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If you smile at me
I will understand
'Cause that is something
Everybody everywhere does in the same language
I can see by your coat, my friend
You're from the other side
There's just one thing I've got to know
Can you tell me please, who won
Say, can I have some of your purple berries
Yes, I've been eating them for six or seven weeks now
Haven't got sick once
Prob'ly 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
Talk'n 'bout very free, and easy
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
Go take a 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
And it's a fair wind
Blowin' warm out of the south over my shoulder
Guess I'll set a course and go
I will understand
'Cause that is something
Everybody everywhere does in the same language
I can see by your coat, my friend
You're from the other side
There's just one thing I've got to know
Can you tell me please, who won
Say, can I have some of your purple berries
Yes, I've been eating them for six or seven weeks now
Haven't got sick once
Prob'ly 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
Talk'n 'bout very free, and easy
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
Go take a 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
And it's a fair wind
Blowin' warm out of the south over my shoulder
Guess I'll set a course and go
Lyrics submitted by Hilde
Track duration: 08:18
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a...science fiction story, if you'll bear with us... it's about these people who are escaping the, uh, the holocaust, or whatever it may be....and, leaving it behind....and escaping in the Wooden Ships"
as far as the time frame for this adventure, it could be just about anytime/anywhere -
it could be the Vikings heading out to new lands - it could be post-apocalyptic in the distant
future - it could be Japan after the bombings - Crosby/Stills/Kantner sort of instilled a mode that is universal
But I do like the Civil War idea- seen Lincoln yet? Just goes to show, as a previous contributor has said, its MY imagination. And that;'s what great art is- something that inspires a (hundred?) million reactions. Me? I'm 53, and i discovered this song in 2012. So i'm a child of God. And I LOVE it! Me xx
I always imagined the same scene! Wooden ships during the time when ironclad ships were being experimented with (remember the Monitor and the Merrimack at the Battle of Hampton Roads?). See by your coat... (blues and grays). Purple berries... though I gotta laugh at those who correct the lyrics to "purple barrels." James48843, please send me a new insert for my 1969 vinyl, which insert seems to have the typo "purple berries." Those stupid stoners at Atlantic Records can't get anything right!
Anyway, I was sadly dismayed to read a Crosby/Stills quote in the 4-CD boxed set that the song is about an alien invasion, as some have pointed out here. Aliens! Oh, for Pete's sake. Now, come on. Either the CD executives have made another screw-up, or Crosby/Stills are intentionally obfuscating the meaing (as some have purported here), or I have to suck it up and admit that the Civil War imagery is of my own imagination. But at least I'm not alone. And so Civil War it will continue to be. Hey... It's MY imagination.
1A. "If you smile at me
I will understand
'Cause that is something
Everybody everywhere does in the same language"
1B. This phrase which describes a form of non-verbal communication very strongly suggests that the narrator is encountering someone who does not speak his language, however, he wishes to communicate an amiable expression. The European traveler wishes to befriend the Natives he has encountered, perhaps this European is one of the first to arrive in the Americas.
2A. "I can see by your coat, my friend
You're from the other side
There's just one thing I've got to know
Can you tell me please, who won"
2B. In this verse the first explorer meet someone else who has just arrived from Europe. The lyrics "other side" refers to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Also, in 1492, when European explorers were first landing in the America's, Ferdinand and Isabella were engaged in a war with Grenada which lasted years. When he asks "who won" this may be the war he is talking about.
3A. Say, can I have some of your purple berries
Yes, I've been eating them for six or seven weeks now
Haven't got sick once
Prob'ly keep us both alive
3B. In the context of my interpretation, this verse should be fairly self explanatory. The Natives have introduced them to wild, natural foods that are a perfectly viable source of necessary or needed nutrition.
4A. 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
Talk'n 'bout very free, and easy
4B. This verse I believe uses the mirror version of Wooden Ships. These Wooden Ships are those of the Natives, on the water, very free and easy. A way of live derived from Nature, with no stresses of western civilization. The Silver People is a definite reference to Europeans who have begun to inhabit their land. Silver may refer to their armor made from metal or their weapon, both of which would have had a "silver" appearance. If this is indeed the voice of the Europeans, they would be some of the well-documented cases of Europeans assimilated within native society.
5A. 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
5B. We know and European explorers essentially executed a Genocide against the Native peoples of America. Civilizations were massacred, women and children killed, diseases used to exploit unadapted immune systems. For more on this see book, "Guns, Germs, and Steel." This segment of the verse captures of the horror of these Europeans as they watch a peaceful, free and easy people succumbing to the monstrosities of Western Civilization.
"we are leaving," is perhaps an idealized of what Europeans should have done after initial encounters with the natives. The two in this song certainly realize the Natives would be far better off without western influence. Alternately, This could be the European speaking to their commander, engaging in Mutiny after they see what has happened. "you dont need us" to conquer these people.
6A. Go take a 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
6B. I believe this verse is one European saying to Another to take a woman from the native society that he loves. Native Civilization is to far gone and subjugated, perhaps they have find a new place to laugh again, and to live "very free and easy."
And it's a fair wind
Blowin' warm out of the south over my shoulder
Guess I'll set a course and go
Thanks for Reading
WS
It's "Say, can I have some of your purple barrels?"
That was a reference to LSD at the time. Purple dome, or purple barrels, was a purple colored tablet form of "microdot" LSD. It was extremely potent. It had a delayed action (about four or five hours to start a trip after ingesting), but a very long duration (24 hours to 36 hour trip resulted).
I was there- I survived the 60's.
I also tend to think of the person in the coat as a Vietnam war veteran, especially given that many vets later became peace activists and hippies. However, while "who won?" could refer specifically to the Vietnam war, I also think of it as a comment on how everyone in society is competing with one another, trying to "win," when we should really just be working together.
While I agree that the purple berries probably represent the potential for nature to sustain us, I always think of it more specifically as a dope reference. Hippies believed that good drugs, like LSD and marijuana, were necessary to survive the horrors of modern society.
To me, this song is very bittersweet. It is the sad realization that nothing can be done, that a society built on exploitation, greed, and violence has no use for the peace-loving. However, there is hope in beauty in the possibility of fleeing and starting anew.
---but no matter what.. its a great song... a band called animal bag does a excelent verison...its on the offerings c.d.