Blog: May 14, 2021:
The Story Behind the Song,
"Sailing Into the Future":

My friends and family know I'm not really a book-reader. When I do read a book, I prefer nonfiction, since I find facts and statistics interesting. My favorite author nowadays is Malcolm Gladwell and I've read most of his books about the human experience, including many misconceptions. Another thought-provoking book in my small collection is "They Became What They Beheld" by Edmund Carpenter. It was published in 1970 and has chapter titles such as "Clothing As Weaponry" and "Restraining Sight" with a quote from Picasso.

Edmund was inspired by Marshall McLuhan, whose motto was "The medium is the message". He died in 1980 before Facebook came along and "Likes" became the lifeblood of thousands. He might have said, "I told you so!" Many people think that the message is the message, period. However, movies freed the theatre to become much more experimental, and streaming has pushed movies into dozens of genres and platforms. The mini-series was a new invention only a few decades ago. Could it be that in the near future televisions and movies screens will become vertical, like our phones?

I wrote "Sailing Into The Future" after reading another nonfiction book "Future Shock" written by Alvin Toffler. So many aspects of our culture that he observed are still valid. He was downright prophetic about decision-making driving us crazy. "Which shampoo should I choose?" is only one of hundreds we must make daily. To this day, we are helping each other adapt to using our phones for everything, recommending apps and sites to our friends. It's crazy how we have too much abundance.

In "Sailing Into The Future", I begin and end the song with, "I’m sailing into the future, with winds of change into my sails." I summarize our predicament: Although we are all "sailing" into the future, it's difficult to accept all the changes as fast as they come. It's hard to really let go and move on from what is comfortably familiar. In the bridge of the song, I sing, "But we hold onto our boundaries and we’re afraid to open the door." Our children may be more mentally equipped for technology and space travel than we are. Poetically, I compare sailing the ocean with space travel: "bigger waves with stars in the swell, and they won't have an ocean breeze." I end the song with this lament, "For the only way that we can leave today — We’ll have to really let go."

Please visit my website's page of "Sailing Into the Future" to hear and download it. On the song's page, you can also read the lyrics and see a video. One time, just for fun, I played the video and the song at the same time to see how different they were. Give it a try!

If you're a Spotify user, please add "Sailing Into The Future" to your favorites: click HERE