Musical Shipwrecks: Big Country "Ships"

Now, despite having categorized this song in terms of a “musical shipwreck,” I don’t think of this song as a shipwreck, it’s more that I find the shipwreck to be a particularly fascinating metaphor (in anything, not just songs). The magic, as it were, lies in the way that a shipwreck combines these elements and more: the terror of being in a foreign element (the sea); the anonymity of death at sea; the seemingly tragic inevitability of a ship being wrecked by external elements—as if by fate; the heroism of the crew’s endeavour to save themselves and the ship; the totality of the disaster that it represents, as it is the loss of a whole crew/community; and the sense that it signifies the ruin of a journey and the possibility of a homecoming. All in all it’s a powerful combination of elements stemming from what has long been one of the most important forms of transportation (and indeed, forms of life) in human history. All this makes it a potent metaphor for lots of other things (and a potent image in itself as well), and thus a great resource for song-writing.

That being said, let me present the song “Ships” from Big Country:

I’m going to start this one on a somewhat biographical note because it’s a song that has meant a lot to me for a long time. Although I cannot remember the exact date when I first heard this song, I would guess that it was either late in the summer of 1993 (maybe a promo play of it before the album was released) or the summer of 1994. Either way, I figure it was the summer because I heard it on the radio at my family cottage and that’s most likely when I’d have been there (could be a random part of the fall of 1993 but my fuzzy memory suggests the summer and fall trips to the cottage were infrequent). Anyway, I only heard it that one time on the radio for years before I finally tracked it down some time in the early 2000s on the basis of the super catchy folk-rock chorus—“Where were you went my ship went down….”

What I think is particularly fascinating (and affecting) about this song is how un-rock-and-roll its subjects are: the song details three lives shipwrecked on the rocks of life as it were. Now, failure isn’t foreign to rock, there are lots of losers throughout the rock catalogue (Springsteen is full of them, for instance). No, it’s the particular kind of failure detailed in the song, and the virtues that it espouses (despite their failure) that make it special.

To see what I mean let me first outline the three subjects here: the first is a “used-up” man who prides himself on his honesty and integrity and clings to whatever dignity he can; the second is a woman who tried to life a free life, trying to find love on her own terms rather than those dictated by society and who ends up alone; and the last is an “us” who are struggling to balance their ideals against the demands of mere survival. Yes rock has its rebels and idealists, but rarely on the humbler, more personal side such as this and rarely in the service of such unhip virtues as personal integrity, or for a genuine sexual/emotional freedom (as opposed to its usual commercialized form which is really just another kind of bondage). The shipwreck metaphor works here because these “ships” have charted such exemplary courses and yet despite that they still find themselves floundering against external conditions.

The fact that this song is largely about the failure of all of these people and their ideals would make it particularly depressing were it not for the rousing chorus, the one that enabled me to find the song so many years later:

So where were you when my ship went down?
Where were you when I ran aground?
Where were you when I turned it around?
Where were you when they burned me down?

The chorus is accusatory, which you would think would contribute to the general “downer” quality of the song, were it not for the infectious energy of that accusation. Sure these shipwrecks have happened and continue to happen and we are nowhere to be found, but this accusation is meant to wake us up. “Where were you?” turns into the question of “Where are you now?” and “Where are we now?” That is why the final part of the song switches to a reflection on “us,” because if we can get a sense of the course that we are on, then there is a chance to band together as a crew and prevent these shipwrecks in the future. The only hope we have is to form a “we” to stand against the “they” that burn it down.