Seventy-three men sailed up...

...from the San Francisco Bay
Rolled off of their ship, and here's what they had to say
"We're callin' everyone to ride along to another shore
We can laugh our lives away and be free once more"

But no one heard them callin', no one came at all
'Cause they were too busy watchin' those old raindrops fall
As a storm was blowin' out on the peaceful sea
Seventy-three men sailed off to history...

So we were sitting in a Wendy's in Erwin yesterday having lunch before heading out to the camp where our church was having its annual picnic, and I couldn't help but notice the insanely random array of songs being played over their radio. Four decades in 10 minutes is pretty impressive. This was made most evident to me when they played an old 70's song I don't think i'd heard since i used to listen to tons of classic rock back in highschool. It was a song called "Ride, Captain, Ride" by Blues Image (which i have to admit i couldn't remember - and it was driving me crazy). I would say that i'm dating myself a bit here, but since i was about 6 months old when the song came out, it doesn't make me feel *too* old. ;-)

I also have to admit that I have something of a fascination with sailing ships and shipwrecks - and I almost always enjoy songs and stories about them (Even the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Hey, they can't all be as good as the Mariner's Revenge). I also like songs that have a sort of abstract, cautionary moral - particularly allusions to 'something better' that most of the 'people' in the song are missing (see also: lyrics to One Tin Soldier). So yeah, when I heard this old song that I hadn't heard in ages I thought, "hey, cool!".

~PS