My Sad Captains

This song is a hymn to drinking friends long gone and mourns the fact that you can't go drinking every night with them when you're older like you once could before responsibility.

The lyric: "Another sunrise with my sad captains, with you I choose to lose my mind" comes from a line in Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra. It's adapted from when Mark Antony speaks about his drinking partners: "Come, let's have one other gaudy night; call to me all my sad captains; fill our bowls; once more, let's mock the midnight bell."

The line "we only come this way but once" is a bastardisation of William Penn (founder of Pennsylvania). He was talking about realising you only have one life, realising your own mortality.

Already one of my favourite Elbow songs and just puts me in mind of all the mates I used to hang around with, friends and family who have passed away and a life which was far less complicated, where the carnage and fall out of a broken marriage and fractured home was yet to happen. I will cry, I know, when they play this at Birmingham next Saturday but Elbow have a habit of doing that to me.

Won't waste words on what it's about when I can just close my eyes and listen!

The best on the album for me by a mile. The brass is epic.

Thank you.

Only Elbow could refer to skanky little sods running round on bikes as a bmx apothecry, whilst quoting William Penn in the next breath. A really, really lovely little song, which puts life into a certain perspective.

Most of us who have visited this page would understand the sentiment of this fantastic piece of art elbow created. The wistful memories we have of old friends as we get older with more commitments and less time, and the magic we feel whenever we get together again or think about them. An edited account from guy garvey for the Spotify live sessions which you should all check out

"We find ourselves writing drinking anthems to friendship alot, it's not a massive leap of the imagination to figure out why. This chorus I owe to the founder of Pennsylvania, he said 'I think I shall pass this way but once and not return again' and something about that sentiment delighted my friend Peter who is my best mate and a hedonistic geordie. If you said Pete would you like another pint, he'd go 'we pass this way but once' like that. So Pete helped me with that element of the chorus."

Something I find myself using for my amusement. Thanks elbow, yet another beautiful song you've shared with us.

Surely this is Guy talking about his band mates and his role in Elbow?. “I’m running out of miracles, the streets are alive with one man shows”. He’s not sure he can do much more and he’s not sure he can make it alone either?

Love this song, it reminds me of my mum, not a lot makes sense and it's just sad, and so this drinking is a perfect waste of time, being drunk is the real life, as opposed to the sober one which tends to be a struggle.

I've grown up with friends, other dads mostly, who are my captains. They are strong and steady and responsible men, who still like to waste time (perfectly) and lose our minds. What a perfect song, and not at all making me feel it's about a time before children and other such responsibility.