Southern Cross - Crosby, Stills, and Nash


Posted On: Saturday - June 6th 2020 7:13PM MST
In Topics:   Music

I got into sailing for a while, but it was a number of years after the hippy/folk/rock band Crosby, Stills, and Nash wrote the song Southern Cross . If anything that's not a Jimmy Buffett song is going to be a sailor's song, it would be this one. I'm sure all pleasure sailors love it, with its nautical terms (well, specifically sailing ones, too).

Southern Cross is from CSN's 1982 album Daylight Again. To me, this music was quite different from the band's, and the country's, music of the hippy era that had only ended around a decade earlier. This just seems much more sedate compared to their older stuff, and maybe not quite as good musically as Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, Marrakesh Express, Wooden Ships (not about sailing, but with Neil Young and his guitar), and, don't forget Teach your Children Well, featured on a Peak Stupidity post that was about some serious sailing, A Peak Stupidity Belated HAPPY COLUMBUS DAY .

Steven Stills sings the lead part on this one. Well, I've not seen the Southern Cross (too smoggy when I was in the Southern Hemisphere for a short while), but I have been to Avalon - once on a sailboat and once in a 2-man rubber boat with a 2.2 hp Mercury. I didn't end up in a noisy bar but did come close to tossing my cookies from some spiced rum or some such...

You know those people on youtube, who formerly wrote travelogs, that spend parts of their lives on the big oceans, with no home but their sailing craft? They called them crazy, preppers, outcasts of society, whatever. Look at the world of 2020, and tell me if those people weren't right on the money.



Got out of town on a boat goin' to the Southern islands.
Sailing a reach before a following sea.
She was makin' for the trades on the outside,
and the downhill run to Papeete.

Off the wind on this heading lie the Marquesas.
We got 80' of the waterline nicely making way.
In a noisy bar in Avalon I tried to call you,
but on a midnight watch I realized why twice you ran away.

Think about how many times I have fallen.
Spirits are using me, larger voices callin'.
What heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten.
I have been around the world, lookin' for that woman/girl,
Who knows love can endure.
And you know it will.
And you know it will.

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time,
you understand now why you came this way
'Cause the truth you might be running from is so small.
But it's as big as the promise, the promise of a comin' day.

So I'm sailing for tomorrow. My dreams are a dyin',
and my love is an anchor tied to you, tied with a silver chain.
I have my ship, and all her flags are a flyin'.
She is all that I have left, and music is her name.

Chorus

So we cheated and we lied, and we tested,
and we never failed to fail. It was the easiest thing to do.
You will survive being bested.
Somebody fine will come along
Make me forget about loving you.

At the Southern Cross.

Comments:
Ganderson
Monday - June 8th 2020 4:40AM MST
PS : “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing” is my favorite Neil Young song that nobody knows is a Neil Young song, because Richie Furay sang it with Buffalo Springfield.

Fun Fact: Neil Young’s father Scott is in the Hockey Hall of Fame, sportswriters’ division.
Adam Smith
Sunday - June 7th 2020 8:59PM MST
PS: Thank you Mr. Moderator...

Luv, Luv, Luv this song...

Listened to your post this morning while I read the news...
Whistled Southern Cross most the afternoon...

Come evening my girl said "How about some pandora" as we sipped some wine on the porch...

We hammered a few different names into the pandora search to little avail...

Then I searched for "Southern Cross"

Scrolled down to Crosby Stills & Nash...

Click...

Pandora treated us to some great music tonight on the Southern Cross station...

Lots of Fleetwood Mac/Stevie Nicks, Eagles, Bob Seger, America, Crosby Still & Nash, Neil Young, with some Pink Floyd, Doobie Brothers, James Taylor, John Denver, Van Morrison, Marshall Tucker, Gordon Lightfoot, Buffalo Springfield + some other stuff all mixed up...

Pandora's algorithm Luvs Southern Cross too...

Didn't miss a beat.

Thank you.
Dtbb
Sunday - June 7th 2020 3:45PM MST
PS:Sorry, I was pulling your leg. "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" is one of the best books I ever read.
Moderator
Sunday - June 7th 2020 2:34PM MST
PS: I'm saying this without checking, Dtbb, but I'm pretty sure that's a no. He made 4 voyages. Most of them had landings in what are the West Indies Islands. He and his crew got stranded in what's now Jamaica on the 4th voyage, and there is a really cool story about that right here:

https://www.peakstupidity.com/index.php?post=389
Dtbb
Sunday - June 7th 2020 2:27PM MST
PS:Was Columbus ever in the southern hemisphere?
Moderator
Sunday - June 7th 2020 11:52AM MST
PS: I did not know that [/Johnny Carson]. So I guess sailors don't need anybody but Jimmy Buffett for good sailing music.

I'm thinking "Boat Drinks" as one of my favorites, Ganderson.
Ganderson
Sunday - June 7th 2020 6:45AM MST
PS. Jimmy Buffett does a nice version of Southern Cross.
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