By far my favorite Bunnymen song. I think it's about being consumed by another and calling out as you're going down for the last time.

the song is a metaphor for a relationship. In this case, the ship is the narrator and the ocean is the other person (presumably the female). McCulloch is comparing the grueling hardships of a Christoper Columbus-like journey over the seas to a relatioship. The waves are the obstacles or the hardships that accompany any normal relationships; the ocean rain is the emotions that are stirred in relationships, basically representing tears. The narrator is essentialy "screaming from beneath the waves" of the other person to express all the sorrow that this other person has caused him to feel.

Basically this song's a comment on the powerful emotions that relationships can stir. McColluch makes this comment in a very poetic fashion, very Poe-like, or to a lesser extent, Wilde-like.

and that's why the bunnymen kick ass.

At the SXSW 2006 festival, cheeky old Ian McCulloch introduced this song by saying "Next we're going to play the most beautiful song ever written". Arrogant, yes, but I can't really argue the truth of that statement. One of the most perfect marriages of lyric to music ever.

I agree with that latter sentence. This is my favourite song ever. The music, the build-up, the atmosphere, the lyrics, the fantastic outro with Ian's high vocals screaming out and howling to the moon... This is one of the very few songs that has reached perfection. The highlight of every EATB concert.
The song is about letting go of dreams I think, regardless of what the dream is (he uses a lost romance in the song, but I think you can easily use the lyric and its sentiment in a different situation as well, the general mood is just disillusionment and letting go of dreams). Ian uses nautical terms to express the sentiments: the rain to wash away the pain, whereas the sea and the storm are representing the sadness in his words. "Your port in my heavy storm harbours the blackest thoughts" - must be one of the darkest lines ever written. A fellow Bunnymen fan told me he considered this a funeral song, and I do agree: a funeral for a lost dream. At the same time, despite the depressed undertone, the song is deeply romantic and the ideal song to hold your girlfriend in your arms and fall asleep together while listening to the music. The song is romantic yet depressed at the same time, but both sides feel so honest. World class song. Who dares to say that the Beatles are the best thing ever from Liverpool, deserves a slap. McCartney and Lennon never managed to write anything that comes close to this.

I don't really have much of a clue as to what this song is about, but I really love it. maybe not my fav EATB song, but it's damn close.
But I think this was the song when I first realized how good a singer McCulloch is. His writing is good too, but his singing is really his strong point. He may not have a great a range as some other people, but can vary his style very effecivly and pour emotion into just the right lines to give the song that extra burst without cheapening the lines he wants to emphasize by overdoing it in other places. Which is a shame in Siberia, because he's moved away from that (from what I've heard off it) but I guess it had to happen. Hopefully he'll be able to incorperate it into some of their stuff in the future.
Everytime he does the "screaming from beneath the waves" live that last time I get chills. I saw them in concert a month or so ago, and it was really awesome. This was the last song, and he did a damn fine job of it.

This song is beautiful, so soft and somber, yet dark and moody at the same time. The chorus is brilliant, even though I'm not entirely sure what it means, it's a great sounding metaphor. Reminds me a bit of the Doors song The End, Ian sounds a lot like Jim Morrison in this one too.

Beautiful song! It doesn't get much better.

My take of this gorgeously crafted song is of a flaw that one knowingly has in life, and carries that flaw into certain situations that are deemed a failure due to this inseparable weight carried. I feel like this song can be taken many ways, but what I get from it is of a relationship that was ended too soon due to one person's failure to evade this flaw. The "hurricanes" referred to are the personal flaws in cognizance of the troubled one. The person understands that a predicament is underway if the path to a relationship is followed, but he feels no choice to undergo this same route to save his sanity and sense of self worth. "And now my hurricanes have brought down this ocean rain To bathe me again." The individual is bathed again in grief that was perceptively unavoidable given prior attempts at pursuing relationships.

Being in the sea can be metaphorical for experiencing a relationship once more, and the impending sadness that will result.

"Screaming from beneath the waves" can be the internal acknowledgment of this flaw, in full realization that this error is inescapable despite attempted mental refinement to avert this magnetized problem.