Ventura

@Spurio Hmm. I've thought about it a little more and I think she must be working through some kind of chemical dependency, probably self medication because she feels sad and/or depressed about something.

In Verse 1 she definitely sounds depressed. She's been self-isolating, not eating regularly, doesn't get any joy from a thing that used to give her joy (going out with a friend to hear music). But she is rallying a bit - enough to feed herself with soup from a can. That's a start on the comeback trail. But she's not there yet and she can't pretend. Eventually she can start "faking it 'til she makes it." But right now her hurt is still too fresh and raw to do anything but feel sad and let the tears flow.

Choruses: She wants to be swallowed up in an ocean of love! To me this sounds like she is really sad because she feels unloved, and she longs to feel loved again.

Verse 2 starts with her feeling a lump in her throat and staring at her feet. So yeah, she definitely feels very sad about something. She's probably in the early stages of a post-breakup emotional recovery. Maybe she got dumped by her lover and she hasn't turned the corner to a new chapter of life yet. She really doesn't say what's ailing her, but she seems lovelorn. I presume it's not death of a loved one or else she would have mentioned this.

She goes for a long drive (home from wherever she has been that is not home. Maybe she spent the night at the friend's house?). She enjoys listening to Neil Young's music in her car, so that sounds like progress. She's at least enjoying Neil's beautifully moody music in the privacy of her own car. She is working on self soothing in a realistic, here-and-now kind of way. She's not praying, or invoking angels, or asking for any supernatural intervention (maybe she's working a quiet and personal faith - she does speak of confession). She's listening to Neil Young and seeking the reassuring solitude of a sunset on the beach and the whispered reassurance of wind and waves.

Verse 3 seems like she's maybe trying to kick an alcohol or an opiate addiction (or maybe that pregnancy as you mentioned, but I see little in the words to suggest that). She cleans, she cleanses, she throws up, she confesses.

And above all, she wants to get swallowed up in an ocean of love. In other words, she feels unloved. And she's looking to nature for healing. She wants to feel loved and safe and embraced by something bigger than herself. We all can relate to this. The ocean is often a metaphor for various levels of consciousness.

I think she's going to make it through. In the depths of her depression, Silvia Plath drowned herself in the ocean. But to Lucinda Williams it's an ocean of love, and that is something fundamentally positive and life-affirming. There is no talk of self harm in this song. Only self care.

Maybe she needs to get a dog next. Dogs are great companions for beach walks. Though in Ventura half of our beaches are managed by CA State Parks and they don't allow dogs. That's a real world detail she could ignore in a song.

Beautiful song! I wonder if it's about an unwanted pregnancy. No hard evidence for that, but there's lack of appetite except for maybe "something sweet". The protagonist throws up her "confession", this could be morning sickness as the only giveaway of her condition. "Cleanse my soul of this hidden obsession" could be a reference to wanting to abort the foetus. Most of this could be about being hungover, depressed or just sick, but there is definitely a sense that she is wanted to escape something...

I always thought that this song was about the ocean itself. Like her 'hidden obsession' was with the ocean. She needs to leave the land and see the sea again; she wishes so much she was 'somewhere else.' When I was having a hard time in my life, I became totally obsessed with the ocean and 'haven't spoken to no one,' just like in the song. I wouldn't let my friends in and became convinced that only the waves could make me me again. That's probably not what Lucinda meant as she wrote, but that's what it means to me.

This song is incredible and it is a damn shame that no one has commented on it.