Warren wanted a Beach Boys thing for this one, and Carl Wilson and Billy Hinsche came in, with Carl arranging the vocal parts. The other harmony vocalists (credited as the "Gentlemen Boys") were Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, Zevon's longtime backers Waddy Wachtel and Jorge Calderon, and Linda Rondstadt/Stone Poneys guitarist Kenny Edwards.
We sailed away on a winter's day
With fate as malleable as clay
But ships are fallible, I say
And the nautical, like all things, fades
And I can recall our caravel
A little wicker beetle shell
With four fine masts and lateen sails
With bearings on Cair Paravel
Oh my love
Oh it was a funny little thing
To be the ones to've seen
The sight of bridges and balloons
Makes calm canaries irritable
And they caw and claw all afternoon
"Catenaries and dirigibles
Brace and buoy the living-room
A loom of metals, warp-woof-wimble"
A thimbles worth of milky moon
Can touch hearts larger than a thimble
Oh my love
Oh it was a funny little thing
To be the ones to've seen
Oh my love
Oh it was a funny little thing
It was a funny funny little thing
With fate as malleable as clay
But ships are fallible, I say
And the nautical, like all things, fades
And I can recall our caravel
A little wicker beetle shell
With four fine masts and lateen sails
With bearings on Cair Paravel
Oh my love
Oh it was a funny little thing
To be the ones to've seen
The sight of bridges and balloons
Makes calm canaries irritable
And they caw and claw all afternoon
"Catenaries and dirigibles
Brace and buoy the living-room
A loom of metals, warp-woof-wimble"
A thimbles worth of milky moon
Can touch hearts larger than a thimble
Oh my love
Oh it was a funny little thing
To be the ones to've seen
Oh my love
Oh it was a funny little thing
It was a funny funny little thing
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For me it is about the little wonders of the world that can stun and stagger you, and eventually shape you. I like to think she's sharing all these tiny blessings with her "love" :)