The Story Behind the Song – Ship of Dreams

Go out to your ship of dreams
Time to leave the shore
Row out to your ship of dreams
Don’t stand there waiting for your ship of dreams for ever more

Album artwork and design by Grace Parry – cool eh?

If you have a song, A song you’d like to sing.
Just step right up and share it with the world
There’s music in your dreams
And soul in every note and every word.

If there is a soul, Someone in your heart
Do they know how much they mean and how you feel
Why hide behind your fear?
You’ll often lose a soul that’s never told

If there is a place, A place within your soul
A place that brings some meaning to your world
Start making travel plans
And the journey will be just as great a part

You may find your ship of dreams, In your heart and in your soul
In your own distant horizon that’s inside
Leave the fools gold
Only your ship can reach your rainbow’s end.

You know how sometimes you wake up in the night with something going round in your head (yeah, I’ve written a song about that too)?

Well, on one occasion it was something I had read years earlier. A short passage that said something about people waiting all their lives for their ‘ship to come in’, maybe they should go out to meet it instead.

Round and round it went. And the chorus and first verse were the result, that night while lying in bed. I got up and quietly sung the lines and melody into my phone.

Next day, the first version of the song was complete, with lyrics including an extra verse (which made the whole thing too long and didn’t add anything new to the sentiment, so was cut).

Originally worked out on guitar in standard tuning, the big leap that made the song come alive in performance was the use of open G tuning – something guitarist Julian Ward brought to the first on-stage performances and the recording on the CD Row Out To Your Ship of Dreams. I guess its sort of a title track.

And an ambition I hope to live up to, every now and then at least.

Here’s a version you can listen to (and purchase).

Julian dropped the whole tuning down to open F, but I play it live in open G.