I wrote this song twice. The first time was in Louisville, Kentucky. I was living in an attic room on Hilliard Avenue. I had finished recording Lost and Found, and I was just waiting to get it mixed and everything. I think it was early spring. Unfortunately, I wrote it on my old computer- which was about fifteen years old. It’s not that it crashed, but I can no longer pull up any of the files on it or transfer it to anywhere else. So the only thing that remained about the song was the chorus, which I thought was pretty catchy.
About a year later I was living in Inwood in New York City. I revisited the song, and rewrote the song. I was living with my girlfriend, who was in the theatre, and we were always talking about writing a musical. I envisioned this song as being part of a very nebulous musical about a sailor. At least, there was a sailor who was one of the characters in the musical. The song is written in second person- you, so I think the character singing the song is the sailor’s love interest. All her songs were kind of gospel-inflected, and I could see a young Aretha Franklin playing the part.
The song quickly became a part of the Navigators’ set. I think the arrangement came pretty quickly on that one, and the version that Phelim White, Andrew Emer and I came up with is pretty similar to the recorded version. The three of us actually recorded it at Dangerous Music with Dave Wallace, and I remember it sounding good, but we ran into some problems with that session. Dave was the producer, as well as a great songwriter and guitarist. We were also working with an engineer- Charlie Martinez- who had mixed Who are The Navigators.
Everybody loved the material that we were recording, and everybody thought we could record something special. Sounds like a recipe for success, right? Except there was a serious clash regarding the direction of the recordings, because everybody cared about them. In the end, we had a reel to reel, from which we salvaged “Sooner or Later”, which was mixed at Threshold Studios by Kenny Dykstra. Still, I think that there were four great sounding songs, which included “When Your Ship Goes Down,” which never saw the light of day. Hmmm. The more I write about it, the more I think I should find the reel to reel and investigate. I think Naren has it.
At any rate, two years go by, and The Navigators are now myself, Brian Griffin, Naren Rauch and Cuzin D. I was trying to record a double album of new material, and the band wanted to include “When Your Ship Goes Down.” I’m glad they insisted on it, because that’s the version that’s ended up on Standing on a Rock. Of course, it was fifteen years later, before I dusted off the recording and finished. I had Donna Mason sing the back-up vocals, to really gospel the song up some more. She’s a fabulous singer here in Louisville. Look her up.
At any rate, as I was finishing up the song, I began to revisit the musical idea. I began writing a few scenes. The musical, I Crossed the Waters, is basically about Jason and the Argonauts searching for the Golden Fleece, and the women they meet and lose along the way. I was actually going to tell the story through the eyes of Orpheus, but then Hadestown came out, and I think I’ll need to wait on it a bit.