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about
This tune came out of the blue, like a wave breaking.
During lockdown, I’d a lack of purpose with little gigs. My head was muddled so I headed to the ocean. I joined the multitudes, swimming in the big bad blue, to check what the fuss was about? I was hooked from the get go. I experienced renewal and rebirth and coldness in my nether regions! However, a great weight was lifted. When I sing “laughing in the tide with no motive”, it’s the feeling that you’re a child again - no inhibitions or noise. Just at one with your self and your closest pals.
All of the albums songs are set in the natural world. I’d been listening to the Gloaming, Séamus Begley and Fiachna Ó Braonáin’s Winter Sun and the melody of the chorus to Sea Swimming came to me whilst diving off Novohal Cobh. I felt very connected to the landscape and the water, and the tune that came is trad like. It’s about the folkiest song I’ve done. But it connects me to my roots.
Sea Swimming is all about connectivity and washing away burdens and trauma. Mark Knopfer and Richard Thompson inspired the melody of the verse but Hughy, my guitarist settled on a sound like Steve Cooney. I’ve been a fan and friend of Clare Sands for years. She added her unmistakable fiddle and viola which almost reflects the rhythms and contours of the sea. Aisling’s cello adds weight and bass and grounding. I harmonised with myself – all about the connection to self.
There’s a sensuality to the sea. When I sing, “Sea Swimming, it’s fitting, with sunlight dancing on your skin, naked as a morning with you again”, It’s about connecting and being intimate and trusting with someone you love.
I feel that Martha in the verse, is all of us, looking for our inner child. “Taking time, drowning sin, confessing raw desire and diving in.”
I was asked to play Sea Swimming for Departures, by Luke McManus, for Dublin Book Festival - a film focusing on the connection between Irish landscape and writing, featuring myself and Aisling with Anna Mieke and members of Lankum.
The sea really is magic.
lyrics
Sea Swimming
Martha took her time, like the perfect crime
Pale Toes glistening on cool water
Caressing little waves and drowning sin
Confessing raw desire, then diving in
I made a bea line for the brine
Didn’t think of the ice cold - upper or lower
Healing all that pain, in green and blue
Me and Martha, sun coming through
Sea swimming - heart willing - I’ll dive with you into the dawn
Cured and renewed in the tide, reborn
Sea swimming - it’s fitting - with sunlight dancing on your skin
Naked as a morning - with you again and again
Sea weed and musk, like blind mans buff
Feeling all the feels without warning
REM on your speaker phone
Cockles and clams make undertones
The Meeting of our water signs
Laughing in the tide with no motive
Waves that hurl us into one
Something brewing, nearly begun
Sea swimming - heart willing - I’ll dive with you into the dawn
Cured and renewed in the tide, reborn
Sea swimming - it’s fitting - with sunlight dancing on your skin
Naked as a morning - with you again and again
credits
released November 5, 2021
Words and Music - Jack O’Rourke
Vocals and piano - Jack O’Rourke
Guitar - Hugh Dillon
Fiddle and Viola - Clare Sands
Cello - Aisling Fitzpatrick
Recording and Production - Davie Ryan and Jack O’Rourke
Mixing - Ber Quinn (Villagers, John Grant, Cathy Davey)
Mastering - Philip Shaw Bova (Feist, Father John Misty, Matt Berninger (The National), Angel Olson)
Jack O’Rourke was described by Hotpress as “one of Ireland’s most gifted songwriters” in a review for his 2019 album, Ivory
Towers. A Corkonian, Jack certainly references the musicality of Leeside turn of phrase, but his songs explore unique character studies, matters of the heart and are deeply personal, yet universal. This particularly rings true on his upcoming third album, Wild Place...more
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