Wooden Ships

Crosby, Paul Kantner and Stephen Stills wrote Wooden Ships in 1968 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, aboard Crosby's boat Mayan. Crosby composed the music, and Kantner and Stills wrote most of the lyrics. Crosby recorded a solo demo in March 1968 with the melody but no lyrics, and Stills made his own demo the next month with most of the words in place. The Crosby, Stills & Nash version runs 5:29, with Crosby and Stills singing lead.

Kantner was not credited on the May 1969 release because he was embroiled in legal disputes with Jefferson Airplane's then manager. Crosby said the name was added in later versions, and Kantner was credited on the expanded reissue. Jefferson Airplane put out its own version on Volunteers in November 1969. The lyric imagines survivors of a nuclear war escaping on a boat. The liner notes say the writers imagined themselves as the few survivors setting off to create a new civilization. Both bands played the song at Woodstock in 1969, and the CSNY performance appears on the festival album.