This is a lyric I heard from a song, Peaches & Cream, written by John Butler. I first
heard it some two months after my girlfriend
left
me. The song in general struck me
with an intense profanity: and
this
lyric stood out above the rest. It has become a sort of mantra for me.
I scrawl it out over my notes. I sing
the lines softly to
myself, and
the song plays on loop in my
head. My uni notebook has the words inscribed
on the cover,
in tastefully stylistic fashion. They
mean an awful lot to me, and I like to think they can mean something to
someone else too. If nothing else, I want to be able to justify their value here, as a
testment to their power and importance.
To me, it is a
terrible thought that I could be the only person to really appriciate the words, so I want to
share them.
So what does it mean?
If nothing else, it is
just a couple of pretty words.
We have a nice
alliteration (repetition of soft 's' sounds'). The words themselves are
easy to pronounce, they have a pleasant
sound to them. They also conjure
a nice image: an
orange sun climbing above a dark blue sea:
orange and yellow reflections shimmering
on the surface of the sea. Its
something nice to think about. However, the words mean far more to me
than
just a nice picture.
It means that something
wonderful is beginning,
bringing happiness and
light with it. Think on this: a sunrise is something beautiful, with
all of its bright colours lighting up the sky. It heralds a new day,
lighting the whole world as
it rises into the sky. The sea, in a
fashion, is a wide expanse of nothingness.
Of potential, of ambuguity.
There are no landmarks or obvious varitions. The sea is the future,
stretching out forever with no landmarks on the horizon. Put these two
images together, and we have something new and beautiful starting out
over a bland future. More than this, the sun lights up the sea, illuminating the future,
making it more attractive. The
sun could
represent different things. A new job perhaps, a new love, or a new
home - a fresh start in a new place. For John Butler, the sunrise is
the birth of his daughter. A sunrise can be any of these things, and
more. It could be a combination of things coming together at once.
These words strike a chord with me for several reasons.
For one, I used
to call my girl 'my Sunshine', because
she was to me what the sun is
to life. As a lasting
consequence of this, any mention of the sun makes me
think, in some small way at least, of her.
Since she left me I feel I
am living in the dark. So the
idea of a sunrise over sea -
someone to
make my life seem wonderful again - is something that really appeals to
me. I realise now how much I thrived on
her love, how much it meant to
me, how much it gave me. The most important thing to me is to replace
this somehow: and so these words are my hopes, dreams and ambitions.
When these words are put
in the context of the song, Peaches & Cream, they represent something wonderful
and happy because John has
found his sunrise. To me,
without a sunrise - indeed, having just seen
a sunset, and seeing my future
become as the sea at night - they are as
sad as they are happy. Happy because they represent something
wonderful: sad because I do not have
it, and am not expecting it for
some time.
Sunrise Over Sea. I'm
just looking for my sunrise.
I may have goten too personal here, for which I apologise, and may edit
the text. But these words are very close to my heart, for the reasons
listed above. Depersonalising the
words will reduce their profanity. I
post them here in the hopes that
someone else can appriciate the
beauty that these words
capture. They represent what I look for,
think about
and dream of everyday. Being
able to repeat them to myself gives me
strength and hope. Maybe now someone else can share that hope.
Thank you.