The early ’70s were a turbulent time for the Beach Boys. Although their popularity had dipped immensely since their Pet Sounds salad days, they were still making some of the best and most unusual music of their career with records like Sunflower, Surf’s Up, and Holland. Check out this odd video of the group, presumably filmed as part of a TV special sometime in late 1971/early 1972, performing “Don’t Go Near the Water”, the opening track to 1971’s Surf’s Up.

“Don’t Go Near the Water”, an environmentally minded tune that resulted from manager Jack Rieley’s encouragement that the band write some politically minded songs, was written by Mike Love and Al Jardine—the two bearded men you see singing lead vocals in the video (Love is seated, while Jardine is also playing guitar). You might notice that Brian Wilson is nowhere to be seen—although he played piano on this recording, a clean-cut Dennis Wilson is who we see behind the piano in the video. Carl Wilson stands at the center, singing and playing guitar, and rounding out the group are Ricky Fataar on drums and Blondie Chaplin on guitar at far left, former members of the Flames who had recently joined the band.