{"id":107756,"date":"2025-07-31T14:30:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T14:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/107756\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T14:30:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T14:30:12","slug":"stevie-nicks-calls-this-holland-track-a-quintessential-beach-boys-song-yet-brian-wilson-never-liked-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/107756\/","title":{"rendered":"Stevie Nicks Calls This ‘Holland’ Track a “Quintessential” Beach Boys Song, Yet Brian Wilson Never Liked It"},"content":{"rendered":"

While working on their nineteenth album, Holland, in 1972, the Beach Boys<\/a> 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<\/a>, who also went over, was still detached from any heavy involvement and production on the Beach Boys\u2019 albums, as he had been, on and off, since releasing Friends in 1968. <\/p>\n

When Dave Bursyn\u00a0of 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\u00a0Warner, was tasked with connecting with Wilson to finish an old song.<\/p>\n

Parks, who wrote with Wilson during the\u00a0Smiley Smile\u00a0sessions (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 \u201cSail On, Sailor,\u201d that he wanted to complete. Wilson originally started writing the song with Ray Kennedy and Danny Hutton for Three Dog Night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI called [Brian Wilson] up out of the clear blue sky and at some point he said, \u2018Let\u2019s write a tune,\u2019\u201d recalled Parks<\/a>. \u201cIt was better than having him stare at the angels on his headboard and write tunes about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Written by Wilson and Parks, along with songwriter and producer Tandyn Almer, who penned the Association\u2019s 1966 hit \u201cAlong Comes Mary,\u201d once released as a single, \u201cSail On, Sailor\u201d peaked at No. 79 on the\u00a0Billboard\u00a0chart and became a Beach Boys classic. (When it was re-released in 1975, \u201cSail On, Sailor\u201d went to No. 49.) <\/p>\n

[RELATED: This Kate Bush Song Captivated Stevie Nicks But She Never Dared to Cover It]<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Blondie Chaplin Replaces Dennis Wilson on Lead Vocals<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Chaplin, formerly of the early \u201960s South African band the Flames, had a brief stint with the Beach Boys, singing on their 1972 album, Carl and the Passions \u2013 \u201cSo Tough,\u201d along with Holland, before working with the Rolling Stones decades later.<\/p>\n

The lyrics drift through a story of perseverance through sailing the high seas.<\/p>\n

I sailed an ocean, unsettled ocean
Through restful waters and deep commotion
Often frightened, unenlightened
Sail on, sail on sailor<\/p>\n

I wrest the waters, fight Neptune\u2019s borders
Sail through the sorrows of life\u2019s marauders
Un-repenting, often empty
Sail on, sail on sailor<\/p>\n

Caught like a sewer rat alone, but I sail
Bought like a crust of bread, but oh, do I wail?<\/p>\n

Seldom stumble, never crumble
Try to tumble, minor rumble
Feel the stinging I\u2019ve been given
Never-ending, unrelenting
Heartbreak searing, always fearing
Never caring, persevering
Sail on, sail on sailor<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

\"\"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: \u201cIt does make you think.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Stevie Nicks, \u201cSail On, Sailor\u201d 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\u00a0Eagles<\/a>\u2018 1972 hit \u201cWitchy Woman<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0 Jackson Browne, \u201cSomebody\u2019s Baby,\u201d Chicago\u2019s \u201cHard Habit To Break,\u201d\u00a0Pat Benatar\u2019s \u201cLove Is A Battlefield,\u201d Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers\u2019 1985 hit \u201cDon\u2019t Come Around Here No More,\u201d \u00a0Kate Bush<\/a>\u2018s 1985 classic, \u201cRunning Up That Hill (A Deal With God)<\/a>,\u201d and more.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis song, to me, was really the quintessential Beach Boys song,\u201d said Nicks<\/a>. \u201cIt does make you think, \u2018I need to go get on a boat and go out to sea,\u2019 and I happen to love to sail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nicks went on to explain how the Beach Boys inspired her and many of the bands from the 1960s and \u201970s. \u201cA 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,\u201d she added. \u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brian Wilson\u2019s Love-Hate Relationship with \u201cSail On, Sailor\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though he co-wrote the song, Wilson said it was one of his least-favorite Beach Boys tracks. \u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s the only song that we did that I absolutely do not like at all,\u201d said Wilson<\/a>. \u201cI never liked \u2018Sailor On, Sailor.\u2019 I thought the lyrics were very, very weird. The lyrics didn\u2019t make any sense. I thought that \u2018Sail on, sail on, sailor,\u2019 that part was good, but the lyrics were so \u2026 off-the-wall kind of lyrics. I never could get with those lyrics.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, explaining the meaning behind the track. \u201cI wrote it one night, and I had some friends over, and this guy named Ray Kennedy wrote the original lyrics,\u201d recalled Wilson. \u201cAnd 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Wilson compiled the 19-track Classics Selected by Brian Wilson from 2002, he had a different connection to the song. He said, \u201cI love how this song rocks.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo: Fin Costello\/Redferns<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While working on their nineteenth album, Holland, in 1972, the Beach Boys relocated to the Netherlands to record…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":107757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[995,171,975,31517,996,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-107756","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-brian-wilson","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-stevie-nicks","12":"tag-the-beach-boys","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114948330321325212","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}