Shore

Album: Shore (2020)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • In 2017, Fleet Foxes frontman Robin Pecknold had an accident while surfing in California. The rope attaching his leg to his surfboard snapped, and he lost the board. This was in deep water, far from shore, and as he swam back he got caught in a current. It took Pecknold 15 minutes to swim back to the beach as he got constantly pummeled by waves. The singer was so happy to make it back to shore.

    This song, inspired by the incident, is the final (and title) track of Fleet Foxes' fourth album. Pecknold considers it the record's epilogue in the same way the opening track, "Wading In Waist-High Water," is a prologue.

    "I really thought about the album as imagining you're standing on the shore looking at the ocean and you're reckoning with if you should stay on shore or go back to sea - the shore being this comforting place and full of memories and the sea being this dangerous, empty place where we can't live because it's this expanse of death or something," he told EW. "This song is expressing gratitude towards my family and friends and heroes for everything that they've given me as a person. And then back in the water, the music goes to this really wild place where the syllables of every word are pulling apart from each other. There's chaos beneath the sea and then you rise back up and you're floating on calm water."
  • Pecknold names two of his musical heroes.

    I remember Prine I remember you
    After word of Berman I remember Pfeiffer burning


    Country folk singer John Prine died on April 7, 2020 after contracting COVID. David Berman, the frontman of Silver Jews, committed suicide on August 7, 2019, and three weeks later a wildfire swept through California's Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. Pecknold also namechecks Berman in another of Shore's tracks, "Sunblind."
  • Fleet Foxes released Shore to wide acclaim on September 22, 2020. It was the band's fourth consecutive Top 10 album in the UK; Uncut magazine ranked it their second-best album of 2020 and BBC Radio 6 Music placed it at #3 on their list.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

David Bowie Leads the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Men

David Bowie Leads the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired MenSong Writing

Bowie's "activist" days of 1964 led to Ziggy Stardust.

Harry Wayne Casey of KC and The Sunshine Band

Harry Wayne Casey of KC and The Sunshine BandSongwriter Interviews

Harry Wayne Casey tells the stories behind KC and The Sunshine Band hits like "Get Down Tonight," "That's The Way (I Like It)," and "Give It Up."

Don Dokken

Don DokkenSongwriter Interviews

Dokken frontman Don Dokken explains what broke up the band at the height of their success in the late '80s, and talks about the botched surgery that paralyzed his right arm.

Modern A Cappella with Peder Karlsson of The Real Group

Modern A Cappella with Peder Karlsson of The Real GroupSong Writing

The leader of the Modern A Cappella movement talks about the genre.

Steven Tyler of Aerosmith

Steven Tyler of AerosmithSongwriter Interviews

Tyler talks about his true love: songwriting. How he identifies the beauty in a melody and turns sorrow into art.

Joan Armatrading

Joan ArmatradingSongwriter Interviews

The revered singer-songwriter talks inspiration and explains why she put a mahout in "Drop the Pilot."