I don't know...it wouldn't be like Colin to spell the name incorrectly. Also, the song isn't really about a girl who lives by the sea, it's more of comparing the ocean more to her chastity or indifference to sex than using it as personification. She waves "lather up and lay her down 'til she's fast and sleeping": they protect and comfort her, but all the narrator wants is to "only get you oceanside", in which case she would no longer be IN the comforting ocean, but out of it. This is obviously the fact that he wants to have sex with her, "lay your muscles wide, it'd be heavenly". To "coax her overboard" is the same idea. I get the image of a beautiful girl relaxing calmly on tall, softly rolling waves, just floating happily and a man standing on the sand and staring up at her on the waves longingly. I like this song. However, I don't understand the line at the end of the song "the field is right for reaping" because it changes the imagery and symbolism from oceans and water and beaches to fields. Peculiar, yeah?
I agree with about 90% of your interpretation, Words&tricks. But Oceanside would actually refer to IN the ocean, not out of it. The ocean--as opposed to the land--makes for a much better sexual metaphor (undertows, tides, movement, etc. Earth just stays put.). The whole "lather up and lay her down" line: think of someone sleeping on the beach as the waves gently lap at her legs. What should be stimulating (the ocean/sex) she's ignoring (sleeping through it). As for "the field is right for reaping," that actually works fine, on two levels. ...
I agree with about 90% of your interpretation, Words&tricks. But Oceanside would actually refer to IN the ocean, not out of it. The ocean--as opposed to the land--makes for a much better sexual metaphor (undertows, tides, movement, etc. Earth just stays put.). The whole "lather up and lay her down" line: think of someone sleeping on the beach as the waves gently lap at her legs. What should be stimulating (the ocean/sex) she's ignoring (sleeping through it). As for "the field is right for reaping," that actually works fine, on two levels. 1)Fields are where things grow, so the whole reaping and fields thing is a fertility (sex) reference. Secondly, there's a pretty steady and well-acknowledged literary history of comparing the ocean to endless windy wheatfields, and vice versa (see "Moby Dick"). This is because, in the earlier parts of US history, when someone from the coast came to the Midwest and saw these endless fields of wheat swaying in the breeze, it reminded them of the ocean, and when inlanders came to the sea, the only reference point they had to compare it to was wheatfields.
I don't know...it wouldn't be like Colin to spell the name incorrectly. Also, the song isn't really about a girl who lives by the sea, it's more of comparing the ocean more to her chastity or indifference to sex than using it as personification. She waves "lather up and lay her down 'til she's fast and sleeping": they protect and comfort her, but all the narrator wants is to "only get you oceanside", in which case she would no longer be IN the comforting ocean, but out of it. This is obviously the fact that he wants to have sex with her, "lay your muscles wide, it'd be heavenly". To "coax her overboard" is the same idea. I get the image of a beautiful girl relaxing calmly on tall, softly rolling waves, just floating happily and a man standing on the sand and staring up at her on the waves longingly. I like this song. However, I don't understand the line at the end of the song "the field is right for reaping" because it changes the imagery and symbolism from oceans and water and beaches to fields. Peculiar, yeah?
I agree with about 90% of your interpretation, Words&tricks. But Oceanside would actually refer to IN the ocean, not out of it. The ocean--as opposed to the land--makes for a much better sexual metaphor (undertows, tides, movement, etc. Earth just stays put.). The whole "lather up and lay her down" line: think of someone sleeping on the beach as the waves gently lap at her legs. What should be stimulating (the ocean/sex) she's ignoring (sleeping through it). As for "the field is right for reaping," that actually works fine, on two levels. ...
I agree with about 90% of your interpretation, Words&tricks. But Oceanside would actually refer to IN the ocean, not out of it. The ocean--as opposed to the land--makes for a much better sexual metaphor (undertows, tides, movement, etc. Earth just stays put.). The whole "lather up and lay her down" line: think of someone sleeping on the beach as the waves gently lap at her legs. What should be stimulating (the ocean/sex) she's ignoring (sleeping through it). As for "the field is right for reaping," that actually works fine, on two levels. 1)Fields are where things grow, so the whole reaping and fields thing is a fertility (sex) reference. Secondly, there's a pretty steady and well-acknowledged literary history of comparing the ocean to endless windy wheatfields, and vice versa (see "Moby Dick"). This is because, in the earlier parts of US history, when someone from the coast came to the Midwest and saw these endless fields of wheat swaying in the breeze, it reminded them of the ocean, and when inlanders came to the sea, the only reference point they had to compare it to was wheatfields.