Sailing

*Her hair reminds me of a warm, safe place *

*Where, as a child, I’d hide *

And pray for the thunder and the rain to quietly pass me by

from Guns ‘n’ Roses - “Sweet Child O’ Mine”

There’s not a better way to say what I need to say, so I’m quoting one of Axl Rose’s most memorable lyrics. When I was 5 turning 6, “Sailing” by Christopher Cross was my warm, safe place.

At that moment when my parents were getting divorced, when my mom and dad were fighting, and when me and my brother and my dad were getting packed up and moving together out of the only house I could remember, this was the song I disappeared into.

This was the song that let me sail away, like Where the Wild Things Are, and drift deep inside my head—into what my college girlfriend used to call Marshall-land.

When I’ve sailed away into Marshall-land you can’t talk to me. I can only nod and pretend to hear. When this song comes on, that is still where I go.

“Yacht Rock” is the reductive term for songs like this. The nautically inclined soft-rock that came out in the late 70s and early 80s, but I don’t hate the term. I love yacht rock. It’s a useful genre that’s probably prolonged the relevance and the lore of this music well beyond the shelf-life it might otherwise have had.

And for me, this song (along with Baker Street), are core to so much of who I am and the musician and music fan I became. I was never going to be a punk rocker. I was adult contemporary before I was ever an adult. I was a dad rocker before I was ever a dad.

Christopher Cross was there for me when I needed him. Left me a boat by the water, so I could float away to Marshall-land and feel at peace with myself. And that feeling is at the heart of most of the music I love and (hopefully) the music I make.

Fave lyrics:

It’s not far to never never land No reason to pretend And if the wind is right you can find the joy Of innocence again Oh, the canvas can do miracles Just you wait and see, believe me Sailing Takes me away to where I’ve always heard it could be Just a dream and the wind to carry me Soon I will be free