Some songs come from personal experience. Others are sparked by a story that grabs hold of your imagination and won't let go. Ocean Gift falls firmly in that second category.
A few months back, I stumbled across an article from New Scientist about orcas bringing gifts to humans — fish, shells, even bits of seaweed. It wasn’t a fairy tale. It was happening for real, out there on the open water. That image — of these powerful, intelligent creatures rising from the deep to offer something — stirred something in me. What did it mean? A peace offering? Curiosity? Connection? Maybe all of the above.
That’s where the song began.
The melody came first. I wanted it to feel fluid and gentle, like being rocked by the waves. I wrote the chords on guitar, kept them simple — just enough movement to give that sense of drifting, of ebb and flow. I hired a guitarist to lay down the final track because I wanted that clean, spacious sound — something with room to breathe, like the open sea itself.
For the vocals, I knew I wasn’t the right voice for the lead. This song needed someone with a certain softness, but also a little grit — like the salt wind off the water. Luckily, a good friend and colleague stepped in. His voice brought exactly the right tone — part wonder, part mystery.
We recorded and mixed the song in Audacity, keeping the production minimal to let the words and melody shine through. Speaking of words, some of my favorite lines come straight from that first spark of inspiration:
“A salmon offered, a gesture grand,
A fleeting touch from a fin to hand.”
And of course, the heart of the song is the chorus — that call to drift closer to the mystery:
“Oh, ocean song, carry me near,
Whale voices call, wild and clear.”
Ocean Gift isn’t just about orcas. It’s about the fragile, surprising connections between worlds — human and animal, land and sea, known and unknown.
If you’ve ever stood on the shore and wondered what waits beyond the waves, this one’s for you.
🎧 Listen to Ocean Gift here: https://tinyurl.com/OceanGift