"Eclectic but not bizarre"
Wooden Ships
CONCERT INTRODUCTION
( ob Aldrich, January 2020)
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This next song we’re gonna try, I think we’ve all agreed, is a pretty strange one - but not bizarre! - and also quite beautiful in its way.
It was composed, some 50 years ago, by 3 rock musicians while hanging out together on a sailboat off the coast of Florida: David Crosby and Steven Stills, of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and Paul Kantner, of the Jefferson Airplane.
Recorded in somewhat different versions by both of those bands, the lyrics recite a mysterious and melancholy — you might even say grim — post-apocalyptic narrative . . . and one that seems to resonate for us in the present time as well.
But at the same time, somehow, the song is a celebration
of the joy and peace we can experience when immersed in the ancient art of sailing.
This was one of my favorite songs when I was in college.
It’s called Wooden Ships.
From Bob Aldrich, here's some more information on the song:
https://web.archive.org/web/20121116162840/http://www.gotarevolution.com/woodenships.htm
Here’s the version by the Jefferson Airplane, one of whom co-wrote the song with Crosby and Stills. (Dig the cool oceanic sound effects at the beginning.-Bob A.)
Rehearsal Tracks
Concert 10
LYRICS
[Intro. (Electric Guitar)]
[Stills:] If you smile at me I will understand
'Cause that is something
Everybody everywhere does in the same language
[Crosby:] I can see by your coat, my friend you're from the other side
There's just one thing I got to know
Can you tell me please who won?
[Stills:] Say can I have some of your purple berries?
[Crosby:] Yes, I've been eating them
For six or seven weeks now haven't got sick once
[Stills:] Probably keep us both alive
Wooden ships on the water very free and easy
Easy, you know the way it's supposed to be
Silver people on the shoreline let us be
Talkin' 'bout very free and easy
[Instrumental (Electric Guitar)]
Horror grips us as we watch you die
All we can do is echo your anguished cries
Stare as all human feelings die
We are leaving, you don't need us
[Instrumental (Electric Guitar)]
Aaaah ...
Go take your sister then by the hand
Lead her away from this foreign land
Far away where we might laugh again
We are leaving, you don't need us
[Instrumental (Electric Guitar)]
And it's a fair wind
Blowin' warm out of the south over my shoulder
Guess I'll set a course and go
[Ending (Electric Guitar and Organ)]