Down By The Sea

General CommentHow has nobody commented on this song? This is such a beautiful song!!!

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My InterpretationI am proposing that this location "Down By The Sea" is in Portsmouth, UK (England). Colin Hay is from North Ayrshire Scotland which is 8 hours north by car of Portsmouth, or less than 2 hours by air. Colin lived in Scotland until he was 14, so I'm not sure if this song is based on a romance from his youth, or later in life.

They overdosed on pleasure on the beach near Portsmouth Historic Dockyard which is open to the public.
Yonnies in the wind, are stones that they threw into the water.
Ruggin' up for winter could be the clothes they wore, or it could be the Dockyard setting up for winter operations.
Bins are trash containers that perhaps workers were putting out.
Down by the docks live all the silent sea ships which are historic ships that are permanently placed there. You can look these up on the wiki page for Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Sailing down the river to the shore is definitely possible if you lookup the region on google maps.
Diving to the center, eating out the core could be oral sex on the beach, at Southsea Beach specifically, or perhaps the path of their boat moving inland toward Hayling Island.
Saluting Captain Benbow is also possible since the John Benbow Figurehead statue is located at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Climbing up the cliffs is also possible at nearby Solent Cliff.
The boat that ran adrift that's sitting on the sandbar, is likely at Hayling Island 15 minutes away. An old boiler, "Hayling Island Boiler" is there from a past shipwreck.
Laughing at the waves, until a storm brings ice. This could be the trouble in their relationship. Moving North and South could be the traveling to see each other between Scotland and England? This is just a guess. He screams at the sky and asks why they can't stay together? He seems very upset at this point.

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General CommentYeah, this song is amazing. I love the part at the beginning where the notes just seem to flow together. It's a really good song to drift off to, every time I hear it while I'm lying awake in bed I always seem to fall asleep right before the last verse. *grin*

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General CommentI believe in God. And I think one reason He invented Humans and gave us a conscience was to see what we would do with it. And of course one thing we did was create music. And to me this song is our answer to God and our way of pleasing him. It comments on love, nature, the ocean, our senses, our ability to communicate, our ability to write poetry, our ability to observe nature and our ability to create instruments and play them so very beautifully. This group of musicians and poets have created a song that God himself would be so very proud of. Its allegory, poetic prose, its comments on love and nature: truly an answer to God from humans saying Thank You for our consciousness, thank You for our God given talents, and thank You for the marvelous Earth we live on and our five senses. On a personal note this song reminds me of a high school girl I fell in love with one evening while we spent time together in front of the turntable. Listening to this album and enjoying each other so very much. We were years ahead of our time and didnt realize it then. Our intelligence and ability to communicate was awesome. I miss her. Time goes by so quickly for us humans where as God's time crawls comparatively speaking. One day in our lives is merely seconds to him. And our lives flash by where His is for all eternity.

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