Ocean

Album: The Blackened Air (2002)
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Songfacts®:

  • Here, Nina Nastasia sings about turning into a giant and causing destruction. She wrote the song a couple of years into a dysfunctional relationship. "There's a lot in the lyrics about feeling... not empowered, but powerfully destructive, causing messes everywhere I go," she explained to Uncut magazine. "This feeding of low self-esteem or that things are wrong with me."
  • The song ends with people drowning in Nastasia's giant tears before she dies in the ocean of tears too. It is one of many ocean and water songs in her discography. "Maybe it's because I'm from Southern California and I went to the beach a lot," she told Uncut. "That's where I feel most comfortable and happy. When I'm at the ocean. I feel a lot of peace when I'm swimming, so maybe that's why I keep going to that."
  • Nastasia recorded "Ocean" for her second album, The Blackened Air. She laid down The Blackened Air almost entirely live over a six-day period at the Electrical Audio Studios in Chicago. Producer Steve Albini set up the band in a semi-circle in one corner of the studio.
  • Nastasia played the guitar with Gerry Leonard. The other musicians are:

    Dave Richards: bass
    Jay Bellerose: drums
    Stephen A.F. Day: cello
    Dylan Willemsa: viola
    Joshua Carlebach: accordion

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