As Long as We Can Sail Away

I resist singing certain songs as times because I've never quite cured myself of a childhood lisp. Speech therapy felt like absolute torture and I remember how frustrated I got with myself. There were torturous, S-heavy sentences to read and a mirror held before me, demonstrating precisely what I was doing wrong. Already self-critical to a fault, this was not what needed. Many hours immediately after lunch were spent in windowless offices that doubled as classrooms--offices peopled by idealistic therapists mostly in their late twenties and early thirties.

For whatever reason, I never managed to learn how to make the proper consonant sound with my teeth closed. It's not as prominent as it was then, though sometimes it is noticeably more pronounced. As a musician, I probably ought to own it as an idiosyncrasy, though I am still very ashamed and mortified when I hear it prominently. Now for the song.



I could live inside a tepee
I could die
in Penthouse thirty-five

You could lose me on the freeway
But I would still
make it back alive.

As long as we can sail away
As long as we can sail away

There'll be wind in the canyon
Moon on the rise
As long as we can sail away.

See the losers in the best bars
Meet the winners in the dives

Where the people are the real stars
All the rest of their lives.

As long as we can sail away
As long as we can sail away

There'll be wind in the canyon
Moon on the rise
As long as we can sail away.

There's a road
stretched out between us
Like a ribbon on the high plain

Down from Phoenix through Salinas
'Round the bend and back again.

As long as we can sail away
As long as we can sail away

There'll be wind in the canyon
Moon on the rise

As long as we can sail away
As long as we can sail away.