I lived for a while in the early 1980s in southern Rhode Island, not far from the ferry dock to Block Island. It was when I bought my first guitar, took a few lessons, learned a few chords. At the little seashore cove that is the setting for the first verse of this song, I must have solo performed Neil Young's “Heart of Gold” 200 times or more. I wasn't writing songs of my own then, but I did have a notebook that an old girlfriend had given to me, along with three different colored pens. I'd take a break from playing “Heart of Gold,” jot down something in the notebook that invariably veered toward the existential—couldn't help it, it seemed. At one point I remember wondering how many different ways I had asked myself the same question—What am I doing with my life? All I knew then was that I loved the sea—the salt air, the smells, the different faces of the surf, the whole nine yards of it. Roughly thirty years later, I'm living in Vermont, more than a day trip from the ocean. But in many ways the sea is my home, the place I turn to frequently in my dreams—often in coastal environs, sometimes even in the water itself, beneath the surface, my own Atlantis . . . breathing the water as naturally as a native creature of the depths. The second verse of this song is about that return to the depths, my own depths. And such is the journey I've been on by way of Archetypal Dreamwork, the journey of becoming the soul-child and living in the essence of my own depths, my own true being. Singing always brings me to that place in myself, inviting me to shift out of my existentially landlocked head and just feel what it's like to be singing myself to sea.
Bob, April 2014
lyrics
Used to sit for hours by the ocean
Little sandy cove where no one went
Had a little notebook and I’d jot down great big thoughts
Pondered how my life had so been spent
Seems I always came up short on answers
So I’d often turn back to the sea
As if it held some secret that I couldn’t live without
As if some shanty tune might rescue me
So I’m right there songin’, in my needin’, in my longin’
Can’t you hear me callin’ that I’m dyin’ to be free
Flat exhausted, reelin’, I’ve been hooked on double-dealin’
Wanna set sail feeling, wanna sing myself to sea
Wanna set sail feeling, wanna sing myself to sea
Dreamt I’m with my daughter in Bermuda
Frolicking a sand strip by the shore
Breakers pounding right beside and slurping at our heels
Undertoe a-hissing, wanting more
Then somehow I turn into my daughter
And turning then toward the roiling sea
I feel the massive pull beneath and swallowed by the sound
I let that churning water carry me
So I’m right here songin’, in my needin’, in my longin’
Can’t you hear me callin’ that I’m dyin’ to be free
Don’t you know I’m healin’, I’m so done with double-dealin’
Kinda feel like kneeling, gonna sing myself to sea
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