Ebb Tide for ‘Sea’

“Come with me, my love,

“To the sea--the sea of love . . . “

Moviegoers are leaving theaters humming the title song to Universal’s hit thriller, “Sea of Love,” and now the haunting ballad is about to be reissued--30 years after it went to No. 2 on the charts.

The film, which has a N.Y.C. detective (Al Pacino) trying to solve a string of murders linked to singles ads, uses the vintage tune as a key clue (a 45 r.p.m. of “Sea” is found at the scene of each crime). Recorded in 1959 for Mercury Records, it was the only hit for Phil Phillips and the Twilights.

A Tom Waits version is used over the movie’s end credits--included, producer Martin Bregman tells us, “because we thought we needed a new artist to sing it to get it on the radio.”

Instead, Polygram, which bought Mercury in 1977, will release the original Phillips single on the company’s Polydor label in three weeks, followed by the sound-track album three weeks later.

Phillips, 68, who co-wrote the tune, now lives in Jennings, La., 32 miles west of his hometown of Lake Charles--where he cut the song. A former deejay and radio “time” salesman, Phillips (real name: John Phillip Baptiste) said he couldn’t discuss the record, “because of a litigation.” But he has seen the film, which he deemed “very good.”

A Polygram rep said she hadn’t heard about any legal proceedings related to the song.