The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
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
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This is about war. He meets a man who smiles at him. He is wearing the coat of the enemy. There share berries to stay alive. He dreams of sailing and the easy life. He's awakened from his dream by the dying. He feels nothing. He longs for the way things were they way there were suppose to be.
Awesome awesome poem
@reginaann right on!
first verse is the single greatest lyric ever written...
@ZinbobDan I agree such moving lyrics.
the first verse nash got off a church sign driving thru flordia
@hippyatheart Not true!<br /> Songwriters: Paul L. Kantner / David Crosby / Stephen A. Stills
If that is what it means to superfreakz202, that is fine, but it isn't what it really is about. Its about the dream of getting on a wooden ship and sailing away to another world - physically sailing their. If you don't believe me, read the liner notes on their box set. Crosby says it himself. After Jackson Browne heard the song, he asked "What about everyone else" and wrote For Everyman in response to it. If you ever listen to the intro before For Everyman on his new Solo Acoustic album, this is what he is alluding to.
@Tmo2199 <br /> The song was written by Stephen Stills, David Crosby and Jefferson Airplane leader Paul Kantner while they were together in Crosby's sailboat in the Caribbean. At first, they were having fun, and started writing a song about living forever on a boat, just floating peacefully forever in perfect freedom and happiness.<br /> <br /> Then, their fantasy took a dark turn, and the resulting song,"Wooden Ships," was about the aftermath of a nuclear war.<br /> <br /> Weeks after the smoke from the atomic bombs and missiles clears, one survivor meets a surviving soldier from the enemy side. He asks the soldier, ironically, if he knows which side "won" in this insane war.<br /> <br /> They don't understand each other's languages, but they exchange smiles and share some berries (which must not be contaminated), which one of them has been surviving on.<br /> <br /> The survivor dreams of building a wooden boat, finding some women, and sailing away to someplace better. The place he's in has been destroyed beyond salvation... but perhaps, if he could sail away, he might find someplace where there's still hope, still some kind of future for humanity. <br />
here are Crosby's exact comments b-4 the song at Woodstock: "we're gonna do...a kind of 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
It doesn't seem like aliens need to be involved for the song's story. I always took it as a nuclear holocaust because the food is mostly bad, I assume irradiated. Also, post-apocalyptic because sailboats need no petrol or other supportive civilization for travel. They can just go with the wind. And the common belief back then was that in a nuclear war there would be no winners, just precious few survivors.
This song is about a post apocalyptic world. Soldiers from opposite sides meet each other with caution and smile and share some berries. A nuclear war has wiped out most of humanity, and the survivors are forced to sail around the world endlessly on wooden ships of their own making in order to avoid annihilation. Read the novel The Last Ship by William Brinkley and you will see the similarities in the song and the general theme of the book.
My take on this is that its after some kind of hollocast or nuclear war and some people were able to get away in wooden ships. They are afraid and hungry and can do nothing to help the people on the shore.
I seem to remember Steven Stills or David Crosby talking about the meaning of the song before they played it at Woodstock. I have not watched the movie for a while but I think he said something about a Holocaust and Aliens coming. I dont know about the acid reference although I know they were into drugs then. May be thats why my recollection is not to clear.
They wrote the song on Crosby's Scooner. I remeber hearing one of them say something about Aliens and UFO's before they played it.It didn't seem to make sense but it is just a song.There really doesn't have to be a meaning.There is a lot more to be said about sound then words when you are writing music and their sound was beautiful. Maybe that was at Woodstock or their album 4 way St
@tlspatriot please see my comments in this listing made on Feb 22, 2013 for the Woodstock comments made by David Crosby - good day to you
Very true