"Sleeping Sea" is a song in 3 parts, a dismembered musical body whose sonic ashes are scattered over 2 different oceans:  The Pacific Ocean, and The Salton Sea.

"Sleeping Sea #1," or simply "Sleeping Sea," was inspired by a drive up the Pacific Coast Highway through Ventura County in the summer of '02.  I was living in Silverlake, and didn't have a car.  This rich girl took me for a ride up the coast, and the stunning beauty of the place was inspiring.  It was the summer before I got derailed by Tracy Cat, the junkie chick I wrote about in Good Morning Hollywood.  I still had momentum, and my purpose was intact.

I was asking for it, though.  Without knowing it.  "Sleeping Sea" is about Tracy Cat, and it was obviously just a matter of time before I planted my face into that ditch, like a bouquet of dying flowers you throw on someone's casket that you hate.

Hate is the word.  Psychotic junkie chicks don't love anything.  Of course they don't.  But apparently I still thought it was funny, since the song declares, "You don't need no car, you know I hate you just the way you are."

The line is obviously from her perspective, and was supposed to be a joke.  And it was a joke.

On me.

"Sleeping Sea #2" was written a couple months later, in one of the transient flophouses in Hollywood I used to frequent when things weren't going my way.  The kind of places with squishy bugs in the bathroom, and prostitutes for neighbors.  You could hear the guy next door snoring through the wall.  The mattress was black, but it was okay because the sheet was clean.  Short of violence and murder, you could do anything you wanted in most of those places, and no one was ever going to call the police about it.  The St. Moritz, which was my favorite, was a disgusting, reliable oasis.  I lived there for months on end, for many years.

"Sleeping Sea #2" was written there, probably, and is a prayer to God to let me sink into the open sea of my mistakes.  The waves were going to drag me under, and I begged God to let it happen.

Fortunately, He denied the request.

"Sleeping Sea #3" was written much later, inspired by a night my 2nd wife and I lived on The Salton Sea in the Airstream.  We'd been in the desert, and were on our way to L.A. for a radio appearance, but we decided to spend another night inland.  So we went to The Salton Sea.  The water smells strongly of Epsom Salt, and the beach is weird, comprised entirely of the bones of tiny birds and animals.  There is no sand anywhere, only salt and bones.

It was a calm and restful night.

"Men are not alone on the diamond sea
Sail into the heart of the lonely storm
And tell her that you'll love her eternally"
The Diamond Sea

The title of the Sleeping Sea trilogy is inspired by "The Diamond Sea" by Sonic Youth, who I was able to see at the Sunset Junction street fair in the summer of '02.  The title reminded me of the drive up the coast with the rich California girl, and I wanted to capture that firefly and keep it in my music jar.  I love the song, but I believe the sentiment in the verse above to be untrue.  Men are very much alone on the diamond sea.  Much more accurate is the line which states, "You better look out for the looking glass girl, 'cause she's gonna take you for a fall."

Indeed she is.  Didn't Thurston Moore end up cheating on Kim Gordon, destroying not only his marriage, but his amazing band as well?

The looking-glass girl, indeed.  Throwing you overboard, into the sleeping sea, the beach of which is full of bones.

Because love is a beautiful dream, encased in glass.

Thanks for listening.

Sleeping Sea #3

You are here
but where are we?
Somewhere where the air is elementary

Where the trees are black
and don't look back
where the rocks rise up in arms
to block the railroad tracks

Where the badgers build
their tents out on the ice
where everything,
for all intents and purposes,
is nice

Here you are
walking with me
beside the shore of this bleached and bony sea

Where the moon is made
of ice cream cones
or maybe it isn't,
but what if it was?
And does the moonlight match your bones?

Cornfields are adorned
with rivers and brooks
the sky is jagged,
torn from the pages of this mountain book

Look at all the pretty birds
nested on my tongue!
Cloudy days are wasted on the young

What will remain
of this metropolis
of fallopian freeways
and dystopian bliss?

Where the vines have horns
and spines are torn
from snakes
inside your bedrooms
dreaming

What will become
of the sparkling spoon?
How long will we scrape our knuckles across
the surface of the chuckling moon?

I'm ruined for all eternity,
or maybe I'm just free
of the burden
of your insecure modernity

Words of praise
will conquer our fears
and crazy birds
will wipe away our tears
out of the clouds
up in the sky

And I cannot tell a lie,
not only would I die,
I would rise from the dead for you

And I cannot tell a lie,
not only would I die,
I would rise from the dead for you

©2009 Nathan Payne