I think Mick set out to see how many nautical references he could cram into 3 verses about a standard blues rock theme: saying goodbye to an attractive woman who has proved to be way more trouble than she is worth. Add a triumphant life-affirming chorus (that has no nautical references at all) and Boom! You've written a solid song to end the album with.
By the way, 'Soul Survivor' is a very widely used blues rock turn of the phrase. Check Wikipedia- there are a dozen other bands, books, and songs featuring those words. Not the most original thing ever.
That being the case, the chorus of this song seems like a little bit of a lazily written throw-away phrase. If he'd worked harder he probably could have come up with some more nautical term expressing a similar sentiment that would have tied the whole thing together into more of a unified whole. As written, this song kind of feels like two unrelated leftover song fragments cobbled together to make one more pop song for the project. It works because Keith and Mick Taylor are so very good at their craft. This rocking good song succeeds despite the lyrics, not because of them.
I think Mick set out to see how many nautical references he could cram into 3 verses about a standard blues rock theme: saying goodbye to an attractive woman who has proved to be way more trouble than she is worth. Add a triumphant life-affirming chorus (that has no nautical references at all) and Boom! You've written a solid song to end the album with.
By the way, 'Soul Survivor' is a very widely used blues rock turn of the phrase. Check Wikipedia- there are a dozen other bands, books, and songs featuring those words. Not the most original thing ever.
That being the case, the chorus of this song seems like a little bit of a lazily written throw-away phrase. If he'd worked harder he probably could have come up with some more nautical term expressing a similar sentiment that would have tied the whole thing together into more of a unified whole. As written, this song kind of feels like two unrelated leftover song fragments cobbled together to make one more pop song for the project. It works because Keith and Mick Taylor are so very good at their craft. This rocking good song succeeds despite the lyrics, not because of them.