Surfing
By Sasha Walker/Mills
It’s not the waves you catch,
How hard or how strong.
It’s the wind in your hair,
The ocean’s song.
Knowing you can’t,
Almost certain you can.
Endless blue,
With a bare sight of land.
Getting to know the oceans,
Dolphins and fish your friends.
Too many mistakes,
That you need now not mend.
The loss of all worries,
The bad, the worst.
Nothing is practiced,
Nothing rehearsed.
The surfer’s only knowledge,
Of what’s going on,
Is the coming of the waves,
In the wake of the dawn.
©2004Sasha Walker/Mills
(from go-surfer.com)
Jack Nitzsche, ‘The Lonely Surfer’: “The Lonely Surfer” was not surf music in the classic sense: no Chuck Berry-styled electric guitars, honking saxes, or crisp drum rolls were in sight. Instead, it was something like an appropriate soundtrack theme to a surf documentary, the low, reverberating bass lines setting the mood for shots of building and ebbing waves, enhanced by soaring strings and Latin-influenced horns with an epic sweep. Its success paved the way for an album of the same name, complete with liner notes by Phil Spector. –-Richie Unterberger, liner notes for The Lonely Surfer reissue.
Jack Nitzsche, ‘Baja,’ written by Lee Hazlewood and featured on Nitzsche’s The Lonely Surfer album for the Reprise label (1963)
Silver Surfer
By Andy Harney
Silver Surfer
I’m getting old, or so I am told,
my hair’s turning silver, my forehead is bold.
I still love the water, and to play in the surf
getting wet is way better than standing on turf.
On it at dawn while others still sleep,
my paddle has slowed but still strong and deep,
I live for the drop on waves fast and steep.
Surfing for pleasure and the fun it’s a thrill,
as each day I go, honing my skill.
So when in the lineup , we’re bound to meet
to nod with a smile, is a soulful greet.
I’ll keep on surfing for the rest of my days
and I’ll never stop searching
for hidden beaches and bays.
©2005 Andy Harney
(from go-surfer.com)
The Marketts’ big hit from 1963-64. Originally titled ‘Outer Limits’ after a sci-fi TV show of the same name, the title was changed after Rod Serling filed suit against the group for plagiarizing the four-note motif from Serling’s The Twilight Zone show. Re-released as ‘Out of Limits,’ the single peaked at #3 on the Billboard chart and was a worldwide million seller.
Sailboards Maui
By Bill Keys of PoemsWhileYouWait.com
Don’t believe what anyone says
everyone is religious
It’s just that most people rely on some abstract salvation
stuff as elusive as a doughnut hole without a doughnut
This type of religion requires belief
same as Santa
Others rely on a more tangible salvation
as reliable and everlasting as the waves
People who get up at the ass crack of dawn
to practice the virtues
Persistence
Patience
Courage
Humility
with the dedicated longing
to be at one
with the Divine surge
We’re all born of the ocean
Ride the palm of source
Everyone needs such affirmations
So get religion
Or….get a board
Surf music ‘90s style from The Torquays, with the majestic ‘Rescue at Mavericks’
A Wave So Sublime
by Judd Handler at DivineSurfDesign.com
I’m going down the line of a wave so sublime
Feelin’ fine cause the wave’s all mine
Carving, cutting back, smackin’ the lip
gaining speed, stalling, finish with a head dip
Shake off the salt and paddle back out
Wait for the next set, see a whale spout
The next set builds in anticipation
Adrenaline flows through my circulation
A couple hard paddle strokes to launch me down the face
Dolphins next to me making it look easy, surfing with grace
Creation in the making, sky filled with brilliant hues
This aquatic pursuit infinitely more fulfilling than drowning in booze.
While touring with The Shadows in 1959, British songwriter Jerry Lordan picked up a ukulele and demonstrated for Shadows bass player Jet Harris a new instrumental he had written. It was titled “Apache” and he already been recorded by Bert Weedon; after Lordan had voiced his disapproval of Weeden’s version, Weedon’s label, Top Rank, declined to release it. After the other Shadows heard “Apache” they were eager to cut it. Released in July 1960 the Shadows’ single rose to #1 on the British charts in August and stayed there for five weeks. In the U.S. the song is better known in another hit instrumental version by Danish jazz guitarist Jorgen Ingmann, whose single went to #2 on the Billboard chart.
Untitled
By Stevie
The ice cold waves
wash me into the distance,
like a bird gliding,
silently,
further and further,
until nothing can be seen,
but a crashing sea,
glimmering like a crystal
in the scorching sun.
(Published at The Otter Class Blog, written by “a bunch of cool kids at Ringmer Primary School in East Sussex, United Kingdom. Its author, Stevie, was then in year 5 at Ringmer. Published July 8, 2008.)
‘Cat On a Hot Foam Board,’ The New Dimensions (1959)
The Surfer
(1915-2000, New South Wales, Australia)
He thrust his joy against the weight of the sea;
climbed through, slid under those long banks of
foam–
(hawthorn hedges in spring, thorns in the face stinging).
How his brown strength drove through the hollow and coil
of green-through weirs of water!
Muscle of arm thrust down long muscle of water;
and swimming so, went out of sight
where mortal, masterful, frail, the gulls went wheeling
in air as he in water, with delight.
Turn home, the sun goes down; swimmer, turn home.
Last leaf of gold vanishes from the sea-curve.
Take the big roller’s shoulder, speed and serve;
come to the long beach home like a gull diving.
For on the sand the grey-wolf sea lies, snarling,
cold twilight wind splits the waves’ hair and shows
the bones they worry in their wolf-teeth. O, wind blows
and sea crouches on sand, fawning and mouthing;
drops there and snatches again, drops and again snatches
its broken toys, its whitened pebbles and shells.
The Sandals play their classic theme song to Bruce Brown’s legendary surfing movie The Endless Summer, scenes from which are intercut with the music scenes in this terrific video posted at YouTube by thesandalsband. At 3:18 Bruce Brown himself enters and sits with the Sandals to discuss their history with The Endless Summer.
