The story
Love slips away before he can hold it fast.
He writes their names in the sand with a driftwood stick and swears forever, but the tide takes the marks and the girl takes the last of him with her. Now he walks that same beach, hearing the ocean say what he should have known all along: anything built to shift can disappear, leaving only the place where they stood.
Lyrics
Verse 1
We wrote our names in the sand with a stick from a driftwood pile Said forever like we meant it with those salt-soaked summer smiles But the tide came in like midnight and washed it all away Just like you did when you left me on that warm September day
Pre-Chorus
Nothin' built on sand is gonna last But I keep buildin' castles from the past
Chorus
We were sand, slippin' through each other's hands The harder that I held you, less I had We were sand, beautiful but never planned Shifting with the wind and the waves and the land I shoulda known that you were sand
Verse 2
Your kiss tasted like the ocean, deep and blue and wild You made me feel like summer made me feel when I was just a child But summers end and tides will turn and shorelines rearrange And everything about you was as constant as the change
Chorus
We were sand, slippin' through each other's hands The harder that I held you, less I had We were sand, beautiful but never planned Shifting with the wind and the waves and the land I shoulda known that you were sand
Verse 3
Now I walk along the beach where we once danced without our shoes The ocean doesn't care about the things we had to lose But somewhere in the deep beneath the current and the foam Our names are still together, just not anywhere called home
Bridge
Maybe love was never meant to be a monument Maybe it's the tide that comes and goes Maybe we were always meant to dissolve Beautiful and brief, that's how it flows
The sound
Atmospheric, melancholy country at 86 BPM. Ocean wave samples fading into a clean electric guitar with reverb. Soft programmed drums with a deep kick and minimal hi-hat. Pedal steel drifting like waves. Acoustic guitar lightly fingerpicked. Cello in the bridge for emotional weight. Dreamy, coastal, heartbreak that tastes like salt water.