July 26, 2024

Music Friday: ‘Promise Ring’ Protects This Couple From ‘The Bitter Tide’

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you awesome songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, former Tremolo frontman Justin Dillon sings about a cherished piece of jewelry in the group’s 2005 release, “Promise Ring.”

Dillon believes that beyond being a symbol of the bond between him and his girlfriend, the promise ring will protect them from “the bitter tide.”

He sings, “Long ago, I drew a line into the sand / Jumped across and held your hand / Band of gold protect us from the bitter tide / That comes to wash away our words with time / Hello you, Hello me / Hello hello, can’t you see / Love is more than what it seems / So I wear your promise ring.”

“Promise Ring” is the fifth track from the San Francisco-based band’s first full-length album, Love Is The Greatest Revenge. The album is a collection of songs written and recorded by the band during 2003 and 2004.

Trivia: An early demo version of “Promise Ring” was used in the 2003 Mandy Moore flick, How to Deal.

When the album came out in August of 2005, Tremolo announced that 50% of its profits would be dedicated to the “Love>Revenge Fund” — a fund that allowed fans to determine which organizations would benefit. At the time, the fund’s website described Tremolo’s debut album as “an auto-biographical social commentating post-deconstructionist protest record” that asks “what if love was the greatest revenge and music could change the world?”

In an interview with last.fm, Dillon described Tremolo’s music as “one hand holding onto the roots of the grass and one hand reaching to the stars in the sky.”

“I’m looking for this ‘otherliness,’ this transcendence. That’s the reason I think music is here,” he said at the time. “I want to be part of touching something that is greater than the sum of its parts.”

In 2011, Dillon founded the award-winning website slaveryfootprint.org in conjunction with the US State Department. The site, which asks the question, “How Many Slaves Work For You?” allows consumers to visualize how their consumption habits are connected to modern-day slavery.

The musician-turned activist is now the CEO and founder of FRDM, a company that assists Global Fortune 500 brands with mapping, monitoring and mitigating human rights and climate risks in their supply chains. He is also the author of A Selfish Plan to Change the World: Finding Big Purpose in Big Problems (2017).

Please check out the audio track of “Promise Ring.” The lyrics are below if you’d like to sing along…

“Promise Ring”
Written by Justin Dillon. Performed by Tremolo.

Long ago, I drew a line into the sand
Jumped across and held your hand
Band of gold
Protect us from the bitter tide
That comes to wash away our words with time

Hello you, Hello me
Hello hello, can’t you see
Love is more than what it seems
So I wear your promise ring

Promises made under the rite of spring
Heavy under summer’s sting
Say you know,
I’d run to where the spaceships land
A million miles between my mouth and hand

Hello you, Hello me
Hello hello, can’t you see
Love is more than what it seems
So I wear your promise ring

Love labors through the night
It bleeds and never fights
And like a seed it lives because it dies

So don’t forget, just like cash
I walk the line
Like a soldier guarding what is mine

Hello you, Hello me
Hello hello, can’t you see
Love is more than what it seems
So I wear your promise ring

I wear your promise ring