Owl City: How I Became The Sea Meaning
How I Became The Sea Lyrics
I dug by hand
A haven that hid me well
Beneath the sand
The wide windy waves washed in
But I stayed dry
The great breakers broke again
As I nodded off inside
And then
When the Empress ran aground
And my eyes...
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I heard somewhere that the lyrics were a poem about someone's depression that they sent to Adam on MySpace years ago, but that isn't confirmed. Just a thought.
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I think he became the sea because there was nothing he could have done to resolve the situation.
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It has many meanings. One is about the ocean helping him sleep. Another is about becoming famous, big like the ocean. Another is about the ship empress crashing and causing an oil spill. It is mainly about the ocean and how powerful it and its ecosystem is. I have always imagined a lobster, a metaphor for adam, transforming into a powerful sea creature
after a shipwreck and becoming a bigger part of the sea, which could represent him becoming famous. So it is about his life, fame, a shipwreck, and the wonder of the ocean and its power. So it has multiple meanings! -
Maybe some of the lyrics indicate specific sea imagery/behaviour.
"The sky fell in" = the reflection of the sky in the water, as if it fell in it.
"My eyes turned blue and green" = the horizon in the sea's direction divides the space in two sides, the blue sky and the green water.
"I brought the ocean side to its rusty knees" = a big rolling wave approaching the shore, with a sound that could be defined as "rusty". -
In my opinion, this song is about the comfort of being part of something that is much greater than you, that you cannot control nor escape, and too which you will one day return. Anyway, I think June refers to Of June, one of Adam's first releases. The waves represent all of the publicity and fans that his career brought. The line "when the empress ran aground" mainly talks of the Empress ship, and how no matter how great it was, it still eventually was conquered by the sea. His eyes turning blue and green, and becoming the sea both show him entering society and becoming a name and figure that really did influence the rest. Anyway, that's just my 2¢, but I find that it is a great song that outlines Adan's career and journey to where he is now.
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This song is actually about Adam's success as an artist.
"June was the lobster shell/I dug by hand" is referring to his first album "Of June", which he made in his basement alone ("dug by hand").
There are a lot of other references in the song too. It's a very deep song and if you really know Adam, then you can see the illusions pretty clearly! :) -
I believe that, knowing how Adam is, this song is about how Majestic and wonderful nature is.here is one thought. This is the simple version. Adam is comparing himself to a lobster. The 'haven' is his shell and the waves are the Preditory creatures. He is explaning how he (or you) can change and make yourself anything you want to be. He compared himself to the most powerful Physical feature on earth, and is saying that he is only here to protect.
The other way of saying this is, He is to start with, a child, living and always being told what to do, and the waves are society. he then grew up to be exactly what society is. This is simply my oppinion. thank your for reading. -
I thought rather differently than other people on this one. I thought it was a really sad song about how he/someone he knew drowned. Hence, 'becoming the sea', becoming one with the sea, becoming PART of the sea. When the Empress ran aground, when his ship crashed, and started sinking, his eyes turned blue and green, the sea was surrounding him, like it was the only thing that existed, I heard a gorgeous sound and that's when it became a dream,like the sea was beckoning to him, then he started hallucinating and not really paying attention to reality, when the sky fell in, when he started sinking, when the hurricanes came for me, when 'death' came for him, when it was the end, I could finally crash again, it was finally finished, he could now die and end it, and that's how I became the sea, how he became part of the sea.
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The song depicts his success. June is 'of june' his almost 1st successful ep. Dug by hand suggests that it was with his own effort,ie, without any collaboration. Eyes turned blue and green refers to ocean eyes, his 2nd studio album resulting in huge success. He got gorgeous appreciation from his fans and his dreams became true. Thats how he became the sea.
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I google the empress ran aground and found out that in 1996 the SEA EMPRESS was an oil ship going to the states and it became grounded and spilt a lot of oil in the sea. Thankfully most of the animals hadn't come back for breeding yet and the damage to marine life was limited, also thanks to the stormy weather that came quickly after that. About the june lobster thing. June is when lobsters normally shed their shells for new ones, leaving their old shells for whatever gets them first. I think he was talking bout the oil spill and the grounding. It's also possible he was on the ship when it got grounded, I don't know much about him, or helped clean up some of the oil that hid in rock pools and other similar places for the next three years
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I wrote a fanfic chapter based on this song. The lead protagonist accepts his perfect girlfriend instead mourning over his dead parents. When that happened, his dark blue eyes sparkled with flecks of dark green. He normally wore black sunglasses to cover his eyes, but that small change made him take them off. And after a quick dance, his girlfriend is amazed with his beautiful eyes. They then embrace in a very loving kiss.
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Very hard to decipher this one... I googled Empress Lobster, and there does seem to be a species of crayfish called the Empress, but I also stumbled across the Wiki Alien Species site, and a page on an alien called a Xenomorph; the "highest" of their breed is called an Empress... I don't agree that this song is about the author's love of the ocean - it sounds more to me that he has been forced to submit to something (when he says he can finally get to sleep again)... He also hears a "glorious sound", which turns his eyes blue-green, but then it is the thundering sky and the hurricanes which enable him to finally get some sleep... All in all, a very curious song...
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If you think deep into the meaning, its actually a pretty simple theme. He's talking about how emotionally attached you can get to mother nature. the first verse is about how he was around the ocean so much that he had to go back and eventually it became the most important thing in his life not physically but emotionally and the sea became him and he became the sea
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it's Adam's ingenious way of saying how much he enjoys the ocean. he sings about it a lot in his other songs (Tidal Wave, Hello Seattle, etc.) when he says things like "when the sky fell in, when the hurricanes came for me..." he's saying how the sea is a constant comfort, even in the most difficult of times. those are at least my ideas on it
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