Our Town by the Sea

Way back in 1975, when I was in fifth grade, I heard the following tale:

In 1975, the City of Santa Monica, California, was due to turn 100 years old.  To celebrate this great event, the City of Santa Monica ran a contest for a new official city song.  Whoever wrote the song that won the contest would receive a modest prize of $100, plus the prestige of having his song be Santa Monica's official song.

Two songwriters by the name of William M. Lane and Roger S. Nichols rose to the challenge.  They wrote a song titled "Our Town by the Sea," and entered it in the contest.  However, before the contest had been decided, they received a call from the Kodak film company: If they were willing to withdraw their song from the contest — as the copyright on the winning song would become the property of the City of Santa Monica — Kodak would pay them $50,000 for the rights to the song.  This being 1974 or 1975, when $50,000 was still a lot of money, the two songwriters eagerly accepted Kodak's offer.  They then rewrote the lyrics, renaming the song "Times of Your Life" and turning it into the most well-known Kodak jingle in history.  Paul Anka later recorded the song and released it on his own record label.

Surprisingly, though, I haven't been able to find these earlier "Our Town by the Sea" lyrics anywhere since.  I know I didn't dream them, because the song appeared on a recording from the 1975 edition of Santa Monica's annual Stairway of the Stars festivals (elementary, Junior High, and High School musicians performing in the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, along with a guest celebrity).

Then, in 2013, I discovered that somebody has apparently made this 1975 Stairway of the Stars recording available on YouTube. Roger Nichols, a native of Santa Monica, was the celebrity guest that year, and the story he told was somewhat different:

"A few months ago, I was commissioned to write a song, or a theme, for Kodak. A couple of cohorts and myself decided to write a lyric about Santa Monica. It will not be used in the commercial, I'm sorry to say. But Mr. John Allen, and Mr. Pete Blackman, and myself wrote a lyric about Santa Monica, and this is it."

So, I would like to present here — from memory, and cleaned up a little by listening to the above recording — the lyrics to the song that should, by all rights, have become the official song for the City of Santa Monica, California:

Our Town by the Sea by William M. Lane and Roger S. Nichols

We've wandered all around,
But one town is still our special town.
The times we strolled along the pier,
The ocean rolled, the sky was clear,
Remember — do you remember?

We've sailed from sea to sea,
But one town is still our special town.
It's where we walked along the sand,
And while we talked, you held my hand,
Remember — do you remember?
It's our town by the sea!

A place made for learning and growing,
Time meant for you and for me;
A feeling that comes just from knowing
That we've found the place made for living.

We'll never leave again,
This one town is still our special town.
And in the park not far away
You might at dark just hear us say,
"Forever we'll live together
In our town by the sea!"

[INSTRUMENTAL]
(A place made for learning and growing,
Time meant for you and for me;
A feeling that comes just from knowing
That we've found the right place for living.)

We'll never leave again,
This one town that's still our special town.
And in the park not far away
You might at dark just hear us say,
"Forever we'll live together
In our town by the sea!"

Santa Monica!
Santa Monica!
Santa Monica!
Santa Monica!

Santa Monica still, to this day, has a pier, as mentioned in the song. I suspect "the park not far away" mentioned in the last verse may be a reference to Pacific Ocean Park, an amusement park which sadly closed down in 1967 and then burned to the ground in the early 1970s.

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