While working on their nineteenth album, Holland, in 1972, the Beach Boys relocated to the Netherlands to record inside a renovated barn, the BBC2 studio (no connection to the British network), in the Dutch town of Baambrugge in Utrecht. At the time, Brian Wilson, who also went over, was still detached from any heavy involvement and production on the Beach Boys’ albums, as he had been, on and off, since releasing Friends in 1968.

When Dave Bursyn of Warner Records rejected the first draft of the Holland, for lack of a single-ready track, Van Dyke Parks, then director of audio-visual services at Warner, was tasked with connecting with Wilson to finish an old song.

Parks, who wrote with Wilson during the Smiley Smile sessions (1966-1967), was one of the few people who still had close contact with Wilson during this time. He also had the pieces of a song Wilson had started writing on cassette, called “Sail On, Sailor,” that he wanted to complete. Wilson originally started writing the song with Ray Kennedy and Danny Hutton for Three Dog Night.

“I called [Brian Wilson] up out of the clear blue sky and at some point he said, ‘Let’s write a tune,’” recalled Parks. “It was better than having him stare at the angels on his headboard and write tunes about them.”

Written by Wilson and Parks, along with songwriter and producer Tandyn Almer, who penned the Association’s 1966 hit “Along Comes Mary,” once released as a single, “Sail On, Sailor” peaked at No. 79 on the Billboard chart and became a Beach Boys classic. (When it was re-released in 1975, “Sail On, Sailor” went to No. 49.)

[RELATED: This Kate Bush Song Captivated Stevie Nicks But She Never Dared to Cover It]

Blondie Chaplin Replaces Dennis Wilson on Lead Vocals

The song also featured Blondie Chaplin on vocals and became one of the few popular Beach Boys songs not sung by Brian or Carl Wilson, nor Mike Love. On the day of recording, Dennis Wilson was scheduled to sing lead, but opted instead to break in a new surfboard and left a partially recorded vocal for the track behind.

Chaplin, formerly of the early ’60s South African band the Flames, had a brief stint with the Beach Boys, singing on their 1972 album, Carl and the Passions – “So Tough,” along with Holland, before working with the Rolling Stones decades later.

The lyrics drift through a story of perseverance through sailing the high seas.

I sailed an ocean, unsettled ocean
Through restful waters and deep commotion
Often frightened, unenlightened
Sail on, sail on sailor

I wrest the waters, fight Neptune’s borders
Sail through the sorrows of life’s marauders
Un-repenting, 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?

Seldom stumble, never crumble
Try to tumble, minor rumble
Feel the stinging I’ve been given
Never-ending, unrelenting
Heartbreak searing, always fearing
Never caring, persevering
Sail on, sail on sailor

I work the seaways (I work the seaways)
The gale-swept seaways (oh, the seaways)
Past shipwrecked daughters (oh, the daughters)
Of wicked waters (oh)
Uninspired, drenched, and tired
Wail on, wail on sailor

The Beach Boys posed in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1972: L-R Bruce Johnston, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson (Photo by Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns)Stevie Nicks: “It does make you think.”

For Stevie Nicks, “Sail On, Sailor” was her favorite song by the Beach Boys. She even named it among her top 10 favorites during an interview with BBC 2 Radio in 2011, adding the Beach Boys song alongside the Eagles‘ 1972 hit “Witchy Woman,”  Jackson Browne, “Somebody’s Baby,” Chicago’s “Hard Habit To Break,” Pat Benatar’s “Love Is A Battlefield,” Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 1985 hit “Don’t Come Around Here No More,”  Kate Bush‘s 1985 classic, “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God),” and more.

“This song, to me, was really the quintessential Beach Boys song,” said Nicks. “It does make you think, ‘I need to go get on a boat and go out to sea,’ and I happen to love to sail.”

Nicks went on to explain how the Beach Boys inspired her and many of the bands from the 1960s and ’70s. “A lot of the big groups really did play off the Beach Boys and really get so much inspiration from them and really listen to them carefully and how they worked out their little intense vocal background parts,” she added. “They were the reason why a lot of us sang and put stuff together the way we did. The Beach Boys are hugely important to all of us.”

Brian Wilson’s Love-Hate Relationship with “Sail On, Sailor”

Even though he co-wrote the song, Wilson said it was one of his least-favorite Beach Boys tracks.  “It’s the only song that we did that I absolutely do not like at all,” said Wilson. “I never liked ‘Sailor On, Sailor.’ I thought the lyrics were very, very weird. The lyrics didn’t make any sense. I thought that ‘Sail on, sail on, sailor,’ that part was good, but the lyrics were so … off-the-wall kind of lyrics. I never could get with those lyrics.”

He continued, explaining the meaning behind the track. “I wrote it one night, and I had some friends over, and this guy named Ray Kennedy wrote the original lyrics,” recalled Wilson. “And then somebody, somewhere, wrote another set of lyrics, and I never found out who they were. I never found out who wrote the actual lyrics to the song on the record.”

When Wilson compiled the 19-track Classics Selected by Brian Wilson from 2002, he had a different connection to the song. He said, “I love how this song rocks.”  

Photo: Fin Costello/Redferns