Riptide
Lyrics
Vance Joy
Written by: James Keogh
Produced by: James Keogh, Edwin White, John Castle
I was scared of pretty girls and starting conversations
Oh, all my friends are turning green
You're the magician's assistant in their dreams
Oh, and they come unstuck
Lady, running down to the riptide
Taken away to the dark side
I wanna be your left hand man
I love you when you're singing that song and
I got a lump in my throat cause
You're gonna sing the words wrong
There's this movie that I think you'll like
This guy decides to quit his job and heads to New York City
This cowboy's running from himself
And she's been living on the highest shelf
Oh, and they come unstuck
Lady, running down to the riptide
Taken away to the dark side
I wanna be your left hand man
I love you when you're singing that song and
I got a lump in my throat cause
You're gonna sing the words wrong
I just wanna, I just wanna know
If you're gonna, if you're gonna stay
I just gotta, I just gotta know
I can't have it, I can't have it any other way
I swear she's destined for the screen
Closest thing to Michelle Pfeiffer that you've ever seen, oh
Lady, running down to the riptide
Taken away to the dark side
I wanna be your left hand man
I love you when you're singing that song and
I got a lump in my throat cause
You're gonna sing the words wrong
Oh lady, running down to the riptide
Taken away to the dark side
I wanna be your left hand man
I love you when you're singing that song and
I got a lump in my throat cause
You're gonna sing the words wrong
Oh lady, running down to the riptide
Taken away to the dark side
I wanna be your left hand man
I love you when you're singing that song and
I got a lump in my throat cause
You're gonna sing the words wrong
I got a lump in my throat cause
You're gonna sing the words wrong
Song facts
"This song started in 2008 with a couple of lines that I didn't think much of, the first two lines of the verse – the one about dentists in the dark – and then in 2012 I wrote a melody on the ukulele which ended up being the chorus melody. It's a real patchwork, this song, of images and ideas. I met a magician's assistant around the time I was writing the song and so she kind of found her way into the song. Michelle Pfeiffer, I don't know where that came from – I was kind of envisaging a character that had ambitions of stardom or something like that. That's the kind of character Michelle Pfeiffer was in The Fabulous Baker Boys and that's what came to mind, so I used that reference to set it up. Once it all came together, it somehow made sense given it's such an eclectic mix of bits." - Vance Joy
