island songs

When I was a toddler, my mother began working at a university outside of Pittsburgh, and during her first year there, one of her colleagues invited our entire family to spend a week at his summerhouse on a small island just off the coast of Maine. I was too young to have any distinct memory of this vacation, but what my parents have described to me must have been truly magical. The smell of the salt air, the clear night sky, the view of the sunset over the bay, how everyone looks each other in the eye and says ‘hey there’. They were in heaven.

And thus began the great Maine love affair. It started out as a week or two each summer, then a month, and then one year they announced that they had bought a house. I was 10, and had been cherishing my summers there already. For the first year, we just stayed for 3 months in the summer, but then my mom received a job offer. I was full of mixed emotions when they said we’d be staying the winter there, but those soon washed away as I adjusted quickly to Maine life, and allowing myself to belong to this small island.

I’ve since moved far away. To a city many dream about, write about, and fall in love with. But there is nothing like coming home to my sweet island paradise. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks, Southport. And because I miss you so much, here are a couple of songs about islands, and loving the ocean as you taught me to !

First, an old favorite. Björk’s Anchor Song:



This is a song I heard first sung by one of my fellow students. This is the only recording available on youtube, which is unfortunate, because my classmate sings it much better. But for now, here is Chabrier’s L’ile Heureuse:



Schubert’s Am Meer from ‘Schwanengesang’. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sings, and brilliantly:


Jamie Cullum’s All At Sea. The first song I heard of his, normally a bit to pop-rock for me, but the subject matter turned me the other way:



And finally, an exquisite version of Berlioz’ L’Ile Inconnue. I simply adore von Otter’s musical choices in this piece from Les Nuits D’Été:



So there you are-- a couple island/ocean songs for you to enjoy on this humid summer night (at least from where I’m sitting). This should be enough to tie me over until I get a sweet breath of salt air in Corsica next week, and then to my own beloved island in some short weeks.