Down By The Sea

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

I 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.

Yeah, 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

This song has a personal meaning to me. It goes beyond the words. It’s the feeling that it evokes. I remember listening to it from my dorm room at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1983. It was the middle of the night, and I was standing at the window looking out over the Chesapeake. I could see the dull, periodic pulse of a red beacon at sea. I missed my girl. She was 1,500 miles away, and had just broken my heart. I felt like that beacon — trapped, alone, acting without thinking — and the song wrapped itself around me like a shroud. It captured what I was feeling.. Eventually, life moved on. I found my life’s true love. But, I couldn’t listen to that song for 35 years. I was in Sydney, Australia recently, and Men at Work songs were playing. “Down By the Sea” came on, and I was instantly transported back to those moments in Annapolis. I was there. I felt those feelings all over again. It’s really quite astonishing how songs can connect us with long dormant emotions. I just want to thank Colin and the band for writing this beautiful song. It means something special to me and always will.

[Edit: Typo]

I 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.