“The ocean stirs the heart, inspires the imagination, and brings eternal joy to the soul.” When artist Robert Wyland wrote that he probably wasn’t thinking about a singer crafting music in her bedroom but damn if Sia Shells didn’t just prove him right. This woman took the entire Pacific Ocean and compressed it into three minutes of ethereal pop with the kind of production that makes you feel suspended underwater. ‘Riding The Wave’ is mermaid pop through and through—a full aquatic transformation.
Let me paint you a picture: Sia Shells, living in Baja California where the desert meets the sea, decides to create what she calls “a magic mermaid spell disguised as a song.” Not a metaphor. Not poetry. An actual fucking spell. And honestly? After letting this wash over me seventeen times today, I’m convinced she pulled it off. This track breathes like the ocean, seduces like a siren.
Sia’s voice opens the track floating in that mermaid space between air and water. “I wanted a nostalgic feel to the song, so it feels like a familiar, safe space for people to hold onto when they’re feeling like they’re drowning or carried away by the tides of their life,” she shares. Mission accomplished except she made drowning sound sexy as hell.
“Even the smallest shell must withstand the pressure and pull of the tides, if the weight of the world tries to pull you deep down just remember you can surface back up.” That’s how she opens this track and it hits exactly where it needs to. We’re all shells getting battered by waves we didn’t ask for. But Sia flips it by telling us to become the ocean itself. Pure mermaid wisdom.
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The chorus drops and we’re underwater. “I’m riding the wave, I’m holding down the tide, cause I’m along for the ride.” The production literally ebbs and flows like the sea. She crafted every sound to embody her underwater kingdom.
“The deep end’s always much darker than the shore.” We’ve all been in the deep end, can’t see the bottom, can’t find the surface, lungs burning. But then—“I let the sea crash and take me to shore”—and there’s the mermaid magic. Stop swimming against it. Let it take you. The production mirrors this perfectly, building tension until you think you might actually drown then releasing into this gorgeous floating moment.
“‘Riding The Wave’ is all about keeping your head above water throughout the current of life, especially when it pulls you down and it’s hard to see the surface,” she explains. “It’s about resilience, change, and finding the strength to overcome it all while evoking the mysterious and beautiful imagery of the ocean.” You hear it in how she delivers “Pieces of me scattered like a shipwreck tore.” Her voice cracks just slightly on “tore,” like she’s remembering every piece of herself she’s lost to various storms. She makes it transformative, like a mermaid shedding human skin.
The bridge is where she casts the actual spell. “Open your arms as wide as the horizon meets the sea, taking you to new waves of possibility.” When she hits “possibility,” the entire track opens up like Poseidon’s gates. The production goes full siren song with layered ethereal vocals and synths that sparkle like phosphorescence. The bass pulls you to the ocean floor and if mermaids had a recruitment anthem this would be it.
“Life comes in waves, but you are the deep ocean,” she says about the song’s message and that’s what she captures here—the vast, powerful calm underneath all the surface chaos.
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The whole mermaid pop aesthetic runs deeper than clever branding. This is music for girls who’ve always felt more comfortable in water than on land. Girls who get that drowning and floating feel exactly the same sometimes. Who’ve fantasized about growing a goddamn tail and swimming away forever. Sia found that ancient feminine thing about the ocean—that pull toward something massive and unknowable that makes us want to walk straight into the waves.
Her approach to surrender sounds like strength. We’re taught to fight everything—fight for success, fight through pain, fight the current. But Sia’s over here saying fuck all that noise. “I’m along for the ride” becomes a mermaid’s battle cry instead of a white flag. The production supports this completely, building and releasing in waves that make you physically sway like kelp in the current.
Sia has been crafting this oceanic sound across multiple releases and ‘Riding The Wave’ proves she went deeper this time—straight to the bottom, dragging treasure back up. Her upcoming album promises to go even deeper by blending what she calls “enchanting lyrics and tropical textures into music that feels both otherworldly and deeply human.” Full mermaid manifesto.
“Crafted to mirror the ocean’s ebb and flow, the song’s composition moves between whispering vocals – representing the wind – and a swelling, powerful crescendo that embodies the sea itself,” she explains. The track builds to this final moment where everything crests at once. Then you surface and that first breath feels like rebirth.
‘Riding The Wave’ works because it understands something fundamental: we’re all drowning in something. Work, relationships, existential dread, student loans, the general fuckery of existing in 2025. But instead of throwing us a life preserver, Sia Shells teaches us to breathe underwater. She’s turning us into mermaids who don’t need saving.
