"Ocean" by Lovedrug, Thursday, February 24, 2022

In December of 2017, Lovedrug released their seventh album Relive. At this point in the band's career, they maintained some loyal fans, but it seemed that their chances at success were behind them. The next year, lead singer Michael Shepard announced that the band would be ending after releasing their final project, a reworking of their first three albums. The band, however, did release another album in 2020 of original songs,  Turning into Something You Were Never Meant to Be, so die-hard fans may have even more music to look forward to in the future if the band continues to break their promise to be broken up.

MY HAUNTED WATERS ARE HARDLY CALM. While Lovedrug may or may not be broken up, the second track on Relive is an interesting love song. The narrative is ominous, starting with talking about how the future is open full of possibilities, but "her waves are cold [and] our chances thin." The speaker respects the force of the ocean, realizing "a generation of gods and men have come before" and "The deadly wave will break at dawn/ You carry mountains and salt the sea."A question I'm left with is, who is the ocean? Is it her? Is it him? But then I think about the the Hindu proverb, "A drop of water in the ocean." If the old adage about marriage "two become one" is correct, then in the eyes of God, nature, other people, the couple should be one entity, much like how the ocean is a sum of zillions of drops of water, salt, sand, and the things living in it. The beautiful union of marriage is dark and deep. Love is still mysterious. There are storms that may affect things in the ocean, but it doesn't harm the ocean. 

I WANNA BE SEMI-GLOSS. But human relationships, no matter how stable, no matter how perfect, no matter how blessed the situation is, cannot be compared to the ocean. No person can truly be swallowed up by another person, and if that situation happens, there might be spousal abuse. The idea of being a "semi-gloss" finish on the ocean is actually quite romantic both in the common usage today (i.e. flowers and candy) and literarily (i.e. 18th century Romanticism). On one level, the speaker longs to be a part of the other person or part of the institution so much, but he wonders where he fits. The ocean swallows up life in drowning or a hurricane, but it is also a life source for countless creatures we can and can't see. The speaker could ask to be a wave, but waves are not a part of the ocean, just a movement or a situation. There is the salt and there is the water. Water can evaporate and rain far away from the ocean, and salt will miss its water when the evaporation happens. No, salt and water are just like the cells that die off and no longer are part of a person. What he can be is the glossy finish on the ocean, the semi-reflective color that can be seen in any light. That's a deep love. No pun intended.

Read “Ocean” by Lovedrug on Genius