This Ship Is Sinking
Story Behind The Song by Andy Cairns (Sep 3rd, 2004)
…aar, land lubbers.
Originally this set of lyrics I had written around relationships and a (relation)ship that’s on rocky ground. Fun to try really as the music was originally a barrelous sea shanty type 70’s rock riff. A cross between Black Night by Deep Purple and Supernaut by Black Sabbath.
Myself and Michael recorded a version on to 4-track with a repetitive bass drum thumping away so that it was a bit more like Ministry. When Neil heard it for the first time he wasn’t sure about the whole 70’s groove thing and running through it several times we couldn’t get into it.
We decided to keep the lyrics of the song and the same key (F, muso heads) but build it up from scratch. The result is way less song based than I had written it at home but more of a band piece. We added the frantic chord stabs and the whole thing is built around tension.
With this new music version the tone of the lyrics and melody have changed from being slightly tongue in cheek to full on melodrama. Initially I wasn’t sure of this but Pete (Bartlett, producer) is a massive Alice Cooper fan as I have already mentioned so he was all up for a bit of hammyoverthetopbutclingingontothemastfordearlife — withthesaltywindthreateningtotakemetoawaterygrave type delivery.
Typically, after we’d worked hard on the tune and got it nailed, Pete heard the original 70’s groove demo of the song and claimed he really liked it as well. In the end I suppose we ended up with a melodramatic three minutes odd of music with a lot of tension.
Initially I wasn’t sure of the new version myself but in the end with the nautical theme, the ‘sky-in-my-eyes’ delivery and the little guitar ‘stabs’ it reminds me of the Murder City Devils. The drumming on it’s fantastic too.
Read the story behind the next song on this album.
Lyrics
This ship is sinking
And I'm gonna go with it
Straight to the bottom
I'll push it back up
This ship is sinking
And it's taking me with it
Straight to the bottom
Where we belong
This ship is sinking
This ship is sinking
This ship is sinking
Sinking
My heart is broken
And you did it
It took you five minutes
And I died in an instant
And now
I'm going straight to hell
With a shipwrecked mind
And keelhauled as well
Yeah!
This ship is sinking
This ship is sinking
This ship is sinking
Sinking
The ocean's wide
And you dropped me in it
Now I need a bottle of wine to get me through this
And now
I'm going straight to hell
I'll probably see you there
This ship is sinking
This ship is sinking
This ship is sinking
Sinking