Lyrics for Wooden Ships as interpreted by Hilde

Wooden Ships Lyrics
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

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  • 17 Comments
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ZinbobDan
04-08-2003

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first verse is the single greatest lyric ever written...

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spickly
04-09-2003

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Very true

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spickly
04-09-2003

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Very true

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hippyatheart
04-29-2003

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the first verse nash got off a church sign driving thru flordia

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ZinbobDan
04-30-2003

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interesting...

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ataraxia37
06-10-2003

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wow. the words are different than i thought they were.
this is a great song to listen to when you're stoned.

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liverdude
06-27-2003

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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.

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Tass2
06-06-2004

Rated 0 
this song isnt realy that complex, its no doors song or anything. Basicly its jsut a take of a select group of people escapeing an apocolyptic world. The first stanza is simply setting up a humanistic, loveing kind of feel telling us that all men are equal and no matter waht love and happiness is something everyone understands. The second stanza has no real poetic meaning jsut saying that these people taht escaped the "war" or wahtever have met a survivor. The third stanza about purple berries i beleive is just another show of the natralist quazi religios psychi of the 60s that nature would controll all and if you jsut let yourself go the universe woudl keep you alive in bliss. There could be another meaning for sueing purple berries in paricular though witch i dont know of.
Now for the chorus. The wooden ships are jsut another repesentation of nature. These are simple wooden boats used to carry these people away from all the destruction. The destruction is a manifestation of human advancement, industrialization, and science. The only way to escape this is to get bakc to the simple ways of nature in the woden ships. The next 2 stanzas are jsut more explanations of what happened. These people left the mainland or wherever and could do nothin but watch the masses mindlessly slaughter eachother. They watched humanity die. They left saying that this mindless machine of destruction didnt need them, the enlightened peace loveing people. The closeing line is to leve a feeling of a circle. There is no ending to these people. They keep sailing on rebuilding humanity.
The jist of the whole song is that on the track humanity is on we will all destroy eachotehr but these is hope because there is a small group of people that will carry on the love and compasion of human beings and rebuild lifee from teh ground up.

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PeeWee
01-08-2005

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Check Out The Jefferson Airplane version..Guitar is awesome...kinda a fuzzy & trippy....But Still cant hold a candle to this...csny fuckin a rocks..

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bentknee
02-07-2005

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i love this song

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superfreakz202`
03-24-2005

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this song isn't about a nuclear war or any of that stuff. it's about the vietnam war. the two people talking are an american soliders and a vietamese solider. thats why it says "i can see by your coat, my friend, your from the other side." it's about how even though they were sent to kill each other they can still befriend each other. the line "we are leaving, you don't need us" can either be the two soliders leaving or the americans leaving. anyways it's an increadible song, and the first line is the best lyric ever written.

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jim68ny
07-30-2005

Rated 0 
I think it is at least partially about differences between us and yet that we aren't all that different at all. The "I can see by your coat.." I think is about soldiers, but I doubt Vietnam." I think they were singing about getting away from the "normal" world and to an ideal place-something like Walden II. Just my 2 cents. PS Love this song.

The part about the first stanza being taken from a church sign is VERY COOL. Ya gotta love that stuff..

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CateranLlama
12-12-2005

Rated 0 
I got to see this live in concert not long ago and they switched a couple lines out... from "can you tell me please, who won" to "can you tell me please, who lied about the war" and from "prob'ly keep us both alive" to "probly keep us all alive."

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Tmo2199
04-02-2006

Rated 0 
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.

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ripfripp
11-30-2007

Rated 0 
i always thought it was about 2 soldiers who meet during the civil war..----the ''coat'' verse.. and wooden ships were full out during the civil war.....
---but no matter what.. its a great song... a band called animal bag does a excelent verison...its on the offerings c.d.

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freeskier911
03-28-2008

Rated 0 
Crosby based the song on Stranger in a Strange Land, a book by Robert Heinelin

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Evie56
08-12-2008

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I agree with much of Tass2's interpretation, although I think the people in the song leaving on wooden ships are specifically peaceniks, leftists and hippies of the 1960s. This song sums up much of their criticism of technocratic, violent society.

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.

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