Pacific Coast Highway

RICHARD DRY: I wrote this song after my mother died.  When she first moved me from Philadelphia to California, when I was 4,  we ended up in an apartment in Venice, CA, the place I still call home in my heart.  She used to tell me that she was introducing me to "her ocean" and then later, when she had cancer and she was dying, she would ask me, "Are you glad that I moved you to the ocean?" and the answer was always and empahtic, "Yes." I walking with her on the shore one day, and then being shocked to realize later that it was the last time her legs were strong enough to take her to the beach. I wondered wha she must have thought about never getting to see her ocean again, so I answered the question in the song based on what she used to say to me whenI looked sad about losing her. She would always say that she would live on inside me; that's something I've tried to feel, but it's hard with such a big loss.  After she died, by her request, we spread her ashes into the ocean on a magical night when the algae turned the crashing waves a phosphorescent wintergreen.  Vale Valentine Dry will forever live on in me, but I feel particularly close to her when I visit the ocean, anywhere along the Pacific Coast Highway.

 

Main vocals, lyrics, and instrumentation was written and played by Richard Dry. Backup vocals were written and sung by Richard and Dakota Dry.  

 

LYRICS:
Traveling down the pacific coast highway

One man his van, dogs and his gear

There’s something about the way the cliffs curve right here

Makes think about a boy in the waves

Remember, my mother watching me from the palisades

That woman I loved the most, she lived down the coast

She’s gone now so I drive

Just to think of her

I’ve been driving these beaches for years and know

Just which way the tide

Will take me

 

I’m going to let go of all of my fears

Shift with the changing gears

Ride these waves of tears and find my way

Down the Pacific Coast Highway

 

The hum of the road lets my thoughts unload

About the last time she walked outside

She’d been walking those beaches for years and knew

Just which way the tide would take her

So I guess it lives on inside

The people and the sun in the sky

She dreamed of one more ride

Down the pacific coast highway

 

When the moon rises

There’s a different kind of light

I’m tired but it feels cool to be tired

There’s a breeze through my window

So I stick out my hand

The resistance consistent with who I am

I’ve been riding these beaches for years and knew

Just which way the tide would take her

Well I guess she lives on inside

In the ocean and the sand and the sky

I dream we’re taking a ride

Down the Pacific Coast Highway