Ghost Of The Navigator

I think the Odyssey is simply used as imagery in this song. The whole piece to me seems to be based on an extended metaphor of life via the sea.

The first verse are the words of an aging man, who has "sailed" to many place in life, etc, and is about to embark on his final journey before he dies. He is heading west as that is the great unknown. The ancients knew well enough of Asia to the east, but not of the lands across the Atlantic. This therefore suggests that the old man wishes to see something new before he goes. He starts to "calculate and pray" as that is the only way one can pass through life: control things that are within his power, and hope those that aren't work his way. The sun that is hidden by the clouds represents the objective good, be it God, Providence or some other, elusive meaning of life, hidden behind the clouds but which the old sailor "know"s is there for him to find.

The chorus is there to contrast with the resolve of the verses. A navigator's task is to determine the sea, to guide the ships safely to where they want to reach. The navigators of life, therefore, are the moralists, prophets, leaders of history who have guided the human race across the stormy waves of history. Yet in retrospect, looking back on these "ghosts", one does conclude that they are lost. If there is an objective meaning of life, they don't seem to have found it. Every generation a new navigator, full of self confidence, guides the human race in a unique direction yet dies seemingly just like all the rest did. And thus sailing to the sunset of their lives, they "count the costs" of dedicating it all to chasing what appeared to be the sun, but appeared to be just a rainbow, an optical illusion. And thus comes their final advice to the sailor, which he perceives to be "sirens" calling him off his rightful path, 'Take your heart and set it free'.

The second verse returns to the narrative of the sailor, intent on his chosen course, steering past the rocks, the dangers in the life, and the sirens, temptations, both of which can equally detain him from his quest. His blood surges with the self inflicted strain, the pain he causes to himself out of dedication to the hope of seeing "sunrise".

Yet the "darkness" he leaves behind is in actuality the whole of his life. The years he could have spent "carried forward by the waves" he instead struggled against them. Like the navigators before him, he sails into eternity with no assurance that the "sun" is actually there, but that is the path he chose for himself. "There is no other way".