The Ocean is Alive and Listening
I’ve always felt that the world is alive and aware of us. It’s almost as if, as a child, i could feel intelligence in the sand, on the breeze, soaking the earth with rain and pushing up out of the soil as plant life. Thankfully, i’ve never outgrown this feeling.
But lately i’ve been wondering how the world would feel, if it were able to sing? What came to me, after spending copious hours on the beaches of south coast NSW, was a set of lyrics that expressed anger and frustration at the endless stupidity of the human race, as well as love for self and all, wrapped up in a sound that could best be communicated in rollicking, rocking, big electronic sounds inspired by the punk DIY ethic, the industrial nature of modern society, the grunge explosion and everything in between. This seemed like the kind of music that could carry my lyrics of dark ecomysticism and cutting social commentary; especially when i was lucky enough to be able to record such songs with incredible musicians capable of improvising their own way around this sonic scape of mythic dimensions.
That band is called SEVERINS. And lo, they do rock, my friends, they surely do. The forthcoming album is titled RECONNECT.
The first song in this set is called “What The Ocean Feels“. The lyrics are inspired by the oceanic shorelines i live and breathe every day. I wrote some of the words watching them, some diving into them, some while underwater, and some while running alongside them. These words spring freely out of the foamy waves crashing upon the beach, just as Aphrodite is constantly reborn, just as the white-maned horses of the sea god thunder down upon our shores, writhing in passionate embrace of their elemental existence, celebrating what they are without limit, destined to rejoin their kin in the sky even as they rise from the depths of The Ocean to greet us on land. The Ocean wants us to love it, to revere it, as the home and great regenerative fount of life … but it is angry, it is roiling over as it also must spew forth the rubbish we dispense upon its beauty, which rolls out of the rivers and despoils It. Please listen to it sing, give thanks to The Ocean, and share the love as widely as possible.
Say hello to the ocean,
Say hello with your mind
Say hello to the ocean,
Say hello with your body
It may not not want to be friends with you
And you’re gonna have to roll with that
It may not want to play friendly now
Not since we used it as a dumping ground
Our ancient ancestry
Formed out of brine and solar energy
Home of life
Our first bodies swam out of here
So how would you feel,
Ignored and abused?
When you gave birth to life
And then received all of our refuse
So how would you feel, being the ocean …
listening in?
So say thank you to the ocean,
Say thank you with your mind
Say thank you to the ocean, yeah,
Say thank you with your body
