[15] Night Dive

Written and Performed by Monty Dicksion

Newly Re-recorded January 2022



  Night Dive is another one of my original songs that is on my “Summer of ’77 Keepables” collection.  But I made up the song maybe in early 1976 or probably even as early as the latter part of 1975.

  This is a song that was inspired by an actual experience.  I was living on Maui at the time.  I was with some guys I worked with, and they suggested that we go out diving for lobsters.  They said that lobsters were on the move during the night.  So the 5 of us decided to go out on a night dive for lobsters.

  It was very eerie going out in a small boat at night.  I don’t know how far we went out.  As I think back, it seems like we went out maybe ½ mile.  Two of the guys had scuba gear, a couple of them had spear guns and one of them had an elastic-powered spear called a Hawaiian Sling.  The other four of them also tied what they called “goody-bags” to themselves.  I only had fins, facemask and snorkel.  We all had underwater flashlights (LED’s didn’t exist back then).

  We decided on a safety system which was that if any one of us got into trouble, he would shake his flashlight rapidly for the rest to see.

  The spookiest part was when we went underwater.  Down there are reefs.  I suppose the reefs themselves are lava rock, but are covered with coral.

  While underwater, I was able to see the others going down deeper, and I could see that there were deep corridors between the reefs, and it was into these corridors the guys were diving.  They had some success in grabbing a couple of lobsters and spearing a few fish.

  There was some dangerous excitement too.  While I was watching their lights moving around, I saw one of the flashlights start to shake rapidly – the trouble alert.  I was the closest one to him.

  It was one diver who did not have scuba gear.  He was diving with only a snorkel and had gone down into one of the reef corridors.  Then, as he was coming up, he was just inches below the surface, and his goody-bag’s rope had gotten caught on a rock or a coral, and he couldn’t quite make it to the surface.  I was able to push him up just enough so that the end of his snorkel broke the water’s surface, and he was able to breathe.  Then he was able to go back down an disentangle his goody-bag.

 Once back at our cabin, we had a jubilant feast of fish and lobster.

 This song captures all the feelings of that experience – the nighttime eeriness, the submersion into the other-worldly spooky underwater beauty, and the desperate danger, with an ultimate happy ending as the song finally resolves to its final A Major chord.

  It’s a very difficult song to play (at least, it’s difficult for me).  It has plenty of awkward long hand-stretch chords and several bar chords that are difficult (for me) to hold solidly.  In fact, right from the very start, it has triads that I can only play by turning my index finger actually upside down, holding down the high E string with the top of my fingernail.

  Plus, the strumming part is killer-fast, and I think it would give Pete Townsend’s Pinball Wizard a run for his money.  I had to make for myself a very thin custom pick for ultra high-speed strumming.  It’s really rather a butt-kicking thing to practice more than a couple of times.