Postcard from Ocean View

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
I found this in a box of old things.
A faded card, sepia-toned.
The ink is blurred, a little washed out by the fog.
It says ‘Greetings from Ocean View, California.’
The postmark reads 1908.
Before the map was redrawn.
Before the name met its fate.

[Chorus]
And for a year, just one single year,
we were a town named for the horizon.
Defined by the salt on the air, and the light in our eyes.
We were a promise written in sea spray,
looking west toward the Gate.
Ocean View.
And then it was too late.

[Verse 2]
A man arrived carrying a letter,
and a memory in his chest.
Frank Roberts, with a homesick heart for a place back east.
He missed the Hudson, the snows of New York.
He traded our pacific vista for his longing.
And the ledgers were changed, the seals put away.
The salty air learned to say a new name.
Albany.

[Chorus]
And for a year, just one single year,
we were a town named for the horizon.
Defined by the salt on the air, and the light in our eyes.
We were a promise written in sea spray,
looking west toward the Gate.
Ocean View.
And then it was too late.

[Bridge]
I trace the postmark with my finger.
Maybe the last one sent.
A name is the story you agree to tell.
Did we trade the endless water,
the eucalyptus and the bay mud,
for one man’s ghost of a city bell?

[Outro]
The back of the card is blank.
No message sent.
Just the name of a place that came and went.
Ocean View.
The saltwater town that almost was.