Wooden Ships

It was written in 1968 in Fort Lauderdale on Crosby's boat Mayan. Crosby composed the music, and Kantner and Stills wrote most of the lyrics. Crosby made a solo demo with the melody in March 1968, and Stills recorded his own demo with most of the words in place the next month, released in 2007 on Just Roll Tape. Kantner's name was left off the first release and he was credited later.

Written at the height of the Vietnam War, the song imagines survivors of a nuclear war sailing away. According to the liner notes, the writers imagined themselves as the few survivors, escaping on a boat to create a new civilization. A wooden ship has no metal to turn radioactive. Crosby told Rolling Stone's Cameron Crowe in 1977 that the wanting-to-sail-forever fantasy was bullshit, and asked where you get off leaving the rest of humanity behind.

Jefferson Airplane released their own version on Volunteers in November 1969, with slightly different words and melody. Both groups played it at Woodstock. The Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young performance is the better known, since it is on the festival's soundtrack album, while Jefferson Airplane's, which ran to over 21 minutes, was released in 2009. The song is also on Live at Fillmore East, 1969. Neil Young alluded to it in Hippie Dream in 1986.