| Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Wooden Ships Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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I think the song Wooden Ships is about nuclear winter. This is a theory by the astronomer Carl Sagan. Dr. Sagan used open literature data on number and size of nuclear weapons to calculate the amount of ash, dust and debris in the atmosphere caused by a full scale nuclear war that would last for decades. The immediate result would be something similar to an ice age. The lyrics to the song, as available on this site, seem to ignore the first stanza of the song which was performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young at Woodstock and by Jefferson Airplane on their Volunteers album. Jefferson Airplane thoughtfully provided the complete lyrics to all of the songs on the Volunteers album, and the first stanza of Wooden Ships is omitted from those performances. The first stanza is: Black sails knifing through the pitchblende night Away from the radioactive landmass madness From the silver-suited people searching out Uncontaminated food and shelter on the shores No glowing metal on our ship of wood only Free happy crazy people naked in the universe WE SPEAK EARTH TALK GO RIDE THE MUSIC The next stanza starts with the line: If you smile at me you know I will understand... which is where the recorded versions of the song start. The first line of the song references "the pitchblende night", which might imply a mixed sky of dark and somewhat lighter skies. However, pitchblende if the ore from which uranium is derived (now called uranite, or something similar). I think that is a clear connection to the idea of nuclear winter, and have wondered why the first stanza wasn't included in both of these recordings. Three Dog Night also had a song that included the phrase "the bright spot in the sky", which I think the sun would appear to be after a full nuclear exchange. The ideas that people suffering from radiation exposure would glow in the dark (Silver people on the shoreline) and that wooden ships would save others are incorrect. Jim Michael |
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| Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Wooden Ships Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| I have recordings of two versions of the song: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young performed the song during their Woodstock session and another by Jefferson Airplane on the Volunteers album. Both songs start with the second line of the song, "I can see by your coat that ...." The Volunteers album also includes lyrics of all the songs on the album, and the missing first line references a "pitchblend night", which gives a vision of darker and lighter regions in the sky. However, pitchblend is the ore from which uranium is refined (now referred to as unanite, or something similar) and I think that the missing line is a reference to nuclear winter, as described by astronomer Carl Sagan. Dr. Sagan wrote a paper describing the results of a serious nuclear exchange during the Cold War that would put enough dust, ash and debris into the atmosphere that would result in a "nuclear winter". He supported his paper with references to open sources that estimated the number and sizes of weapons and the lack of any useful fire suppression after such an exchange. Fires would burn for months. I have wondered why these 2 performances of the song avoid the first line. Also, the idea that people would be able to save themselves from the radiation by sailing on wooden ships is not accurate. Read the novel On the Beach (or watch the movie) for an accurate account of how the radiation from such an exchange would eventually start killing people in the southern hemisphere, even though the majority of bombs would be exploded in the northern hemisphere. Three Dog Night also has a song that refers to "the bright spot in the sky", which presumably is the sun observed through the debris after the nuclear exchange. | |
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