"Ocean Avenue" is a song written and recorded by American rock band Yellowcard for their fourth studio album of the same name. It was released as the second single from Ocean Avenue on December 15, 2003, through Capitol Records. "Ocean Avenue" shares writing credits between the band's singer Ryan Key, guitarist Ben Harper, bassist Pete Mosely, drummer Longineu W. Parsons III, and violinist Sean Mackin. It was written about the band's teenage years along the Atlantic Coast. Neal Avron, a veteran punk rock producer, engineered and produced the tune.
Yellowcard emerged in the early aughts out of Florida's punk rock scene. In 1999, the band moved to California to further their music career, but returned back home. The band added vocalist and guitarist Ryan Key as their primary lyricist, and moved back west, in the L.A. suburb Thousand Oaks, in 2001. The group performed several showcases for Capitol Records before the label signed them in 2002.[5] The band rented a cabin near Lake Arrowhead in the autumn of that year to write and develop new material, and they began pre-production with producer Neal Avron soon afterward at his Swing House space. Capitol booked the band five weeks at Hollywood's famed Sunset Sound studio between February and March 2003 to record the album—but "Ocean Avenue", the namesake of the album, was not yet finished.
The song is based around three chords, building towards a big, catchy refrain;[2] this was a conscious choice, to challenge the band with making each section interesting independent of its limited structure. The issue was that the group had yet to develop a completed chorus melody by the time they arrived at Sunset. Key initially had an idea for a chorus that other members of the band felt was too similar to pop star Cyndi Lauper, and he kept writing and re-writing attempting to find a salvageable idea. At the studio, Key occupied its vocal room to further work on the chorus, emerging every so often to the control room to present to Avron. It got to a point where the band were convinced the song would not make the album. He eventually came up with the words "Find-ing out / things would get better," to which Avron responded immediately. "Ocean Avenue" was one of the last songs to come together during the recording process for the band. Upon the tune's completion, the band recognized its potential: "we had a sense that it was a special song, one of the most accessible, massive-sounding pop songs that we'd ever written", Key said. He deemed it the group's most important moment in their career.
