The music video for The Mouth Of The Sea came out on 04/04/22. I briefly touched on the significance of the song in the previous newsletter, but I would like to elaborate further on its meaning and significance to me…

This song has a long history of re-recordings throughout the years, and although it’s taken me close to ten years to finally release it on an album, it took me no longer than 30 minutes to write. I experienced a stream of consciousness that occasionally happens during the songwriting process. It also took me a while to figure out whether to include it on Ocean Sky or not, as I had a lot of newer material, but its place on the album just felt right in the end.

        It was written back in 2013 during an important period of change where my life seemed replete with responsibilities and doubts about the future. I had finished my university studies in France a year prior, moved back to the UK and launched myself into a teaching career that I was unsure of. The song reflects that need to hit the brakes on all the overwhelming changes we inevitably all experience at some point and go back to a time of innocence and blissful ignorance.

        That innocence of course took me back to my youth. I’ve always been a nostalgic soul, and you may rightly say that this is reflected in my songwriting style. I remember being a confident child, but with my parents splitting up at the age of 7, things got a lot harder within the family, and I grew increasingly shy and introvert. I suppose I developed a growing yearning to return to a form of lost happiness that I could express through art and music throughout my teens that never left me.

        As a family, we would often spend summer holidays at my grandma’s place in Newlyn in Cornwall, where I felt a special connection with the ocean, and later after my parents split up, in my teens I would wander along the windy roaring coasts near Sennen Cove and Land’s End with my walkman listening to compilation cassettes (ah the cassette era!), in an attempt to escape the stresses of life.

        The song very much draws inspiration from those early years of family tumult, but also to when I was growing up in my late teens/early 20s. The lyrics 'the man who went through his life in a sad dream' is a reference to a film that profoundly marked me as a young man: The Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. If you haven’t seen it I urge you to watch it. I was going through a bumpy first long-term relationship when I was 21 and this film resonated with me profoundly.  

        It was also around this time that I went on a walking trip with my dad along the Jurassic Coast in South-East England. I remember feeling very low, and it was the first time my father and I had been on a proper holiday together just the two of us. The connection with nature I felt brought me back to my early years in Cornwall and woke something up in me that I felt had lain dormant for a long time. A rush of emotions hit me on that holiday, and often when performing 'The Mouth Of The Sea', memories of that unique feeling resurge. The repeating lyrics in the chorus: 'we haven’t seen you round for such a long time, have you ever thought it’s taken too long to find' echoes like an internal voice questioning whether all the changes were worth it, and a longing to return to a time of pure innocence, simplicity and happiness.

          I hope you’ve enjoyed the music video, it was great working with Max Wyllie on this project. If you haven’t seen it yet, please watch it here and why not give it a like/share.