McCorkle was born in Berkeley, California. She studied modern languages at the University of California, Berkeley. McCorkle began singing professionally after hearing recordings of Billie Holiday in Paris in the late 1960s. She nearly became an interpreter at the European Commission in Brussels, but moved instead to London in 1972 to pursue a career in singing. While in the UK, she made two albums which, although well received, enjoyed only limited circulation.
In the late 1970s, McCorkle returned to the United States and settled in New York City, where a five-month engagement at the Cookery in Greenwich Village brought her to wider public attention and elicited rave reviews from critics.
During the 1980s, McCorkle continued to record; her maturing style and the darkening timbre of her voice greatly enhanced her performances. In the early 1990s, two of the albums McCorkle made for Concord Records, No More Blues and Sábia, were enormously successful and made her name known to the wider world. She was recorded by the Smithsonian Institution which at the time made her the youngest singer ever to have been included in its popular music series. McCorkle played Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher and Alice Tully Halls five times and Carnegie Hall three times, and was featured soloist with Skitch Henderson and the 80-piece New York Pops in a concert of Brazilian music.
Thanks to her linguistic skills, McCorkle translated lyrics of Brazilian, French, and Italian songs, notably those for her Brazilian album Sabia. McCorkle also had several short stories published and, in 1991, began work on her first novel. She published fiction in Mademoiselle, Cosmopolitan Magazine, and non-fiction in the New York Times Magazine and in American Heritage, including lengthy articles on Ethel Waters, Bessie Smith, Irving Berlin and Mae West.
McCorkle suffered for many years from depression and cancer, and took her own life at age 55 by leaping off the balcony of her highrise Manhattan apartment. She was alone in her home at the time. The police immediately entered her home after identifying her body and found no foul play. Suicide was ruled the cause of death.
How Deep Is The Ocean
Susannah McCorkle Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I'll tell you no lie
How deep is the ocean?
How high is the sky?
How many times a day do I think of you?
How many roses are sprinkled with dew?
To be where you are?
How far is the journey
From here to a star?
And if I ever lost you, how much would I cry?
How deep is the ocean?
How high is the sky?
How far would I travel
To be where you are?
How far is the journey
From here to a star?
And if I ever lost you, how much would I cry?
How deep is the ocean?
How high is the sky?
How high is the sky?
The lyrics to Susannah Mccorkle's song How Deep Is The Ocean express the depth and intensity of love. The singer asks a series of rhetorical questions to emphasize the enormity of the emotions she feels for her loved one. The first two lines set the tone for the remainder of the song as she asks, "How much do I love you? I'll tell you no lie." This conveys the sincerity of her emotions and signals that what follows will be a genuine expression of love.
The refrain "How deep is the ocean? How high is the sky?" repeats throughout the song to emphasize the magnitude of the love she is conveying. The ocean and the sky are vast and seemingly infinite, thus the repetition of this line highlights the boundlessness of her love.
The second half of the song carries on this theme, with the singer posing hypothetical scenarios to illustrate the extent of her devotion. She asks how many times a day she thinks of her loved one, and how far she would travel to be with them. She even ponders how much she would cry if she were to lose them. These questions serve to convey the depths of her feelings and the unending nature of her love.
Line by Line Meaning
How much do I love you?
I am trying to express the depth of my love for you.
I'll tell you no lie
My love for you is genuine and honest.
How deep is the ocean?
I am comparing the depth of my love for you to the depth of the ocean.
How high is the sky?
I am comparing the magnitude of my love for you to the vastness of the sky.
How many times a day do I think of you?
I am conveying the frequency with which you occupy my thoughts.
How many roses are sprinkled with dew?
I am suggesting that your beauty is comparable to that of a dew-covered rose.
How far would I travel
I would go to great lengths to be close to you.
To be where you are?
My ultimate desire is to be with you.
How far is the journey
I am comparing the distance to you with the vastness of space.
From here to a star?
The journey towards you seems overwhelming, similar to the distance to a star.
And if I ever lost you, how much would I cry?
The thought of losing you is so distressing, I cannot imagine how much I would cry.
How deep is the ocean?
Again, I am relating the depth of my love to the depths of the ocean.
How high is the sky?
My love for you is boundless, like the vastness of the sky.
How high is the sky?
The magnitude of my love for you is immeasurable.
Lyrics © IMAGEM U.S. LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: IRVING BERLIN
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind