SOUTHERN CROSS

This is one of my all-time favorite songs. It’s brilliant in scope, harmony, and impact. But not everyone might get that. The lyrics of this great song by Crosby, Stills, & Nash might make the non-nautical listener wonder what exactly they mean, particularly in the first verse. Here are the words:

Got outa town on a boat goin’ to southern islands,
Sailin’ a reach before a followin’ sea.
She was makin’ for the Trades on the outside,
And the downhill run to Papeete.
Off the wind on this heading lie the Marquesas.
We’ve got eighty feet of the waterline nicely making way.
In a noisy bar in Avalon I tried to call you,
But on a midnight watch I realized why twice you ran away.

“Southern islands,” “Papeete,” and “Marquesas” indicate the intended goal of Steve Stills’ sailboat on that journey away from his loved one. That’s French Polynesia, in the distant southern Pacific ocean:

The Trades are of course the trade winds, and in the song they’re not yet there, so they’re “outside.” Downhill means both down the map and an easy run once they’re in the Trade winds, which blow in a favorable direction to get ’em there. “Sailin’ a reach” means the wind is coming basically crosswise to the boat, which typically gives it its best speed.

What about the mention of the waterline????? What’s that got to do with “makin’ way”? The top speed of a displacement sailboat hull is determined by the square root of its waterline length in feet, multiplied by 1.34, expressed in knots. It can’t go any faster…unless the “followin’ sea” adds current flow to it. With an 80-foot waterline the boat can make 12 knots, which for a sailboat is really bookin’. That’s about 14 MPH, which might sound slow to the land traveler, but remember a sailing boat does not stop for the night. It goes 24 hours a day, which means it’ll travel 335 miles a day at that rate. If you drive a car at 50 mph average speed it’ll take you nearly 7 hours to get that far.

Someone has to pilot the boat all night, hence the “midnight watch,” during which one has time to think of lots of things.

The full version’s closing verse has these words:
“…make me forget about lovin’ you,
IN the southern cross.”

Some lyric sources try to tell you it’s “AT the southern cross,” but the lubbers don’t understand. That’s the second use of ‘southern cross’ in the song. The first time refers to the constellation. The second time does not. Instead, ‘southern cross’ refers to the passage across the southern Pacific ocean, which is the whole basis for this wonderful song. ‘In the southern cross‘ means ‘during the boat’s passage across the ocean.’ I’ve listened carefully to four different renditions of the full song while using headphones, and they ALWAYS sing “IN the southern cross.” Check it out:

By all means avoid the live version where Steve Stills goes falsetto on the last verse, sounding like someone just jabbed a finger up his, er…., and Graham Nash jumps around on stage like he’s chock-full of drugs. But in that version they REPEAT “..IN the southern cross” at the very end. Very clear to hear.