Track 8: "Pacific Coast Heartbreak"
Welcome to I Owe You an Explication, I’m your host, Sean Della Croce and today we’re discussing the song "Pacific Coast Heartbreak".
Stream Illuminations here: https://ffm.to/qqk1jjd
Cover Image by Alex Crawford
All songs written and recorded by Sean Della Croce
Produced by Alan Deremo
(c) Della Croce 2021
What this Song is About
"Pacific Coast Heartbreak" is an intense song for me. I love a good love song and even a good breakup song, but this one is where I really top out on the breakup angst. I wrote "Pacific Coast Heartbreak" around 2011 after an intercontinental, closeted relationship came to an end. While the song is very autobiographical, it was written so long ago that I really like to think of it as a narrative unto itself. So for the sake of this story there is a breakup, there is a third person (like sort of love triangle thing) and that individual lives in California. In the story the person who is left behind (me) pretty much unleashes a diatribe/pep talk to herself to cope with the fact that her beloved is headed west to try and work things out with the other person. And you know, it didn't help that that person was a man. Being in the closet never paid for me.
Also, just worth noting for fun that Pacific Coast Heartbreak is a play on the acronym for the Pacific Coast Highway. And I love California now, nothing against it, we made the whole record there. Life is just funny.
The Lyrical Crux
If you write songs perhaps you share this experience: in every song there is a lyric that I absolutely revel in. It's the heart of the matter, the thesis statement. Sometimes that line is the song's hook, but not always. In this song, the hook is arguably that line "You're trouble, love". While that lyric links the different elements of the song together, my favorite lyric is this: "When your new love stops shining and it's rusted down, know that I may be landlocked but I'm not around". I can't resist a slant rhyme, and there was some bias in me that felt like California was this remarkable place and Tennessee was so average (if not derided in our culture) so this line is another way of saying, "the grass isn't actually greener on the other side" and I may be stuck here but I'm not that stuck.
Music Notes
I'm not ashamed to admit that I love alliteration. Maybe it's tacky, I don't care. Once, in college a professor noted on one of my papers that she had seen "enough alliteration". It hasn't stopped me. So when I think of production notes for this song, a few come to mind, but I have to call out what happens in one line in particular, "Realize what you're missing since I said goodbye". If you're familiar with audio production, you'll know about sibilance. This refers to the typically unappealing and difficult to work with sounds like "s" and "sh". So not only was I delighted to fit in some alliteration, but I also gave Alan Deremo, who produced the record, a real headache with the "...sing since I said". But I'm really glad we rolled with it, because in making space for something sort of ugly, I think we also make room for something you don't hear very often. And to me, that makes the song stand out.
I would also be remiss if I failed to mention Alan's driving guitar performance throughout this song. Not only is he a brilliant bass player, but he also brings so much out of any stringed instrument he touches. His electric guitar carries throughout the song, which is an element I think the tune really needed, and of course, there's the solo.
Closing Reflections
When I really think about it, this song emerged from abject rejection and to me, by the end that resolves into, wait for it...empowerment. I said it. Breakup songs can be fun, and this one is probably the closest thing to an anthem I'll ever write. It's a bitter song because that was the absolute truth of the matter at the time. I had to express the powerlessness and humiliation of being forced in the closet and left for a man. It was a societal, religious, political insult in addition to a romantic one. But anyone who has endured slap in the face can understand the root feeling. It is a bitter song because it was a bitter time, but I'm not bitter anymore.
Liner Notes
"Pacific Coast Heartbreak" was written by me, Sean Della Croce, produced by Alan Deremo and recorded at Back Forty Studios, Leucadia, CA
I play acoustic guitar
Alan Deremo: electric guitars, keyboards, bass
Bill Jolly: keyboards
Mollie Weaver: vocals
"Pacific Coast Heartbreak" was mixed by Richard Bredice at Woodland-Bredice Studios and mastered by Brent Lambert at Kitchen Mastering.
