Talk:Wooden Ships

What happened to the previous song explanation in this article? Here it is:

The song depicts the horrors of a post-nuclear war where presumably two sides have virtually annihilated the world and one man from each side stumbles upon the other.

If it's a song about the Civil war or Vietnam war, who are the "silver people on the shoreline"? Things don't seem to add up here, and I vote that we revert to the original explanation.

Kganser 08:55, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I always thought that this song was about the American Civil War.

If you listen to the woodstock live album, they introduce the song as described in this article.

What's the deal with the current given explanation? Different sides of a war always have different uniforms. The rest of the lyrics don't make any sense in that context either. And why would a protest group write a song about the civil war? ASWilson 23:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Writing Credits

This article credits the song to both Crosby and Stills, but Stills recorded a version of "Wooden Ships" in 1968 (part fo the "Just Roll Tape") before meeting Crosby or Nash. The link does not look credible. So who really wrote it? This acoustic version is actually the best in my opinion. ramblinmindblues

It's a Vietnam War protest song, you silly goose

At Woodstock, I believe it was Stephen Stills who introduced the song by saying that it was about "after the Apocalypse, and the survivors are escaping in the Wooden Ships." He made no mention of the Civil War. There was no "apocalypse" associated with the American Civil War. The "apocalypse" that Stills was referring to was the perceived, impending threat in 1969 that the Vietnam War could escalate to a nuclear conflict. Many of the lyrics in the song specifically point to a foreign war (and if it wasn't the Vietnam War, there are very few choices left, e.g. Korean War). "If you smile at me, I will understand 'Cause that is something everybody everywhere does in the same language." Clearly, the two speakers (presumably, deserters from opposing armies) speak different languages. I am not aware of any such stories or tales from the Civil War (i.e., two deserters, one of whom does not speak English). The coat reference is to the North Vietnamese Army uniform, which was a long-sleeved cotton shirt with two front pockets. "purple berries" probably refers to the fruit of the Sim tree, which was a favorite fruit roughly equivalent to N. America's wild blueberries in central Vietman. "Go, take your sister then, by the hand, lead her away from this foreign land": notice the word "foreign"; I am not aware of any "foreign lands" involved in the American Civil War (unless you consider West Virginia to be a foreign land, which some Easterners no doubt still do). And, finally, CSN&Y, in 1969 when the song was released, was a Vietnam War Protest Band (capitalization intentional). CSN&Y was not a Civil War Protest Band. OreRockOn 16:54, 16 February 2007 (UTC)OreRockOn[reply]

I have to agree with the above paragraph. When I heard it at the time it was released, in the context of the Vietnam war and possible nuclear war with the USSR, my impression was that it was about the Apocalypse. It would be kind of silly to sing about the Civil war during the Vietnam war.

It's a Science Fiction story; the Vietnam war was not the main focus

The song isn't "about the Vietnam war." It is a science fiction story about an apolcalyptic war, partly nuclear, that would destroy civilization or nearly so. The expectation was certainly that the apocolyptic war would arise out of the same source as the Vietnam War, the cold war itself. It wasn't necessary to think it would escalate directly from the Vietnam War. The "Other Side" isn't the NVA, it's the Soviets and all their allies or, if the singer's PoV is reversed, it is us and all our allies. Vietnam was an ongoing tragedy but WWIII was big in the mind of Pual Kantner and didn't have to have much to do with Vietnam. And Paul Kantner was the science fiction writer involved. 71.234.37.144 (talk) 01:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)Will in New Haven71.234.37.144 (talk) 01:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wooden Ships

...are a common metaphor for crossing the River Styx. Confer Frodo and the Elves departing into the West.

However, "purple berries" probably refers to the Vietnamese Betel Nut. Not to total nuclear annihilation. Not that this would matter much from the Other Side... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.212.165.154 (talk) 21:45, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Citations

Does anybody have a citation for their explaination of the song? I'm tempted to through up a couple of templates asking for citations, especially for the paragraph that states the band explained the song's meaning in terms of the Holocaust. Just have to look up how to do it again.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.7.17.3 (talk) 15:28, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Stills certainly said that it was a WWII Holocaust reference. He said it publicly and has been quoted fairly widely. That's the only hard and fast proof we have and, I believe, it is loony. I think it was an SF story, not a protest song. I know Paul Kantner well enough to think that's the best guess. It wasn't about Vietnam and it certainly wasn't about WWII or the Holocaust. Both of those things could have been in the minds of the lyricists. However, the song as it winds up is about the aftermath a future Holocaust, nuclear and/or biochemical, resulting from the Cold War, from the madness of the West and of the Soviets. 76.28.103.69 (talk) 01:02, 7 September 2009 (UTC)Will in New Haven76.28.103.69 (talk) 01:02, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Environmentalist Themes

I think it might be worth mentioning in this article some significant environmentalist themes of the song. Primitivist imagery such as wild berries and wooden ships signify a return to nature. That the berries haven't made them sick, and the wooden ships are bearing them to freedom, taken together with "very free and easy" indicate a nurturing, bucolic environment. "Horror grips us as we watch you die, all we can do is echo your anguished cry, and stare as all human feelings die" thoroughly sums up the perspective of the environmentalist watching her fellow people brutalize the planet, as if in some "foreign land". "We are leaving, you don't need us" is essentially our own path to self-destruction, a path which unfortunately may be the only way that the Earth will be able to recover. James Monroe (talk) 17:13, 10 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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Purple berries: fruit, iodine pills or LSD?

In the article the 'purple berries' are explained to be iodine pills. Though that makes sense within the context of a post nuclear apocalypse story, I have not found any other article on the internet that corroborates this meaning. At this talk page someone suggests it may be the berries that grow on a tree in Vietnam. However, in most articles I've read about the song, the 'purple berries' are a reference to the purple, lentil-shaped LSD tablets that were popular in the time and were sold under exactly that name. I have the feeling that in the article the explanation that is the least likely to be the right one is the only one given. I don't have the means to research this thoroughly but I wish there's someone here who will look into that. Because I don't think the article is correct on this issue. Naamloze gebruiker (talk) 14:34, 8 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]