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Go to sleep
We're so tired now
Altogether in a snake pit of souls
New days
To throw your chains away
To try to hang your hopes on the wind
Little one
Just a little way
Today all we need is waiting
Night rise
Like the evening prize
In a turnstile backwards we fly
Cold bones
Tied together by
Black ropes we pulled from a swing
Little one
Just a little way
Today all of the dreams are waking
Can't stand on crooked legs
I'm cross-eyed to the wall
In these harbor lights
Satellites explode
Drown, drown
Sailors run aground
In a sea change nothing is safe
Strange waves
Push us every way
In a stolen boat we'll float away
Little one
Hold on
All of the dreams are wasting
We're so tired now
Altogether in a snake pit of souls
New days
To throw your chains away
To try to hang your hopes on the wind
Little one
Just a little way
Today all we need is waiting
Night rise
Like the evening prize
In a turnstile backwards we fly
Cold bones
Tied together by
Black ropes we pulled from a swing
Little one
Just a little way
Today all of the dreams are waking
Can't stand on crooked legs
I'm cross-eyed to the wall
In these harbor lights
Satellites explode
Drown, drown
Sailors run aground
In a sea change nothing is safe
Strange waves
Push us every way
In a stolen boat we'll float away
Little one
Hold on
All of the dreams are wasting
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In my opinion, Sea Change is about some deeper crisis than a breakup would normally entail. This beautiful song comes at the end of a cycle - its just about the only song that allows for any hope on the entire album. Its interesting to me that the only hope and self-kindness on the album can only be achieved by the author addressing an imaginary child, by engaging in the act of nurturing he cannot normally extend to himself he must sing of hopeful things 'all our dreams are waking,' and by doing so - this hopeful song becomes the song he sings... (if that makes sense - clumsily put). The taut imagery of the sea change as described in this song is also a spot on description of the travails of a major crisis and the deformations of mood called major depression that arise in its wake. And also how we must fight it 'just a little way, today' step by arduous step.
My other comment is that when the 2004 tsunami hit, this song immediately came to mind. It almost seemed written for it.
The phrase is a quotation from Shakespeare. It comes from Ariel’s wonderfully evocative song in The Tempest:
Full fathom five thy father lies:
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Shakespeare obviously meant that the transformation of the body of Ferdinand’s father was made by the sea, but we have come to refer to a sea change as being a profound transformation caused by any agency.
In Beck's case, he is referring to the transmutation of his life through the agency of painful endings. The last song on the album sums this meaning up beautifully:
On a borrowed dime
In a different light
You might see what
The other side looks like.
What we are to become (or not become) cannot be seen from our current vantage point.
The phrase is a quotation from Shakespeare. It comes from Ariel’s wonderfully evocative song in The Tempest:
Full fathom five thy father lies:
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Shakespeare obviously meant that the transformation of the body of Ferdinand’s father was made by the sea, but we have come to refer to a sea change as being a profound transformation caused by any agency.
In Beck's case, he is referring to the transmutation of his life through the agency of painful endings. The last song on the album sums this meaning up beautifully:
On a borrowed dime
In a different light
You might see what
The other side looks like.
What we are to become (or not become) cannot be seen from our current vantage point.