{"id":127,"date":"2012-02-02T07:53:07","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T07:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/?p=127"},"modified":"2012-02-02T09:02:08","modified_gmt":"2012-02-02T09:02:08","slug":"the-deep-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/2012\/02\/the-deep-end\/","title":{"rendered":"The Deep End"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Gord Sellar and Dabang Band<\/em><\/p>\n

One day, got the notion, in the ocean,
\nOne day, thought that he would learn to swim;
\nThat day, must admit he was a fool,
\nThat day went straight to the swimming pool…<\/p>\n

Signed up, took a class down at the YMCA,
\nWith families, children and their mothers;
\nFathers, reclining in the hot tubs and the saunas,
\nAnd there he was among them, a pink unicorn<\/p>\n

Day one, shocked to see him, everybody;
\nDay two, they all see him screw it up;
\nDay three, gangster in class, tattooed ass;
\nDay four, they go out and drink it up;
\nOn day five, he looks up and he sees the lifeguard dive,
\nHer movements, smooth like spilling milk:
\nIn lane five, she makes her way from one end to the other —
\nHe wants to talk to her, but just then does not dare.<\/p>\n

sax solo<\/em><\/p>\n

In lane five, he looks again to see the lifeguard dive,
\nHer movements, smooth like rolling clouds:
\nIn lane five, she makes her way from one end to the other —
\nHe wants to talk to her, but just then does not dare…
\nHe wants to talk to her, but just then does not dare.<\/p>\n

The deep end… the deep end… the deep end… the deep end… the deep end.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Unlike most of my “songs”, “The Deep End” was conceived from start to finish as a song, not originally as a poem. I think this shows in the structure of the lyrics, in a positive way. In any case, the song turned out quite differently than I expected: I had in mind the tempo (and the basic drum beat) of the Belle & Sebastian song “Expectations,”<\/a>\u00a0but we ended up with something a lot slower and with a more chunky beat. I still think it would make a good uptempo song, though.<\/p>\n

I originally came up with the melody whilst showering after the swimming class I took at the YMCA in Iksan, South Korea, in 2003; I decided therefore to write the lyrics about the experience of the class (and more generally my experience as a foreigner living in Korea), as well as making it a tribute to the most unusual of the swim instructors\/lifeguards at the pool. (While I didn’t fall in love with her, I thought she was cool.) There was a guy in our class who was tattooed, and many suspected he’d been a gangster at some point; I suspect it too, but it’s not like he went all Tony Soprano in front of us. (Unless you count shouting at a waitress.)<\/p>\n

“The Deep End” is available on the Dabang Band album Product (2004); you can find out more about the album here<\/a>. Or, heck, click here to stream the song<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Gord Sellar and Dabang Band One day, got the notion, in the ocean, One day, thought that he would learn to swim; That day, must admit he was a fool, That day went straight to the swimming pool… Signed up, took a class down at the YMCA, With families, children and their mothers; Fathers, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-songs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xIep-23","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions\/151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gordsellar.com\/texts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}