Ocean Avenue (song)
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"Ocean Avenue" is a song recorded by the American
rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
band
Yellowcard Yellowcard is an American Rock music, rock band that formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1997 and was based in Los Angeles beginning in 2000. The band is recognized for having a distinct sound in their genre, primarily due to the prominent use o ...
for their fourth studio album of the same name. It was released as the second single from ''Ocean Avenue'' on December 15, 2003, through
Capitol Records Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note ...
. "Ocean Avenue" shares writing credits between the band's singer
Ryan Key William Ryan Key (born December 17, 1979) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. He is best known as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the pop punk band Yellowcard. He is the owner/operator of a recording studio in Jacksonvil ...
, guitarist
Ben Harper Benjamin Chase Harper (born October 28, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Harper plays an eclectic mix of blues, folk, soul, reggae, and rock music and is known for his guitar-playing skills, vocals, live perfo ...
, bassist Pete Mosely, drummer Longineu W. Parsons III, and violinist Sean Mackin. It was written about the band's teenage years along the Atlantic Coast.
Neal Avron Neal Avron (born December 31, 1965) is an American record producer, mixer, audio engineer, and musician. Working predominantly in rock music, Avron began working on records in 1993 and achieved his production breakthrough when he co-produced Eve ...
, a veteran punk rock producer, engineered and produced the tune. Yellowcard began in
Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
and moved to
California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
at the onset of the aughts, signing to Capitol in 2002. "Ocean Avenue" was one of many songs the band wrote for their major-label debut, but primary lyricist Key had difficulty completing its chorus. It was nearly left off the album until Key wrote the song's anthemic refrain. While the song's subject matter appears to be romantic in nature, the song takes root in the band's longing for home: for the group, "Ocean Avenue" represented a farewell to the sunsets and youthful days in Florida, where they lived, rehearsed, and grew up near the beach. "Ocean Avenue" saw heavy radio airplay and was the band's biggest hit, peaking within the
top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or " con ...
of the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. It received praise from music critics, many of whom have called it a classic of the coalescing pop punk and emo genres. Its
music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...
was directed by
Marc Webb Marc Preston Webb (born August 31, 1974) is an American music video director and filmmaker. Webb made his feature film directorial debut in 2009 with the romantic comedy ''500 Days of Summer'', and went on to direct ''The Amazing Spider-Man'' in ...
and starred Key in a
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time travel Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a w ...
concept. It was certified double platinum by the
Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
(RIAA).


Background

Yellowcard emerged in the early aughts out of Florida's punk rock scene. In 1999, the band moved to California to further their music career, but returned back home. The band added vocalist and guitarist Ryan Key as their primary lyricist, and moved back west, in the L.A. suburb
Thousand Oaks Thousand Oaks is the second-largest city in Ventura County, California, United States. It is in the northwestern part of Greater Los Angeles, approximately from the city of Los Angeles and from Downtown. It is named after the many oak tree ...
, in 2001. The group performed several showcases for Capitol Records before the label signed them in 2002. The band rented a cabin near Lake Arrowhead in the autumn of that year to write and develop new material, and they began pre-production with producer Neal Avron soon afterward at his Swing House space. Capitol booked the band five weeks at Hollywood's famed
Sunset Sound Sunset, also known as sundown, is the daily disappearance of the Sun below the horizon due to Earth's rotation. As viewed from everywhere on Earth (except the North and South poles), the equinox Sun sets due west at the moment of both the spring ...
studio between February and March 2003 to record the album—but "Ocean Avenue", the namesake of the album, was not yet finished. The song is based around three chords, building towards a big, catchy refrain; this was a conscious choice, to challenge the band with making each section interesting independent of its limited structure. The issue was that the group had yet to develop a completed chorus
melody A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most liter ...
by the time they arrived at Sunset. Key initially had an idea for a chorus that other members of the band felt was too similar to pop star
Cyndi Lauper Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper Thornton (born June 22, 1953) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and activist. Her career has spanned over 40 years. Her album ''She's So Unusual'' (1983) was the first debut album by a female artist to achi ...
, and he kept writing and re-writing attempting to find a salvageable idea. At the studio, Key occupied its vocal room to further work on the chorus, emerging every so often to the
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to present to Avron. It got to a point where the band were convinced the song would not make the album. He eventually came up with the words "Find-ing out / things would get better," to which Avron responded to immediately. "Ocean Avenue" was one of the last songs to come together during the recording process for the band. Upon the tune's completion, the band recognized its potential: "we had a sense that it was a special song, one of the most accessible, massive-sounding pop songs that we'd ever written," Key said. He deemed it the group's most important moment in their career.


Composition

"Ocean Avenue" on the surface appears to be the story of a relationship falling apart, but it attempts to channel a more conceptual feeling. Its lyrics were penned by Key, whose songwriting focus at the time was "translating bigger moments and scenes into songs that sounded more specific." Its opening lyrics date to a journal of Key's, who wrote the song primarily about growing up and leaving his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. For the band, "Ocean Avenue" represented "saying goodbye to a specific moment in time," those simpler times living on the coast. Harper concurred, noting the song's longing is more geographical than personal: "Instead of talking about a girl, it’s talking about a scene and a feeling that we want to get back to: hanging out and writing, before we moved back to California." The song opens with the narrator setting the scene: a place off the titular street, "we were both 16 and it felt so right / sleeping all day staying up all night." The lyrics specifically refer to Key's memories of being in
high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...
and meeting friends who lived closer to the beach, where they would be rambunctious late into the evening. The song was not inspired by
Florida State Road A1A State Road A1A (SR A1A) is a major north–south Florida State Road that runs along the Atlantic Ocean, from Key West, Florida, Key West at the southern tip of Florida, to Fernandina Beach, Florida, Fernandina Beach, just south of Georgia ( ...
, sometimes referred to as Ocean Avenue, but rather Ocean Boulevard further south in Atlantic Beach. Key used "avenue" due to the word's rhythm, which he found more aesthetically pleasing than "boulevard". There are many Ocean Avenues dotted from coast to coast of the U.S., in places like California or
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
, and Key observed this universal quality aided in the song's broad appeal. The song transitions to a second verse: "There's a place on the corner of Cherry Street ..we were both 18 and it felt so right." Key, then 19 in actuality, had briefly moved to California but returned home. He lived in a guest apartment behind a home his parents rented off of Cherry Street in
Neptune Beach Neptune Beach is a beachfront city east of Jacksonville in Duval County, Florida, United States. When the majority of Duval County communities consolidated with Jacksonville in 1968, Neptune Beach, along with Jacksonville Beach, Atlantic Beach ...
. Harper, the band's lead guitarist, was living in a home on Ocean Boulevard, where the band would rehearse and party. The song then bursts into a passionate, anthemic chorus: "If I could find you now / things would get better / We could leave this town and run forever." The concept of leaving your hometown is a familiar, "romantic" one across pop music—artists from
Katy Perry Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television personality. Known for her influence on modern pop music and her Camp (style), campy style, she has been ...
to
Bruce Springsteen Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American singer and songwriter. He has released 21 studio albums, most of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he is an originat ...
have tackled the trope—and especially in pop punk. The song's chorus and bridge were based on a memory of the night Key's family and friends gathered around and said goodbye before the group boarded their van for California for the last time. The song's bridge begins with the central riff repeated, before transitioning to an
arpeggiated A broken chord is a chord broken into a sequence of notes. A broken chord may repeat some of the notes from the chord and span one or more octaves. An arpeggio () is a type of broken chord, in which the notes that compose a chord are played ...
clean guitar picking pattern over the central three chords. Avron had a hand in developing the bridge, as did the rest of the band, particularly bassist Peter Mosely and violinist Sean Mackin. In the bridge, Key sings "We're looking up at the same night sky / We're both pretending the sun will not rise," over backing vocalizations.


Music video

The song's
music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...
was directed by Marc Webb. In the high-concept clip, frontman Ryan Key faces his fate in different ways before starting over again using a
time loop The time loop or temporal loop is a plot device in fiction whereby characters re-experience a span of time which is repeated, sometimes more than once, with some hope of breaking out of the cycle of repetition. The term "time loop" is sometimes us ...
device (similar to that of the film ''
Run Lola Run ''Run Lola Run'' (german: Lola rennt}, lit. "Lola Runs") is a 1998 German experimental thriller film written and directed by Tom Tykwer. The story follows a woman named Lola (Franka Potente) who needs to obtain 100,000 Deutschmarks in twenty min ...
''), each scenario beginning with Key waking face down on the sidewalk surrounded by broken glass, and ending with his fateful encounter with a 1969
Ford Mustang Mach 1 The Ford Mustang Mach 1 is a performance-oriented option package of the Ford Mustang muscle car, originally introduced in August 1968 for the 1969 model year. It was available until 1978, returned briefly in 2003, 2004, and most recently 20 ...
. He skirts through passes and alleyways in Los Angeles, trailed by villains attempting to retrieve a suitcase. Violinist Sean Mackin and drummer Longineu Parsons portray the villains. The video was filmed in Hollywood at the Sixth Street Bridge, a popular filming location for many music videos in the 2000s. The song reached the top ten on MTV's ''
Total Request Live ''Total Request Live'' (known commonly as ''TRL'') was an American television program broadcast on MTV that premiered on September 14, 1998. TRL featured popular music videos played during its countdown, and was also used as a promotion tool by ...
'', and received the
MTV2 Award MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...
at the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards. The briefcase featured in the video features adorned with a
lamb Lamb or The Lamb may refer to: * A young sheep * Lamb and mutton, the meat of sheep Arts and media Film, television, and theatre * ''The Lamb'' (1915 film), a silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in his screen debut * ''The Lamb'' (1918 ...
symbol, the same symbol featured in the video for Brand New's " Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades". Both videos were directed by Webb, who used the lamb as his trademark. The briefcase appeared again in video for Yellowcard's " Rough Landing, Holly", also directed by Webb. This was the last music video to feature Alex Lewis as the band's bassist.


Reception

"Ocean Avenue" was the band's biggest radio hit. It was first serviced to radio stations in January 2004, but its biggest success came mid-year at the onset of summer in the U.S.. The song has been certified double platinum. "Ocean Avenue" was well-received critically upon its 2004 release.
Kelefa Sanneh Kelefa T. Sanneh (born 1976) is an American journalist and music critic. From 2000 to 2008, he wrote for ''The New York Times'', covering the rock and roll, hip-hop, and pop music scenes. Since 2008 he has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorke ...
of ''
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'' observed that the tune "follows a simple but appealing formula," while Rashod Ollison at ''
the Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...
'' criticized its "
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-friendly teen angst and derivative punk riffs." The song has been widely acclaimed as a classic of the early-aughts wave of pop punk and emo music. Brittany Spanos at ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'' deemed it a "treasured classic ..a nostalgic, arena-worthy single." Deepa Lakshmin at
MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...
called it among the best of "2004's crop of radio-friendly, pop-punk gems." Jeremy Gordon at ''
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'' dubbed it the band's greatest moment, an "eternal" song, while Danielle Chelosky from the same magazine "an instant classic ..an anthem of youth, recklessness and pop-punk." Sam Law from ''
Kerrang! ''Kerrang!'' is a British weekly magazine devoted to rock, punk and heavy metal music, currently published by Wasted Talent (the same company that owns electronic music publication ''Mixmag''). It was first published on 6 June 1981 as a one- ...
'' called it one of pop punk's "most memorable compositions," while Andrew Unterberger at ''
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'' wrote: "If you were a pop-punk fan in the mid-’00s, you can still recite all eight measures like they were the
Pledge of Allegiance The Pledge of Allegiance of the United States is a patriotic recited verse that promises allegiance to the flag of the United States and the republic of the United States of America. The first version, with a text different from the one used ...
." The song's ubiquity, coupled with the band's brief moment in the spotlight, have made some equate the group to a
one-hit wonder A one-hit wonder or viral hit is any entity that achieves mainstream popularity, often for only one piece of work, and becomes known among the general public solely for that momentary success. The term is most commonly used in regard to music p ...
: "To a lot of people, Yellowcard are 'Ocean Avenue'," ''
Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...
'' reviewer Ariana Bacle wrote in 2016. ''
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'' ranked it as one of the best emo songs of all time in 2022.


Accolades

* denotes an unordered list


Track listings

European and Australian CD single # "Ocean Avenue" – 3:18 # "Way Away" (acoustic version) – 3:52 # "Firewater" – 3:20 UK 7-inch single :A. "Ocean Avenue" – 3:18 :B. "Firewater" – 3:20


Charts and sales


Weekly charts


Certifications


Release history


References

{{Authority control 2003 singles 2003 songs Capitol Records singles Music videos directed by Marc Webb Parlophone singles Song recordings produced by Neal Avron Songs written by Ryan Key Yellowcard songs Songs about beaches Songs about Florida