Beautiful song, it reminds me of the legend of Sappho, who, in the Greek myth, committed suicide because of his love with Phaon, and died in the ocean... The lyrics are vey similar to the beautiful poem "Ultimo canto di Saffo" (Sappho's Last Song), by Giacomo Leopardi.

Should I dress in white and search the sea As I always wished to be - one with the waves Ocean Soul

Also I think Tuomas always considered himself like a beats, an ugly person, being in love with a beautiful woman (i guess, and I like to guess she was Tarja). But he never confessed his love to her, because he felt deep in himself that Tarja couldn't love one like him, so he never tried to confess his feelings to her.

I only wished to become something beautiful Through my music, through my silent devotion...

This is in my opinion the key to understand many Tuomas poems: he is a beast, that TRIES to become something beautiful through its art (another link to Sappho's Last Song), and this topic is present also in other songs, like Beauty of the Beast and Swanheart, some of Tuomas' most personal songs.

Definitely, Ocean Soul is the clef-de-voute to understand all Tuomas' poetry, and it looks very strange to me that this song has such few comments, while it's one of the most difficult Tuomas' poems to undestand.

Losing emotion Finding devotion

These lines wanted to say, in my opinion, that Tuomas' love for Tarja, in the years he wrote Century Child, was not an emotion, but something more than it, a DEVOTION... he saw her like an angel sent on Earth, something like Beatrice in Dante's Divine Comedy, while he knew that this character of ethereal woman couldn't exist, and this topic (the fading of the angelic image) is the main topic of the album Once, that, on the artwork, shows what?? A fallen angel crying on a marble tomb...

One last thing... I think that all Nightwish songs have great lyrics, that I like to comment and study like true poems, because Tuomas, in my opinion, is one of the best contemporary poets I ever read, and one of the few writers of these times that I like... But I think that all his songs are nothing that a great loveletter to Tarja Turunen, his one and only love... I started to think at it when I saw Ever Dream performed in End Of An Era, so I read all the lyrics and I found many refers to her, so I like to think it... it's so romantic... :D And... sorry for my English... XD

This song means the world to me and this is my point of view, I relate too much to the lyrics, for better or worst...Years ago, when I was about 13-15 I didn't have any friend, no one, and was what worse, I was truly in love with a girl that thought I was ugly and weird. I cryed almost every night, and this is what this song is about, is just my history years ago.

"One more night To bear this nightmare What more do I have to say

Crying for me was never worth a tear My lonely soul is only filled with fear"

Tuomas feels like me, in this song, he cries to sleep every night but nothing gets better, he is still alone and sad.

I didn't have friends because people thought I was weird, I'm spanish and I live in a very little town, I was the 13 years kids with the Iron Maiden t-shirt who loved videogames, everyone here thought I was a freak, I was apart from the rest of the world, "the sea" as he says in the next verses.

"Long hours of loneliness Between me and the sea"

As I said, I was REALLY in love with this girl, so was Tuomas too, but this girl is not a exception, she thought I was a freak too, she wouldn't have never go to street with me, I was beast and she was the beauty, she is a normal girl, she is not a goth, she is not heavy, she's not emo, but she is still perfect and she is accepted in the world, she is part of the sea, not like me, I'm not a part of the sea, and I thought every day to become one of them, a ordinary guy who plays football and listen to pop music and goes to the gym to be fit, to be one with the seas, to stop wearing black clothes, to stop being like me, to be one with the seas, to be one more wave.

"Losing emotion Finding devotion Should I dress in white and search the sea As I always wished to be - one with the waves Ocean Soul"

and the last two verses

"I only wished to become something beautiful Through my music, through my silent devotion"

With his music, Tuomas wanted to be a beautiful person, to make fall in love that girl he loves, writing songs for her... I tried to sing the song she liked, I sing well, she liked them, but it doesn't work...

So... I think that's the whole meaning of this beautiful and sad song, the story of his life and my life at those sad times.

Oh, I almost forget, "Ocean Soul", I think that while the rest of the whole world is "the sea" his soul (and mine) are bigger than that, our souls are Oceans Souls and he dedicated the full Century Child record to everyone like him, like me, to the ones that feel like and Ocean Soul, lonely, sad but with the greatest souls.

The most underrated song from Nightwish.

This song is very personal to Tuomas. It is about what he feels he is: an ocean soul.

Its so personal to him that the band will never sing this live.

so beautiful

I love this song... Toumas writing really gets to me.I thinkk it describes what a lot of "oceansouls" feel day after day.. how lonely and desolated life can be, and how we long for beauty and innocence eventhough we live in a world that is selfish and cruel.

Yes, this song is great. But it is very sad...

Should I dress in white and search the sea

As I always wished to be - one with the waves# I believe this line represents how sailors would cover their dead in white sheets before tossing them overboard, so this line is a very sad one. Tuomas writes the most beautiful lyrics ever.-Hayley

There was a women in greek mythology who "went into the sea" as a form of suicide. "Should I dress in white" is about beeing proper closed and for only one time appear the way one truly should: White is the color of innocence, untouched and blank without any taints.

I think it's simply a song about resignation.

the chorus puzzles me. i love the song. but i cant seem to find the meaning to it, which destroys any passion i could possibly ever have for it.

Tuomas is so handsome...yea..just had to point it out to those who haven't already discovered the beauty of him :) xxx

I tend to get "suicide" vibe from this song. Dressing in white and could be a way to make it a ceremony and becoming "one with the sea" would be a more dignified way of leaving than just slitting your wrists.

By the way, it a beautiful song, one of my favs from Century Child. If what mia said about them never playing it live is true, that makes me sad.