I Am The Sea

I suspect part of the purpose of this song it to set you up for the Real Me. The sound of the ocean sets up the album's beach theme, but because the vocal references to songs on the album are muffled by the ocean, you start to turn up the volume. Then you turn up the volume a bit more. Then you hear a muffled "can see the real me, can ya, CAN YA!?!. Finally, because you have your volume up to 11 at this point, you get blasted by Pete's guitar riffs and Entwistles bass attack as The Real Me takes off. Brilliant!

was listening to this earlier and about 20 or 30 seconds in theres a creepy whispering saying slowly 'i am the sea' . scared the royal shit out of me

i like it. really sets up the whole "sea and sand" theme for the whole album

and the "can you see the real me" part and how it rips into the real me is great.

I know, it's a fantastic intro to an amazing album.

This is the introduction of each of Jimmy's four personalities, The Romantic (Is it me, for a moment?), The Beggar (Love Reign O''er Me), The Lunatic (Bell Boy), and The Tough Guy (Can you see the real me?). So it gives you the four themes, and if you listen closely to the album, you can hear each one of them repeated at different points, especially the "Is it me?" theme, since that's kind of the point of the album: Jimmy wondering who he really is.

A friend is going through a very difficult time which is witnessed by their friend. They see them being swallowed up by this problem and they are warning them "there's undertow" "wont let you go this way now" etc. They want them to confide in them and let the problem go before it envelopes them.