf music.” But a lot of the band’s early worked as metaphor — whether that was main lyricist Mike Love’s intent or not — and I’m glad to see someone else realizes this. Plus, the music is hella infectious and sets up an consistent atmosphere from start to finish — something few albums did at the time. You could make a good argument that with this album, composers Wilson and Love almost unconsciously captured the spirit of America in a way Wilson and the self-consciously arty Van Dyke Parks failed to do with Smile. Just don’t make it around any Beach Boys fanatics.
The only drawback to his LP and (especially) the next one, is that Wilson was giving away LP-worthy cuts to acts like the Honeys and Sharon Marie in his attempt to be the new Phil Spector. He was really at his best with the group and this album would have been much better had he ditched the filler instrumentals and made the Honeys’ “The One You Can’t Have” and Rachel and the Revolvers’ “Number One” Beach Boys songs instead. The band learned this lesson when they hit with Wilson and Love’s “Darlin’,” which was a reworking of “Thinkin’ About You, Baby,” a flop for Sharon Marie.
Speaking of reworked songs, “The Surfer Moon” is also worth hearing in its earlier incarnation as a Bob and Sheri single, and in the unreleased version called “The Summer Moon,” by Bob and Vicki. Haunting recordings.
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Mike Love might not be a Brian Wilson-level genius, but he had many gifts that were essential to the Beach Boys’ artistic (and, of course, commercial) success, one of which was as a lyricist. At his best, he holds his own with Chuck Berry.
I hope to write more about Smile and Van Dyke Parks in some upcoming posts. I’m not sure that “capturing the spirit of America” is what VDP and BW were after on that album, although that may just be semantic quibbling on my part: I certainly get what you’re driving at. I wouldn’t argue for Smile being a greater record than Surfer Girl, though I do think it gains as much from the self-consciousness as it loses. Having said that, Smile is a weirder album, and, for a whole host of reasons, “weirder” tends to be equated with “better” by a large faction of music critics (amateur or professional – though it seems like everyone’s an amateur these days), so I’m happy to argue against making that equivalence. The mysteries on the more “normal sounding” Surfer Girl are easily just as profound as those on Smile — if you listen in the right way.
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