The Story Behind “Sail On, Sailor” by The Beach Boys and the Long Road to Its Creation

BY JAY MCDOWELL

In 1972, The Beach Boys were a band looking for a new direction. Brian Wilson was rarely involved with their recording sessions, and keyboardist Bruce Johnston left the band as a result. Dennis Wilson was working on a solo album. Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar, from the South African band The Flames, began playing with Carl Wilson, Mike Love, and Al Jardine. When it came time to make a new album, the band loaded up recording gear and shipped it to Holland. The Beach Boys had an affinity for the Netherlands since an incident several years earlier when they arrived four hours late for a show because of a delayed flight. The band was surprised to find a full house awaiting their arrival and even more shocked when the crowd shouted for the band to play new songs rather than the usual past hits. Carl Wilson told OOR magazine, “I love this audience. Our last albums sold poorly in the U.S., our financial situation is disastrous – and here we have success. I like this country.”

The band hatched a plan to record their album in Holland. Let’s take a look at the story behind “Sail On Sailor” by The Beach Boys.

I sailed an ocean, unsettled ocean

Through restful waters and deep commotion

Often frightened, unenlightened

Sail on, sail on, sailor

Holland

The first step was to secure living accommodations. Their publicist, Bill DeSimone, began trying to locate 11 houses but only found four. The Netherlands was in the middle of a chronic housing shortage. The next obstacle was finding an open recording studio. The band decided to construct their own. They tasked their engineer, Steve Moffit, with designing and building a new recording console. They dismantled their existing studio in Brian Wilson’s house and reconstructed it in a barn in Baambrugge, Holland. For four and a half weeks, Beach Boys equipment was on every one of the four daily flights from Los Angeles to Amsterdam. Overall, there were 7,300 pounds of gear with a cost of over $250,000. 

I wrest the waters, fight Neptune’s waters

Sail through the sorrows of life’s marauders

Unrepenting, often empty

Sail on, sail on, sailor

Caught like a sewer rat alone, but I sail

Bought like a crust of bread, but oh, do I wail

The Recording Sessions

The band began recording their songs with Carl Wilson producing. Brian Wilson made the trip to Holland but didn’t participate much in the sessions. Dennis Wilson produced the songs he contributed. In 2002, Ricky Fataar told Mojo magazine, “Everybody would come in with a piece of a song or a completed song and kind of play around with it and then figure out how we wanted to record it. It was very casual,” Fataar also addressed Brian’s minimal involvement, “I can’t even remember seeing him in the studio in Holland. Everyone had their own family situation, and we’d just go to work and occasionally see each other. It wasn’t like a one-big-family thing.”

Seldom stumble, never crumble

Try to tumble, life’s a rumble

Feel the stinging I’ve been given

Never-ending, unrelenting

Heartbreak searing, always fearing

Never caring, persevering

Sail on, sail on, sailor

They Needed a Single

The recording budget ballooned as they continued recording in Holland. Dennis Wilson moved to the Canary Islands, and the rest of the band returned to Los Angeles, where they finished the album at Village Recorders. When they submitted the album to the record label, the executives didn’t feel there was a single they could promote. The answer came from Van Dyke Parks, who was Brian Wilson’s writing partner during the Smile sessions. He went to Brian Wilson and encouraged him to write a song. Brian had begun working on “Sail On, Sailor” a couple of years earlier with Ray Kennedy and Danny Hutton. They had written the song for Three Dog Night, but it didn’t work out. Parks and Wilson resurrected the idea, and Tandyn Almer and Jack Rieley also contributed. In 2002, in the liner notes for Beach Boys Classics Selected by Brian Wilson, he wrote, “Van Dyke really inspired this one. We worked on it originally; then, the other collaborators contributed some different lyrics. By the time the Beach Boys recorded it, the lyrics were all over the place. But I love how this song rocks.”

I work the seaways, the gale-swept seaways

Past shipwrecked daughters of wicked waters

Uninspired, drenched, and tired

Wail on, wail on, sailor

Blondie Chaplin

When it was time to do the lead vocals, the band was uncertain if it would be Carl or Dennis Wilson. When Brian Wilson came to the studio, he became obsessed with engineering and continuously tinkered with the equipment, causing disruptions that led to the band asking him to leave. Again, Carl stepped into the producer’s role. Dennis began recording the lead vocal but got frustrated and went surfing. Carl decided to give Blondie Chaplin a try, leading to the soulful rendition that ended up on the final recording. Fataar said, “I remember Carl called Brian to say, ‘Is this the right chord?’ and ‘What kind of a groove is it?’ Brian was at home on the telephone telling us what to do with the song. He came up with this idea that Carl should play a part that was sort of like an SOS, Morse code signal… and Carl went out and played that and it was just right.”

Always needing, even bleeding

Never feeding all my feelings

Damn the thunder, must I blunder

There’s no wonder all I’m under

Stop the crying and the lying

And the sighing and my dying

Sail on, sail on, sailor

Release and Rerelease

Reprise Records released the single in February 1973. The days of Beach Boys’ number-one hits had dried up. Their previous two singles didn’t even chart in the U.S. “Sail On, Sailor” peaked at number 79 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1975, the song was released again in the wake of the success of their Endless Summer album of past hits. “Sail On, Sailor” reached number 49.