From the recording The Emergent Sea
Well reality and imagination combine in this song that started out with simply singing the old tongue twister to those nice first chords and knowing I had to follow it up. There is a person who it is about and parts match that person's character and other parts simply reflect some honest feelings about the nature of love in the post modern world--or perhaps eternally. It seems to me people throw a lot of blame around when another individual does not match their needs and desires which are pre-formed and indifferent to the existence of the very person they blame. "How dare you have a corporeal existence at odds with my ideal of what I want you to be!" would be an honest summation. I'll let the listener guess what is real and not.
Lyrics
She Sells Seashells © Roman Rhodes, 2007 (rewrite: original 2002)
Intro: She sells seashells down by the seashore, Dreams of a better wave, while she rides her surfboard. Watching from the beach, she seemed out of reach, lord, But I guess I got what I didn't even know I prayed for.Just a secret wish, deep in my heart And I got more than I could part with, oh! I'm lost in the sea of love without any ark oh, Life's magic is sometimes light sometimes dark. 1. I was down for the festival of One Ocean When circumstances set the waves in motion. I took care of these kids lost in the commotion 'Til they pointed to their mother and I discovered devotion!
Bridge 1 Like Venus on the half-shell, she rode her surfboard: Golden gleaming, slightly leaning, the surf roared. Came out of the water, dripping, thankful for my care. And I knew I was drowned, then and there.
The days, the night fused, beach fires and the muse. Stages played, longing swayed, attractions grew. Full moon, pine-scape. Fire dance, entranced. Sand dunes, drums tunes. Can't insult chance!
2. Her name is Kayla, She lives by the sea, Wants someone to make her life easy. But if you don't fulfill her dreams and needs. You'll be left out on the sea of no feeling.
She's got two kids as sweet as can be. Could be with her just to make them happy. But forget your own life if you take her for a wife, You'll be a slave to all her joy and strife.
Bridge 2: Now I know how Odysseus felt, Stuck on somebody else's shelf. An object of interest, like a seashell. No say, no way Jose, to be your self.
(Intro/chorus: Sing 1st two lines then instrumental then last two lines of chorus)
3. She seemed so open and free of mind, But she had hang ups all the time. Hang ten toes curled behind, the surfboard of her mind.
She blamed me for already having ties! But the rope was around her ankle, not mine. I would have dropped all if she gave me time, But the waves kept rolling in so she left me behind.
End:She loved me then she hated me, but never got to know me. Hooked when she baited me, then tossed me as far as she could throw me.I am wounded, I am bleeding, and I am ready for the sharks 4 o'clock feeding and I am needing her now.