I’ve always found it difficult to express how I feel when I’m at the ocean. Often, the image you get is one of pure relaxation; resting under an umbrella in the sand, sipping a cold drink, basking in the peace of water and sky. But…that’s never been my view of it.
To visit the ocean is to inhabit liminal space. And…yes, there can be something peaceful about that. But there’s so much going on, and much of it is powerful and dangerous.
The beach is a little crease between land and sea. Two worlds. One we know, and one we don’t. We live in this built environment that we feel like we can control, at least to a certain extent, as well as large expanses of unoccupied land. We have a grasp on the size and scale of it all. When we decide to move some of it around, we have lots of machines to do so.
But the ocean…it seems to go on forever. You feel like you’re standing on the edge of the world. In truth, you’re standing on the edge of a world. We’ve created machines that can zip along the top of it, and even some machines that can dip below the surface a bit, but by and large we humans have explored just a tiny fraction of a percent of the planet’s underwater world.
It’s at once super peaceful and overpowering and overwhelming.
People will just…sit there on the beach. For hours and hours and hours. And never get tired of it. Even the annoying calls of the seagulls just become part of the music of it all. Waves and waves and waves crash, so consistent that it feels like it’s inevitable. That can make you feel unbelievably calm…safe…secure. Like there’s balance in the world.
At the same time, that water is dangerous. If you wade out just a tad too far, it will drag you out to sea and kill you in almost no time at all. Technically, when you’re at the edge of these waters, profound danger is staring you in the face the whole time you’re staring back at it.
All along a beach, you’ll find little treasures. But…almost everything that washes up is dead, or almost dead, or destroyed. The shells are nearly always broken; each one was either the home of a creature who is now dead, or it’s a former home of a creature who lives on—but the old house is mere detritus. The ocean’s trash.
So then. The beach is a peaceful place—but not because it’s a destination where you finally find safety and calm. It’s because it’s an in-between space. It’s a sliver between two worlds that is neutral ground for both.
But that water contains incredible power. Waves destroy boats, piers, everything. You’ve seen it, in media or in person: a storm blows in, the waves become large and angry, and you can’t believe anything survives its wrath.
A storm
One night while we were in Gulf Shores, a storm blew in. It had been predicted for days, and its impending shadow spread over everything and everyone. All conversations included something about the storm. For a couple of days before, the high surf portended that it was on its way, like a messenger of doom. The storm’s predicted arrival kept getting pushed back. Back a day, then another day, then most of a day. Finally, around 11:15pm one night, it landed full force.
I was awake and could hear the rumbling off in the distance. So I sat myself on the front patio and waited for it in the dark.
As a lifelong Midwesterner, I’ve always rather loved watching storms roll in. There is nothing quite like a summer thunderstorm. The smell as it comes; the color of the air just before; the sudden deluge of water; the uncertainty of how long it will last; the thunder and lightning; the smell just after.
But a storm rolling in from the ocean is a different beast. I’m not sure exactly why, but it has something to do with how these storms have no obstacles—only open water, which in turn offers it endless fuel. And at night…well. That’s yet another level of mystery and apprehension. You can’t even see it coming—you just feel it. The whipping wind tells you it’s nigh.
Our storm finally landed, and it was indeed intense. The trees bent sideways. Street lights flickered. The water filled in every gully and ditch almost immediately. It was glorious.
I had a tenor guitar with me on the trip, and it was in my hands while I watched the storm. The Muse blew in too, and I started picking.
I wanted to write some kind of song that spoke to what it would be like, standing on that beach in the dark facing down this storm. In that liminal space, in between worlds—a vast angry sky above you, ephemeral ground below you, and violent water coming at you.
You’d feel so small and vulnerable. It’s dizzying.
And it’s akin to how a lot of us feel these days, I think. The world (of people) seems to be nosediving into violence, embracing authoritarianism, and losing touch with truth entirely, and it feels like there’s nothing you can do about it. I don’t know what we’re in for, let alone what redemption there may be at the end of it, and frankly I find it utterly terrifying.
But I had a thought, absorbing that storm: In a way, we’re invulnerable. Because we are made of the same stuff as everything and everyone on Earth. The waves can’t crush you, and the rain can’t drown you, and the sand can’t betray you, and the wind can’t destroy you, because you’re made of water and earth and sky. You will always flow with them no matter what form your body takes.
And when you can feel that, those elements become more like superpowers than threats.
Lyrics
11:15 on the beach. In the dark you watch the whitecaps crashing, crashing. The rain pelts your face while you soak up the place; the wind is howling, howling. You do all you can to stay rooted on the sand—this ephemeral land.
The horizon disappears into a vast, yawning blackness, blackness. If you listen close, there’s a voice from the void, and it’s calling, calling. It wouldn’t take much to reach out and touch it and give in.
Come what may, you are the waves. You are the wind and rain. You are every inch of earth from the beaches to the plains. You don’t have to be afraid. You don’t have to be afraid.
A sliver of liminal space between worlds ever colliding, colliding. You feel small and vulnerable, totally humbled, abiding in hiding. But you've had enough of this, you raise up your fist. Punch through the mist.
You are the horizon. You are vast, immutable. Don’t fight it. Be water, be waves, be wind, be rain. In the morning, all will be calm once again.
When the morning arrives, you will find yourself alive once again.
For the music nerds
Musically, this one is as simple as they come for me.
While I was picking during the storm, I wanted to evoke the undulating wind and sheets of rain. Just by noodling, I got the initial chord change: Em to C. But the way I play it on the tenor guitar (it has only the four highest strings, instead of all six), it feels less like a regular Em - C change and more like that undulation. I finger the Em chord as (low to high) E, G, B, E, and the C major chord as E, G, C, G. So the two lowest notes are static, while the higher two inhale and exhale.
I also wanted a driving kind of vibe to create the tension I was imagining, and that’s how I came to this particular fingerpicking style. (Also, I think I stole this fingerpicking pattern from a Radiohead song. Maybe something off of In Rainbows? Eh.)
Anyway, I tried out some additional chords to create some harmonic movement and a complete chord pattern, rather than just bouncing back and force between Em and C. I hit on D to kind of turn it around, and A to land it. So, the main progression in the verse is Em - C - Em - C - Em - D - A.
A variation I employ is swapping the A for a B7 at the end of a couple verses, which gives it a different kind of cadence.
To flesh out the form somewhat and avoid too much repetition, I wrote a B section. It’s meant to be just a little different feel and flavor: Am - Em - Am - Em - G - D - A - Am.
Why A to Am? Because it tastes good. That’s the only reason. But I like it. So.
The rest of the form is pretty much a bounce between A section and B section, with a brief outro to wrap things up.
I will likely re-record this at some point with a little more going on in terms of orchestration and instrumentation, but I want to keep the driving, higher-pitched guitar center stage, regardless. Very intimate and direct. A little bit of irony to having a small-voiced guitar carry the load in this song about big scary things.
I also wanted something low and muddy that felt like something more than sounded like something. So I used the pedals on my trusty organ. I was initially going to create triads; in that super low range, it would sound like delicious mud. But it ended up being too muddy and crowded, so I stuck with two voices. They’re mostly in fourths and fifths, but as the chords change, they end up in thirds and sixths, too. But always tension/release, tension/release.
I panned the two organ pedal voices hard left and right to give the mix a little more space, because I left the voice and main guitar just a bit left and right of one another, but mostly in the middle. (I like to record guitar in stereo, but one of my stereo pair of mics has developed a little noise, so I’m recording in mono until I can acquire a replacement. We DIY recording engineers make do, I guess.)
I needed something to provide a solo between the first B section and the second A section. And for some reason, that was really difficult. Nothing was clicking—I tried an organ patch on the keyboard, electric guitar, even glockenspiel, but nothing sounded right. I eventually returned to the tenor guitar and just played a simple solo part, but at the highest part of the neck. Then I slathered it in reverb to give it an otherwordly effect. So it’s totally different than the main guitar part, but because it’s the same instrument, there’s a bit of familiarity that I think makes it work.
One thing I plan to do more of in future works is introducing ambient/field recordings underneath the music to help cast the spell and bring the piece into a particular place and time. I tried to capture the sounds of the storm and the beach on what I had available—my phone—which produced middling results. Mainly, the wind noise was too disruptive. I’ve since purchased a dedicated pocket-sized field recorder that delivers much better results. I’m looking forward to experimenting with it…
Alright then. Enjoy. Love ya.
This piece is part of a series of pieces around our recent spring break trip. There’s more to come, but you can catch up to where we are so far by reading these. In chronological order: