Mixtape: On The Beach
“My, my, the clock in the sky is pounding away and there's so much to say”
Hey y’all. It’s been so cold recently here in central Texas and I’ve been thinking a lot about warmer weather. I thought some beach music might help warm me up so I made a mixtape. I think it’s good enough that even the weather has started to come around 🌞. Have a listen and read on.
Mixtape: YouTube | Apple Music
Imagine you’re sitting on the beach watching the waves crash one after the other in a continuous cycle. An undulating white noise covered in the competing cries of hungry seagulls. In the distance you see the small silhouettes of ships, tankers, and barges slide slowly across the horizon.
You’ve come here for the warmth of the sun and refreshing coolness of the water and to spend long moments feeling that undeniably sweet feeling of your feet sinking into the slow, liquid sand. You slather your skin with a generous amount of titanium white sunscreen, letting it soak in like the reality that there’s little in between us and that giant cosmic ball of relentless fire and radiation.
Sittin’ here restin’ my bones / And this loneliness won’t leave me alone
— “Dock of the Bay”, Otis Redding
A little ways up the beach some kids are building a sand castle. They’ve spent hours digging trenches and piling wet sand into a fortress of imaginative proportions. All the while the tide has been inching closer and closer. It eventually wraps its foamy fingers around the structure and pulls it piece by piece back into the ocean.
And so castles made of sand melts into the sea, eventually
— “Castles Made of Sand”, Jimi Hendrix
So much of life’s situations are packed into a beach scene. The advance and retreat of ocean waves mimic the ebb and flow of our seasons of life. The shore is continuously being shaped and reshaped by the forces of ocean just like we are continuously molded by the events, people and places around us. Everything is a slow impermanence.
My, my, the clock in the sky is pounding away and there's so much to say
— “Porpoise Song”, Gerry Goffin and Carol King
Mixtape: YouTube | Apple Music*
(*sorry Spotify users, I couldn’t find a third of these songs there 🤷♂️)
Dock Of the Bay - Otis Redding (1967)
Surf’s Up - Beach Boys (1971)
Porpoise Song - Monkees (1968)
Castles Made of Sand - Jimi Hendrix (1967)
Curve - The Mermen (1996)
Cowgirl In The Sand - Neil Young & Crazy Horse (1969)
Throw your bare feet up, lay back, enjoy this mixtape, and enjoy the weekend. 🏖️