How I Wrote..."Wooden Ships"

David Crosby reveals how he, Stephen Stills and Paul Kantner wrote a visionary classic.

- JOE BOSSO

"IT'S AN APOCALYPTIC vision of the world crumbling into pieces," David Crosby told Guitar Player of "Wooden Ships," the sometimes moody, often turbulent antiwar rocker that appeared on Crosby, Stills & Nash's self-titled debut album in 1969. Although written at the height of the Vietnam War, it has become one of the late guitarist's most enduring numbers. And in his last interview with us, in November 2022, he noted with irony and dismay that "everything in the song feels like it's coming true today. How weird is that?"

THREE GUITARISTS WALK ONTO A BOAT...

Oddly, the visions of doomsday foretold in "Wooden Ships" ("Horror grips us as we watch you die/ all we can do is echo your anguished cries") were written on the water during an idyllic period in Crosby's life. He'd just bought a boat, Mayan, and docked it in Fort Lauderdale. To christen the vessel, he invited his new bandmate Stephen Stills and Jefferson Airplane's Paul Kantner for a fun and peaceful hang. "Stephen and I had just started CSN with Graham [Nash]," Crosby recalled. "We weren't intentionally writing material for what became our first record. But that's what happened."