Annotated Songs: Oceanside

Sea-bent and libidinous

OCEANSIDE¹

Sweet Annabelle²
As seen reclining on an ocean swell³
As the waves do lather up to lay her down
Till she’s fast and sleeping

Oh well,⁴
I guess I’m something of a ne’er-do-well⁵
Who fell asleep⁶ at the pealing⁷ of the steeple bell
I’m on track and keeping

But O
If I could only get you oceanside
To lay your muscles wide
It’d be heavenly⁸

But O
If I could only coax you overboard
To leave these lolling⁹ shores
To get you oceanside
Oceanside
Oceanside

(Guitar solo)¹⁰

At rising tide
You’re looking fresher than a July bride¹¹
We’re picking up what our mothers always stigmatized
The field is ripe for reaping¹²

Oh well
I guess I’m something of a ne’erdowell
Even though that’s something I could never do well¹³
I’m on track and keeping

Chorus

1. Another borrowed title — or a reused/recycled one. I’d say the song was named after the Oregon coastal town were it not for the fact that Robyn Hitchcock’s particular “Oceanside” (from Perspex Island, 1991) was a more obvious lodestone at the time. This song was written in 2000, in an apartment in SE Portland, and I was newly single and on the make. I was also a brand new transplant to the Pacific NW, having come from landlocked Montana, and was absolutely smitten by the ocean and the wild, battered Oregon coast. It was ocean this and sailing ship that — for many, many years following this move seaward. Never more evident than on this tune, recorded at the old Type Foundry in Portland by Jason Powers. It is the first song on the first recording made available by The Decemberists — a thing we initially intended to be a gig-getting demo but ended up being a five song EP. I burned and handstamped the CDs myself — Stumptown Printers did up a letter pressed sleeve for us. It had a drawing of a sailing ship on the cover. Of course.

2. This name, Sweet Annabelle, was originally another person’s name, one that fit the same meter. It was a real person’s name, a girl who I was taken with at the time. That crush never panned out, and I felt sheepish putting her name into the song, so I changed it. Too bad for you, Bleet Cranadel! (Joking, that wasn’t the name, but I’m not going to tell you the real name, are you kidding?)

3. There I go with the ocean business. And this was only the start! But I always liked that image, this person is clearly some kind of sea-borne creature.

4. Here there are some AAHs in the recording, a nice backing vox color, that I did not include in the lyrics, because that would be silly. In the original recording, they’re sung by myself and Ezra Holbrook (who comports himself very nicely, vox-wise, on this song). Ezra, incidentally, had broken his leg just before the recording sessions began and had to play the kick drum with his other, unbroken foot.

5. Ne’er-do-well! Now that’s a word. I figure it’s a word you can use exactly once in your entire songwriting oeuvre, and I did it right out of the gate. And twice! It’s a great one, though, and it’s got three syllables, with the emphasis on the first syllable, which are the best words. Fare-thee-well, ne’er-do-well, we hardly knew ye.

6. So much sleeping! I was a sleepy person in 2000 and I remain one to this day.

7. This is “clanging” in the original written lyrics (see: the attached photo) and I must’ve changed it to “pealing” in the studio, which is a much better word for this context. Well done, young Colin.

8. We get our first taste of smut here, with the muscles going wide. I was twenty six when I wrote this song, newly detached from a years-long relationship, and sex was on the brain. I also appreciate a good bit of smut written into songs that appear, at first glance/listen, to be chaste — see also: most of Leonard Cohen’s repertoire. Incidentally, there is a remarkably loud upright bass clunk right here — I think it’s the sound of Nate’s bass string hitting the fretboard. It’s something that happens, but you usually re-take the section or edit out the noise in the mix-down. We didn’t have time for those kind of antics — we were on a very tight schedule. I believe Five Songs was recorded in three days, mixing included, so the flubs would have to remain. I have a distinct memory of Nate saying, after having just finished a pass on a bass track, “It’s only a demo.” If only it were, Nate!

9. Arguably this word, lolling, should follow the same rule as ne’er-do-well: it’s a one-time usage kinda deal in songwriting. But I am a card-carrying, union-supporting songwriting scofflaw. I don’t know how many times I’ve used the word lolling (or loll, for that matter) but it’s certainly enough to have raised the ire of the Songwriting Police, no doubt. Sorry, not sorry!

10. That’s me on the twelve-string electric guitar, ripping this solo. When it comes to guitar solos, I am first and foremost a student of the Jesus & Mary Chain/Velvet Underground school of guitar virtuosity and am an appreciator of a stupidly simple guitar break. I did not own a twelve string electric guitar at the time and I borrowed this one from Dave Klopfenstein, of Sauvie Island Moon Rocket Factory fame, a little-known Portland band in their time and somewhat lost to history, but they were great and had perhaps the best band name ever. I would later teach this solo to Chris Funk, all six notes of it, when it was time for us to perform live, and it bedevils him to this day. It is so simple as to be impossibly hard.

11. Incidentally, this was in the running as a possible band name, prior to the Decemberists. I think it started out as June Brides, then moved a month later to July Brides, before settling all the way into December Brides. We were billed as December Brides in our first showcase, at Berbati’s Pan in 1999, but my friends vetoed the name during pre-show drinks at the Shanghai Tunnel. The Decemberists was suggested, approved, and hastily whispered to the show’s MC after he’d just introduced us.

12. Oh, you dirty bird.

13. Now this is interesting. I have been performing this song since it was written and recorded, going on 22 years now, and I have always sung this line as a slight alteration of its former appearance: I guess I’m nothing but a ne’er-do-well / Even though that’s something I could never do well. I did not remember that the original version is just a straight up repeat of the earlier line. And I have had to nag myself, all along, to remember to switch the something for the nothing. Arguably, the version I’ve been singing is better — you get that slight change being something of a thing to be nothing but a thing, which is decisive, and then you get that nice word flip in "nothing but a ne’er-do-well” and “something I could never do well.” The somethings don’t repeat, which is nice. And it looks, from the written lyrics, that I was moving in that direction while writing. So, folks, I’m here to say that this version, this recorded version, is the inferior version. I have no idea how or why I made that decision in the studio — the world is strange.