We are right to lay the trail
May the ocean treat us well

These are the only lyrics of our new song Ocean. 

The initial spark of inspiration for this song came out of Kanye West's "Love Lockdown". I had been digging on it for weeks when it came out, totally enthralled by the hearty African drums and simple, thick bass with minimalist arrangement. We jammed in this vein through many incarnations before I ended up settling on the verse bassline with the unlikely slap method, a method of playing that had once been fundamental to my style but had been retired until now. Jo was quick to marry the hard, funky bassline with a pulsating tom beat, but AJ and Curt for a time were at a loss with how to expand on the full groove established by the rhythm section. Finally, they abandoned their respective keys and guitar in favor of the Native American-esque chant harmonies that start the song off. Out of these harmonies Curt drew out the A#-F progression that supports the choruses and on which the entire second half of the song is based.

After developing the basic song structure we discussed what the song made us feel in an attempt to draw lyrical inspiration. The first half brought a very specific image to my mind that I described to the guys. When I was 19, my brother and I spent the summer working at our grandparents' bungalows in the Mexican hippie beach-mecca of Puerto Escondido. Though I had spent most of my summers growing up here, this year we were introduced to a side of the town we never knew existed. We caught wind of a secluded full moon beach party, and when we arrived that night were astonished by what we found - a wild community of indigenous locals, young hippies and gypsies from all across the globe, all dancing in the moonlight to the pounding music of hand drums. All nature's drugs swiftly switched hands to the rhythm as heads tilted back, eyes closed and hips became one with the night. There was a Brazilian girl, thin as a rail, painfully beautiful with wrists wicked and lovely, dancing with fire in the center of it all, smiling at all the adoring stares and encouraging shouts. We were drawn in and proceeded to lose ourselves in pure and infectious enjoyment.

This underground, moonlit scene of marginalized, wild beings fiercely engaged in dream-like celebration is the scene painted by Ocean's rhythmic first half, while the more stiff, celestial second half takes the story to an even more surreal scene - that of a complacent, psychedelic-minded party-goer drawn away from dancing, fire and laughter by the magnitude, mystique and majesty of the ocean so large and dark at night. He leaves behind his unknowing peers to walk along the ocean floor, fearless, content and enlightened by his surrender to the belly of the big unknown. The first lyric celebrates the empowerment of a community of fun-loving picaros, while the second tells of the individual's trust, faith and awe in nature and the always-uncertain future. 



We are right to lay the trail
May the ocean treat us well

love,
jack