Written: Melendres Street, Las Cruces NM, 1977
This is Knees’ only foray into post-apocalyptic dystopian songwriting. It began as a catchy phrase, “from the Colorado Islands to the shores of Tennessee” and evolved into a tale about fascism (the teachers), sacrifice and sea-faring adventure. It has one of Knees’ better chord patterns
I’ve been a sailor for the past seven years
Sailin on the ocean of our country
I’ve seen the teachers, the preachers of fear
Who kept me from the woman who loved me
In the third year of the flood
We met at Mt Rainier
Where we helped build
The village of the mountain
We lived each other’s lives
Through the hunger and the tears
An drank the love that flowed like a fountain.
Now I’m known as the sailor of the century
The man who cheats the forces from above
From the Colorado Islands
To the shores of Tennessee
I’ll sail the American Ocean till I find my love
Then the teachers walked among us
And told us of the sea
That lay to the east of the desert
They told us there were places
Where people still were free
Where the teachers had control of the weather
She told me there would never
Be another in her life
But she had to see what happened to the east
Before she left we married
In the night of the knife
When I became a killer of the beast.
Now I’m known as the sailor of the century
The man who cheats the forces from above
From the Colorado Islands
To the shores of Tennessee
I’ll sail the American Ocean till I find my love
I’ve been everywhere that there’s left to be
And my lady may not want me when I find her
But my life has not been empty
As I sailed across the sea
I’m not just the man she left behind her.