Album: If I Should Fall From Grace With God
Year: 1988
. . .
The story goes that Phillip Chevron was a bit apprehensive to bring “Thousands Are Sailing” to the Pogues. In retrospect, that seems a bit strange since, unless you were paying attention, it was virtually indistinguishable from a Shane MacGowan lyric, both in overall subject matter (Irish emigration) and telling details (Manhattan, Brendan Behan).
And of course one of the things about the Pogues was — in the grand folk tradition — they didn’t really seem to care where a song came from: a great song was a great song. So “Thousands Are Sailing” became the first great Pogues song written by someone else in the band other than MacGowan.
Thousands are sailing
Across the western ocean
To a land of opportunity
That some of them will never see
Fortune prevailing
Across the western ocean
Their bellies full
Their spirits free
They’ll break the chains of poverty
And they’ll dance
And of course, in the “same as it ever was” category, many of the new Irish immigrants weren’t exactly welcome in the U.S., dealing with all kinds of racist & xenophobic bullshit that seems weird now, especially as many of their descendants are acting the same shameful way these days.
That’s not really touched upon in “Thousands Are Sailing,” which is really more about the process of emigrating than the process of assimilating. And it’s also about the long gorgeous instrumental passages after every chorus: a perfect blend of mandolin, banjo, guitar and accordion that uses the trad Irish folk instruments to make a non-Irish-sounding noise. It’s a musical metaphor!
And in fact, it was the chorus — which is just a bit out of MacGowan’s range — followed by the repetitions of the instrumental break, that drew me to “Thousands Are Sailing” in the first place.
“Thousands Are Sailing”
“Thousands Are Sailing” live in Japan, 1988
The Certain Songs Database
A filterable, searchable & sortable somewhat up to date database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.
Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)
Support “Certain Songs” with a donation on Patreon
Go to my Patreon page