Good morning, dialophiles! We’ll begin the week today by listening to a selection from Scottish singer Al Stewart’s 1978 “Time Passages” LP, the enigmatic “Life in Dark Water”.
A truly haunting track concerning a rather unusual topic for a rock song, a solo mariner aboard a submarine lamenting his isolation. Is he lost? Is he insane? Is he a ghost, doomed to navigate the lower ocean depths with no further human contact? Could be any or all of these, or none of them…
Listen for the syncopated sonar “pings” throughout the track, especially in the final several seconds of the song… as metallic and cold as that sound is, the context of the song lend them an especially forlorn and wistful feel. Tim Renwick’s amazing guitar work gracefully reinforces a spooky and otherworldly quality.
Additionally, the final verse makes reference to a famous maritime mystery, the Marie Celeste, a merchant ship found in seaworthy condition, but completely abandoned in open water in 1872, with no explanation or evidence of what happened to the crew.
Time Passages, a follow up to Stewart’s 1976 signature album “Year of the Cat”, features lush production work by the iconic Alan Parsons, producer of The Beatles’ “Abbey Road”, Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”, and of course, his own material under the moniker The Alan Parsons Project.
I discovered this song in the early 2000s, after picking up the Time Passages LP from a local used book & record store. Upon the first listen, I became fascinated with Dark Water’s unusual subject matter, spectral instrumentation, and uncovering the story behind the lonely submarine crewman. Give it a listen… immerse yourself in the music, let the lyrics lodge in your mind, and arrive at your own conclusion…
“No sound comes from the sea above me… No messages crackle through the radio leads. They’ll never know, never no never, how strange life in dark water can be.”
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