Listening to some James tunes, we noticed a very steady theme that keeps reappearing, see if you can pick it up from the following excerpts:
| LYRIC | SONG TITLE | LOCATION | YEAR |
| "Friends on the ground say, 'come on in, the water's fine', but I can see their frozen smiles from here." | "If Things Were Perfect" | Village Fire | 1984 |
| "But there's a difference between a swim and a wallow." | "If Things Were Perfect" | Village Fire | 1984 |
| "Now if you put your ear close you'll be able to hear, not the seashore noise of the shore sea shell" | "Skullduggery" | Stutter | 1986 |
| "Sailors come from miles for a drink and a fight, but the harbour thrills pull back from the light, to the belly of a boat in a ?????????" | "Billy's Shirts" | Stutter | 1986 |
| "Oh no, the organ plays by itself, it doesn't need the grinder's help and the monkey, and the monkey stow away to sea, back to his wife and a nest in the trees." | "Billy's Shirts" | Stutter | 1986 |
| "I nearly died when you jumped in, but you had to drown before you could swim. All the people on the beach, they were so impressed and so they wanted to join you but no they wouldn't undress, or let that wetness splash their skin, so they prayed for a whirlpool to pull you in." | "Ya Ho" | Strip Mine | 1988 |
| "Today, I will dive into foaming seas, sick fish, myself, and some strange debris." | "What For" | Strip Mine | 1988 |
| "Tear down the forests, replace them with sky-highs, pumping out sewage into the seas." | "Sky Is Falling" | b-side, "Sit Down" | 1989 |
| "The oceans are cesspools of chemical compounds, plastic containers, industrial waste." | "Sky Is Falling" | b-side, "Sit Down" | 1989 |
| "You love playing in the ocean, I prefer dry sand, you go playing in the ocean, I prefer dry sand." | "Sound Investment" | b-side, "Sit Down" | 1989 |
| "Drawn by the undertow, my life is out of control. Now I believe this wave will bear my weight so let it flow." | "Sit Down" | Goldmother | 1989/90 |
| "Dont be deceived, no land's in sight, we're all adrift on this dark night, we float on seas of disbelief, while singing songs of pain release." | "Lose Control" | Goldmother | 1990 |
| "How do you sail the ship from the bottle?" | "Goldmother" | Goldmother | 1990 |
| "Come, dip on in, leave your bones, leave your skin, leave your past, leave your craft, leave your suffering heart." | "Sound" |
Seven | 1991 |
| "I've been sitting on top of these rocks watching the waters rise, everyone that I have loved has gone floating by. I've been waiting for the king of the world to come and rescue me from a land that's lost at sea." | "Heavens" | Seven | 1992 |
| "When you let me drown, grew gills and fins, now I'm as deep as the sea." | "Ring the Bells" | Seven | 1992 |
| "Oceans apart, what's the view from your wave? Beautiful craft, weathering change. Understand the world we're living in, love can mean anything." | "Seven" | Seven | 1992 |
| "Drifting down, the water's cool, let these weeds cover you." | "Skindiving" | Laid | 1993 |
| "It's a monsoon, and the rain lifts lids off cars, spinning buses like toys and stripping them to chrome. Across the bay the waves are turning into something else, picking up fishing boats and spewing them on the shore." | "Sometimes" | Laid | 1993 |
| "He says listen, takes my head, puts my ear to his, and I swear I can hear the sea." | "Sometimes" | Laid | 1993 |
| "And on the west bank a boat is being pulled across the sand, as they move so softly, slip into water, oars dip, don't break the moon's reflection, and drift like a cloud to the center beneath her cool attention." | "The Lake" | b-side, "Laid" | 1993 |
| "I want to drown in your moon dream, I've seen you rising from shore to shore, I want to drown in your moon dream, I've seen you rising." | "The Lake" | b-side, "Laid" | 1993 |
| "I relax and hold your way to see, it's the falling dark beside the sea, it's a dream along the water's edge, it's the light of that you'll never see." | "Rhythmic Dreams" | Wah Wah | 1994 |
| "Hold the course and then sail....across the satellite beams, across the oceans and seas, to the lighthouse I could see." | "Lost A Friend" | Whiplash | 1997 |
| "Lost a friend to the sea, I lost a friend to the sea." | "Lost A Friend" | Whiplash | 1997 |
| "What a life, a trip of life, then everything returns to the sea." | "I Know What I'm Here For" | Millionaires | 1999 |
| "Can't dance, the water's rising." | "Fred Astaire" | Millionaires | 1999 |
| "Now the scum is really floating to the surface of the sea." | "Promised Land" | b-side | ?? |
| "I went wand'ring through the canyons, cross the desert to the sea." | "New Nature" | b-side | ?? |
Now, clearly, one Mr. Timothy J. Booth has a fixation with oceans, boats, floating and drowning. But we're not even amateur psychologists so it escapes us as to why. A few half-cocked explanations that we've come up with are:
1) Tim wet the bed until a very late age, causing him to dream about being carried away in great, flowing tidal waters. But far be it for us to accuse anyone, particularly a hunky pop star, from being a bedwetter, so never mind this one.
2) Tim can't swim and went through school being mocked for his fear of the water. Even to this day he still has nightmares of 12 year old schoolboys pursuing him across school grounds for the purpose of thowing him into the pool and watching him sink.
3) It's all about his relationship with his mother.
4) It represents sexual frustration. But again, far be it from us to accuse a world-famous, writhing mass of sensual, popstar flesh of not being able to get a piece of ass, so forget this one as well (although he was celibate through most of the 1980's).
5) Being from a small, island country, Tim uses his ingrained understanding of the ocean as a formulative part of his character to represent both a barrier to his goals and as an ever-flowing life source connecting him to the outside world. But again, what do we know?
Now we've gotten a couple of more likely explanations sent to us by our readers which you can find here. Or, you can send us your take on things by emailing [email protected].
