the song can be found at the above link.
JM:
If you wouldn't mind, i do have a few more questions about your lyrics [...]
"Purple sky" any significance of the color purple, which is traditionally a royal color... does that somehow signify, if not necessarily divinity, a calling of some nature or importance?
Ryan:
Purple sky. This has quite alot of significance to me personally. I frequently mention a purple sky in my lyrics and have for years. You hit home base when you said "divinity, a calling of some nature or importance." That is precisely what it is about. Several significant events and pivotal moments of my life have occured under a purple sky, by the sea. There is a specific sense of calling and longing that I have come to associate with it. Longing with a positive purpose. At times it could feel negative if I was too grounded in the human myth of the commonplace and mundane. It is more of a persuasive, sense of beauty than a physically sensual longing. Not like, longing for pizza or sex, but more along the lines of a sense of destiny and wonder, that everything is much bigger than what we think it is and there is a certain ethereal pull that I believe nags at us to get us to realize this.
JM:
"Moon and purple sky... tells me that its time to join the tide"- the moon being something almost mysterious and unknown. Is it an example of an unexplained mysterious calling?
Ryan:
Yes, it indeed is. I think a sense of mystery is something our modern, nonsensically idealistic culture thinks we have grown out of. At one time a rigid, hypocrital form of Christianity ruled the "civilized" part of the world. Now our foolish scientific idealism rules us. It is our new religion. The new "opium of the masses." Not everyone submits to it as much as others, but I guarantee you that the Western world is plagued by it a far cry more than it knows. You don't have to believe in evolution to be a victim of this. It's essentially our entire outlook on life. Sience led to the steamboat era and many biological advances and medicinal discoveries but it just couldn't stop there. Sience looked out upon the hypocritical mess of Christians and decided to take everything 100 notches further, building theory upon theory upon theory of made up nonsense until everyone accepts most of it as fact even if they are a devout Creationist. It is drilled into us like language itself.
Examples of what this has done to us are right in front of our noses. Peoples individual worlds are based on a culture of purebred tech business. Computers and shows. Your corporate job and the top 40 on the radio. The indie scene. We don't believe much more than than the street right in front of our noses, than the city of metal billboards we built. Our biggest sense of wonder comes from Disney, or depending on who we are, our run-of-the-mill tv dinner relationships. (I am NOT poking fun at folks who truly are in love)
In the meantime, Europe and America and all the big know-it-all tech countries make up a very small percentage of the real world. It is scientific fact that the 95% of the ocean is unexplored. Go figure. There is more evidence for the existence of a living, breathing Kraken than there is for much of the things we are taught in school.
So yes, unexplained and mysterious calling. Seeing real things that God made like the moon and the sky out over the sea and being pulled to true beauty, called to something real and utterly bigger than what is considered real.
I think those "simple" folks from the 1600s who drew sea monsters and cherubim on their maps were closer to the truth than modern man.
JM:
"Splintered Boardwalk"- My boyfriend and I have a disagreement on this term. He believes "splintered" is a reference to just the age... that the boardwalk (going with the ocean theme) is particularly old. In my opinion I agree with him on a surface level, i am curious as to whether or not there is a deeper meaning. A boardwalk is a holding station, more or less, where people wait (for what)... they are not venturing out into the ocean (unknown... question of Faith perhaps) but instead are waiting around, being subjected tot he same old-same old (a place in line) As far as "splintered"... is that an indication of it being unstable? That yes, it is old and weathered... and perhaps the character from the song is restless, and that all the stirring inside of his/her soul (from whatever calling to the sea/harbor/destiny/unknown) is too much to just wait around on a boardwalk. Because it is splintered, does that imply that the boardwalk (or the same-old same-old drawn out style of life) is going to eventually wither away?
Ryan:
Ahh. Your take on this is gorgeous. All of your questions are essentially the answers to themselves.
There is a certain beach I went to for many years since I was a child which has a huge boardwalk. I walk always walk right to the end of it and stare at the sea, feeling my sense of longing whilst crowded by people. It always was a very busy boardwalk, but most seemed to just be there because being on the boardwalk is "the thing to do." I would occasionally run into a starry eyed couple who would ask me to take their picture, and they seemed to understand at the moment. As far as everyone else goes, from my experience they're just there because its a nice place to be. Or perhaps they're even thinking about things they'll never do. Then they'll go home and watch Pirates of the Carribean and believe that Disney actually made up The Flying Dutchman. Lol.
So yes, don't keep my place in line, because I'm actually going there while everyone else is watching it on tv and reading about it and considering it fantasy.
The old splintered boardwalk is getting old. But you are proficient with your words my friend. Again, for more answers to your own questions, read your questions, because all of them answer themselves, and they are all correct!!
JM:
By "despot ocean", do you mean that the ocean (representing the unknown) is tyrannical... meaning that we are sometimes controlled and paralyzed by our fears of the unknown or the future? And by "the moon and purple sky tells you that somewhere the harbor lies"... is that in a way sayign that we are meant for a destiny of some sort, that we have a purpose, and sometimes you have to face your fears and take chances... because something beyond understanding (moon/sky...God/faith?) keeps calling you to be more than what you are? (thus the journey...)
Ryan:
It's actually "desperate ocean." Yes. "You're reaching far and wide" for it. Trying to find it everywhere but staying on the land. One must get into the ocean, desperate and treacherous as it may be, it is natural and it is life. Once you get out on it and learn the honest ways of the sea, you'll realize that somewhere there is a harbour, and the sea cannot destroy your immortal soul. The apostle Paul says we are always a work in progress. There is a world beyond our imagination that we will reach at the end if we believe (in my faith, in Christ as my saviour). But on the way to that place, I'd like to answer the call I had in this life that can be so so much more than the tiny little box of idiocy that we've made it.
JM:
Is it "hold on to my arms" or "hold on to my heart"? in the second verse? Why not the other, and what does that mean?
Ryan:
It is hold onto my arms. I know my hands aint steady because I am human and inherritantly flawed. But if Christ is at my core, and I keep it that way, no matter what I'm going to end up with my path straightened out. In Psalms it says "The Lord is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." I didn't write this line to make a statement of absolute truth. It's just me talking to the person in the song, saying. Ok. I know I'm going through stuff. I know my hands are shaky. But hold onto my arms.
It's me asking them to hold on. In the end the only people we keep are the ones God wants us to.
I suppose "hold onto my heart" could have gone there, but it wasn't exactly what I meant.
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