Courtney Barnett – Aqua Profunda! Lyrics

Courtney Barnett – Aqua Profunda! Lyrics

Aqua Profunda! Lyrics by Courtney Barnett

This upbeat song, borrowing heavily from 50s tremolo-laden surf sounds, records Barnett’s attempts to impress a fellow swimmer at a public pool.

The song’s title – a misspelled version of acqua profonda, the Italian words for deep water – makes clear that the pool referred to is the Fitzroy Pool in the inner city suburb of Fitzroy. The Fitzroy Pool is a popular place with the young students and artists who reside in Melbourne’s inner northern suburbs, who often swim at the Fitzroy Pool on days of extreme heat to escape the heat of their non-air-conditioned sharehouses.

The sign is written in Italian and English because the suburbs of Fitzroy had a large population of Italian, Greek and other European migrants in the years after World War 2. This demography is now changing, and the inner suburbs are increasingly populated by the very segment of society that Barnett often sings about.

The sign reads “Aqua Profonda” but should read “Acqua Profonda”. One could say Barnett misspelled this misspelled sign again as “Aqua Profunda”, but it’s more likely that Aqua Profunda isn’t misspelled Italian, but Latin. “Aqua profunda est quieta” is a Latin proverb, translated as the English proverb “still waters run deep”.

This sign has a history of cultural reference in Australia. The 1977 novel by Australian writer Helen Garner famously titled its first chapter “Acqua Profonda”. That book also concerned young inner city residents of the surrounding suburbs of Fitzroy and Carlton, but involved much darker subject matter of the difficulty of maintaining a relationship with a heroin addict

[Verse 1]
I saw you in the lane next to me
You were doing freestyle, then you switched it around
To a little bit of backstroke
I couldn’t see underneath
Your swimming cap, but it appeared that you had
Dark colored hair, maybe it was blonde, for all I know
I had goggles on
They were getting foggy
I much prefer swimming to jogging

[Verse 2]
I tried my very best to impress you
Held my breath longer than I normally do
I was getting dizzy
My hair was wet and frizzy
Felt my muscles burn, I took a tumble turn
For the worse, it’s a curse
My lack of athleticism, sunk like a stone
Like a first owner’s home loan
When I came to, you and your towel were gone