We had a request from a reader to write about our sailing mix. Since I’d much rather be thinking about sailing than whether our new boat cover will arrive before the next major snowfall, I thought this might be a good time.
To begin to understand our sailing mix (mixes, actually, since there are a few), it’s important to first understand Yacht Rock. Yacht Rock is the most important online series ever created. It shines a light on the complicated and inbred world of smooth music from the late 70s and early 80s. Originally appearing on Channel101.com, creators J. D. Ryznar and Hunter D. Stair explore the relationships that we could previously only access via the liner notes of our vinyl collection: How did Jimmy Messina take it when Kenny Loggins left Loggins & Messina? How did Michael McDonald get to co-write Kenny Loggins’ This is It and do the backup vocals on Steely Dan’s Peg? What’s the Steely Dan/Toto connection with Jeff Porcaro? Why are Hall & Oates so mean?
Before we ever thought of literally having a yacht, we had memorized most of Yacht Rock and incorporated Vincent Price’s pronunciation of “smyooth music” into our daily discourse. We got Fortuitous in August of 2009, and only had a couple months of sailing before we had to put her away for a long and brutal winter. In the downtime, we set out to craft some sailing mixes for the boat.
“Smooth Sailing” is a general mix of songs that are either from Yacht Rock or generally meet the smoothed out vibe that we’re usually going for on the boat. “Songs About Sailing” is, as you might expect, songs that literally mention sailing or sailing things. It contains some songs that we don’t actually like all that much, but we wanted a complete list. There’s actually also a third playlist, not enumerated here, called “Smooth Sailing, No Raggae,” for situations in which we want to more strictly stick to Koko Goldstein’s image of smooth music.
Smooth Sailing
- Baby We’ve Got A Date, Bob Marley
- What A Fool Believes, Doobie Brothers
- Sara Smile, Hall & Oates
- Hard To Say, Dan Fogelberg
- Reminiscing, Little River Band
- Sail On, The Commodores
- You Belong To Me, Doobie Brothers
- You’re the Only Woman, Ambrosia
- Deacon Blues, Steely Dan
- Summer Breeze, Seals & Crofts
- Three Little Birds, Bob Marley
- On and On, Stephen Bishop
- Rosanna, Toto
- Sailing, Christopher Cross
- Right Down The Line, Gerry Rafferty
- Is This Love, Bob Marley
- Dance with Me, Orleans
- How Much I Feel, Ambrosia
- Mother And Child Reunion, Paul Simon
- Baby Come Back, Player
- I Love You, The Climax Blues Band
- Lost In Love, Air Supply
- Steal Away, Robbie Dupree
- Pressure Drop, Toots and the Maytals
- Peg, Steely Dan
- Everybody Wants To Rule The World, Tears For Fears
- Biggest Part of Me, Ambrosia
- Country Roads, Toots and the Maytals
- Do That to Me One More Time, Captain & Tennille
- Josie, Steely Dan
- I’d Really Love To See You Tonight, England Dan and John Ford Foley
- Down Under, Men At Work
- Africa, Toto
- Lowdown, Boz Scaggs
- If You Leave Me Now, Chicago
- Easy, The Commodores
- It’s Sad To Belong, England Dan & John Ford Coley
- It Might Be You (From “Tootsie”), Stephen Bishop
- Holding Back The Years, Simply Red
- Escape (The Pina Colada Song), Rupert Holmes
Songs About Sailing
- Sailing, Christopher Cross
- Southern Cross, Crosby, Stills & Nash
- Summer Breeze, Seals & Crofts
- Sail On, The Commodores
- Come Sail Away, Styx
- Wooden Ships, Stephen Stills
- Brandy, Looking Glass
- Caribbean Queen, Billy Ocean
- Son Of A Son Of A Sailor, Jimmy Buffett1
- Sailin’ The Wind, Loggins & Messina
- Sail Away, Neil Young
- Sloop John B, The Beach Boys2
- (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay, Otis Redding
- Friggin’ in the Riggin’, Sex Pistols
- Love Boat, from the TV show
- I’m on a Boat, The Lonely Island
Editor’s Note: Since the writing of this log entry, we’ve compiled all of the Yacht Rock episodes and our current playlists here:
1. In the words of James Ingram, Jimmy Buffett is “Mellow, but not smooth. And kind of shitty.”
2. “And then he took and he ate up all of my corn,” is a real lyric in this song. Fail.
