Rough Track #10: Sails
Back in college, I hung around this music venue in a basement.
One of the bands that opened a show there did a little number called, “The Old Ship of Zion.” Well, that old spiritual never sounded so defeated and dirgey and I loved it, all while they went on playing it for too long, and then they just kept on singing: “Is that the ooooooooooold… ship of ziiiiioooooooooon… I seeeeeeeeeeeeee?” for a good three minutes and oh boy was that a showstopper.
Welp: that became a bit of an inside joke at this venue. Audience members in the know would find opportune and inopportune times to start a good “Is that the ooooooooooold… ship of ziiiiioooooooooon… I seeeeeeeeeeeeee?” chorus. It was similar to that movie trope of the one person clapping, and then others in a crowd joining in, swelling into a triumph. It was a way of letting more and more people know they were welcome at this basement performance space. It was a way of holding communion and finding commonality amongst the diverse crowd: white nerds from the northeast, white nerds from the northwest, white geeks from the northeast, white nerds from the midwest, and dinguses.
I had planned to sing this chorus in the second half of the Whiskers song Sails, in a sort of tribute to that practice, as I felt it to be the appropriate song to do so.
For whatever reason it didn’t work out, but here’s Sails with the bit that could have been something more, had I not grown up and out of that basement.
