What Is "The Seventh Wave?"

Factual Questions
1

I have heard references to the term “the seventh wave” in several songs, as well as in general pop culture. Examples: “I Say Love Is The Seventh Wave,” by Sting, “by the seventh wave, she knew she had a problem,” from "Sheila E.'s “The Glamorous Life.” My first thought was “the seventh wave” refers to the seventh orgasm in a row…but then Sting’s song, which came out several years after the Sheila E. tune, doesn’t refer or even imply that topic. Prpobably it is something that I would recognize if I paid more attention to finer literature (rather than just computer and sports books).

Anyone know?

Russell Shaw
Portland, Oregon

2

Bolding mine.

Apparently Gough (1817-1886) was an American-born temperance lecturer. Could this be part of the evolution of the term?

3

The temperance lecturer was apparently referring to an old superstititon that every seventh wave was particularly strong, and well-known to toss drowning men who had been thrown overboard back to their boats. IIRC, Bergen Evans addressed this in one of his books on misinformation.

It is possible that the songs are making different references of course. One suspects that sometimes a phrase gets included in a song’s lyrics merely because it sounds catchy.

4

Okay, long studies seem to imply (via the stories Papillion and The Jungle Book) that there is a semi-mythological belief that waves come in sets of seven, and that the seventh is always the strongest one. I keep thinking somewhere in the back of my mind that there’s a reference to a faerie army and a seventh wave, but it’s not comming to me (and it’s driving me nuts) Anyone else lend a hand on this one?

5

There is also the Ninth Wave from Celtic mythology:
http://www.thesilverbranch.org/ninthwave/journey.html

The Ninth Wave is from surfing lore also. There is a surf novel and a Ventures song by that title:

“The Ninth Wave” by Eugene Burdick, Houghton Mifflin, 1956 (out of print)
Burdick, an assistant professor of political science who died in 1965, is most famous for his two other books, “Fail Safe” and “The Ugly American.” But “The Ninth Wave” may be his most intriguing, especially for Californians. It mixes the early days of surfing with California politics.

Ventures song:
http://www.spies.com/~reverb/reviews/v/ventures0905.html

Because of constructive interference of waves of different amplitudes and frequencies, waves do come in sets. But there is no magic number for this.