Rock Lyric quotes - Seascapes

How do rock poets describe the sea or the ocean? How do they use the imagery? Often it's as metaphor, describing the waves of love and hate, sometimes it's a land of dreams and wishes and much more. Here are some cool ones I've collected.

You are an ocean wave my love
crashing at the bow
I am a galley slave my love
If only I could find
The way to sail to you
Maybe I'll just stow away.
Martha's Harbour - All About Eve 1988

Houses iced in whitewash guard a pale shore line
Cornered by the cactus and the pine
Here I wander where sweet sage and strange herbs grow
Down a sun-baked crumpled stony road.
Formentara Lady - Lyrics by Pete Sinfield performed by King Crimson

Silver surfer sorcerer of spray
Wind Quartets - Marc Bolan - Tyrannosaurus Rex

Gaunt granite climbs where gulls wheel and glide
Islands - Peter Sinfield - King Crimson

Every time just like the last
On her ship tied to the mast
To distant lands
Takes both my hands
Never a frown with golden brown
Golden Brown - The Stranglers

All along the ocean beaches, stares up empty at the sea.
Marcie - Joni Mitchell

In the breaking and the breathing of the water weeds
Cactus Tree - Joni Mitchell

Mermaids live in colonies
All his seadreams come to me
The Dawntreader - Joni Mitchell

Snuff brown walls where Spanish lizards run
Formentara Lady - Pete Sinfield - King Crimson

The seal of the seasons moved with grace, love
upon the Orkney ocean's face.
The Seal of the Season's - Marc Bolan - Tyrannosaurus Rex

A salty shimmered shell of foam
The Seal of the Season's - Marc Bolan - Tyrannosaurus Rex

Talking Islands in Africa
Watch the low boat hit and run
Talkin' Islands in Africa - Japan

Islands join hands 'neath heaven's sea
Islands - Peter Sinfield - King Crimson

Earth stream and tree encircled by sea
Waves sweep the sand from my Island
My sunsets fade
Field and glade wait only for rain
Grain after grain love my
High weathered walls which fend off the tide
cradle the wind.
Islands - Pete Sinfield - King Crimson

She dances for the sailors
In a smoky cabaret bar underground
Down in a cellar in a harbour town
The Pirates of Penzance - Joni Mitchell

I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
I'm just sitting' on the dock of the bay.
The Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding

'All hands on deck, we've run afloat!' I heard the captain cry
'Explore the ship, replace the cook: let no one leave alive!'
Across the straits, around the Horn: how far can sailors fly?
A Salty Dog - Procol Harum

The roll of the harbour wake
The song tht the rigging makes
The taste of the spray he takes.
The Dawntreader - Joni Mitchell

We fired the gun, and burnt the mast, and rowed from ship to shore
A Salty Dog - Procol Harum

A song will lift
as the mainsail shifts
and the boat drifts on to the shoreline.
And the sun will respect
Everyface on the deck
The hour that the ship comes in.
When the Ship Comes in - Bob Dylan

Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
with all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves.,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow
Mr Tambourine Man - Bob Dylan

Where are the footprints that danced on these beaches?
Song to a Seagull - Joni Mitchell

One day she came like a seagull woman
One day she came.
Seagull Woman - Marc Bolan - Tyrannosaurus Rex

Lamplights glow on old guitars the travellers strum
Incense children dance to an Indian drum
Here Odysseus charmed for dark Circe fell
Still her perfume lingers, still her spell.
Formentara Lady - Pete Sinfield - King Crimson

A salty dog, this seaman's log: your witness my own hand
A Salty Dog - Procol Harum

We sailed for parts unknown to man, where ships come home to die
A Salty Dog - Procol Harum

I was going confiscate your lace
and wrap it up in a sailor's knot
and hide it in your case..
This Wheel's on Fire - Bob Dylan

The sea beasts scull the water
The Seabeasts - Marc Bolan - Tyrannosaurus Rex

As a babe of the spray
Like a White Star, tangled and far, You are - Marc Bolan - Tyrannosaurus Rex

Dark Harbour quays like fingers of stone
Hungrily reach from my island
Islands - Pete Sinfield - King Crimson

Below me sleepy rooftops of the harbour
I think I understand - Joni Mitchell

How many seas must a white dove sail
before she sleeps in the sand?
Blowin' in the Wind - Bob Dylan

The ocean wild like an organ played
The seaweed's wove its strands
The crashin' waves like cymbals clashed
Against the rocks and sands
Lay Down Your Weary Tune - Bob Dylan

Well I got back
and took the parkin' ticket off the mast
I was ripping it to shreds
when this coastguard boat went past
Bob Dylan's 115th Dream - Bob Dylan

I asked the Captain what his name was
and how come he didn't drive a truck
He said his name was Columbus
I just said 'Good Luck'
Bob Dylan's 115th Dream - Bob Dylan

All your seasick sailors they are rowing home
It's All Over Now Baby Blue - Bob Dylan

The beauty parlour is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Desolation Row - Bob Dylan

Thrown like a star in my vast sleep
I open my eyes to take a peep
To find that I was by the sea
Gazing with tranquillity
Hurdy Gurdy Man - Donovan

We would be warm below the storm
In our little hideaway beneath the waves
Resting our head on the sea bed
In an octopus' garden near a cave
An Octopus's Garden - the Beatles

So we sailed on to the sun,
Till we found a sea of green,
And we lived beneath the waves,
In our yellow submarine,
Yellow Submarine - The Beatles

Standing on the cast iron shore-yeah
Glass Onion - The Beatles