Walk on the Ocean

Today on the way home from a three-hour breakfast meetup with two of my brothers, one of the first songs to start playing randomly on Apple CarPlay was “Walk on the Ocean” by the American alternative rock band Toad the Wet Sprocket.

It’s a song I’ve heard many times before but always in the background, and I never knew whose song it was. I am not a follower of Toad, as they call themselves, but seeing the title today, I remembered the first time I heard of the band: they were introduced as musical guests on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. I don’t know precisely when this was, but it must have been when the group was breaking through, in the late 1980s. I do recall, though, that particular night was, for my naive young self, an introduction to weird band names.

As I listened to the song today, my mind immediately went to the notion of walking on water, something my sweety and I did a couple of days ago… well, sort of: in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where I live, the winters are very cold, and the river surfaces freeze to a depth of up to two feet, allowing people to walk, cross-country ski, or skate on specially-groomed paths (and workers even drive utility vehicles on the river surface to service the tracks). On that frigid afternoon, we suited up and walked to a nearby boat dock where there is a temporary stairway to access the river ice and paths. We walked under a clear, sunny blue sky up the Assiniboine River, stopped under a bridge, then turned back for home.

Still in the car listening to the song today, my mind went farther back, to January 1, 2010, when we were staying with friends who used to live on the shore of Lake Winnipeg. For those unfamiliar with it, it’s a 24,514-square-kilometre (9,465-sq.-mi.) freshwater lake, 416 km long (258 mi.) from tip to tip, the third-largest freshwater lake entirely within Canada’s borders, and 11th largest in the world. So it’s big: standing on the shoreline feels like looking out over an ocean. After a morning of sitting in the warm cocoon of the wood-stoved-heated straw bale cottage talking New Year’s Day talk (i.e., reminiscing about life in the past year, all the good and bad things we all lived through, and hopes and dreams for the coming year; you know, that kind of thing…), we set out walking over the frozen lake surface to meet up with a group of families who were holding a gathering a kilometre or so away.

The people there celebrated with barbecues, hot chocolate, a skating rink, a curling rink, ice fishing and other activities out on the lake ice.

We’d seen some of the same folks the night before, around a New Year’s Eve bonfire on the shore, with children waving sparklers.

Listening to the song in this (mildly) contemplative state today (I was, after all, driving), I was drawn in by the melody and lyrics. I feel like the songwriters are trying to express a sense of youthful curiosity about life, making (and breaking) connections, feeling wonder about the living world around us and, ultimately, our powerlessness over the passage of time.

“We spotted the ocean at the head of the trail
Where are we going, so far away
And somebody told me that this is the place
Where everything’s better, everything’s safe

Walk on the ocean
Step on the stones
Flesh becomes water
Wood becomes bone

And half an hour later we packed up our things
We said we’d send letters and all those little things
And they knew we were lying but they smiled just the same
It seemed they’d already forgotten we’d came

Walk on the ocean
Step on the stones
Flesh becomes water
Wood becomes bone

Walk on the ocean
Step on the stones
Flesh becomes water
Wood becomes bone

Now we’re back at the homestead
Where the air makes you choke
And people don’t know you
And trust is a joke
We don’t even have pictures
Just memories to hold
That grow sweeter each season
As we slowly grow old

Walk on the ocean
Step on the stones
Flesh becomes water
Wood becomes bone

Walk on the ocean
Step on the stones
Flesh becomes water
Wood becomes bone

Walk on the ocean
Step on the stones
Flesh becomes water
Wood becomes bone”

“Walk on the Ocean,” by Glen Phillips, Todd Nichols.
Lyrics retrieved from AZLyrics.com.

For as much as people try to find the meanings in songs, it’s interesting when artists share what they were thinking when writing them. In a 2014 interview for the online music database Songfacts, singer and co-writer Glen Phillips says about “Walk on the Ocean,” “It’s always an embarrassing song to talk about from a lyrical standpoint, because maybe a couple of weeks before I wrote the lyric, I had gone on a trip with my wife up to Orcas Island [part of the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington state] and hung out at Doe Bay hot springs with a bunch of hippies – it was great. But it was a five-minute lyric. It was supposed to be a scratch lyric. Todd (Nichols) had written the music. We were doing a demo and I didn’t want to just go, ‘Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ So I wrote down literally the first thing that came across my mind. The lyric and the chorus, I have no idea what it means, unfortunately. Then I tried rewriting it and nothing ever really worked. I tried to make the chorus mean something, and eventually said, ‘Well, it sounds like I know what I’m talking about.’ So we just left it as is. It was the least-conscious, least-crafted lyric.”

Many songwriters I’ve talked with about lyrics either don’t share their lyrics’ intended meanings or prefer to let others find personal meaning in them. I think many enjoy the serendipity that can come from the latter approach; at least, that’s what I’ve experienced when sharing my interpretations of song meanings with artists.

“Walk on the Ocean” comes from Fear (1991), the band’s third studio album.

Now you know a little about why this is my Song of the Day for Today. Thanks for joining me here. Please enjoy the official video from the Toad the Wet Sprocket YouTube channel:

What does the song make you think of? Please share your thoughts in the comments! And thank you for visiting.

With my best wishes,

Steve