Odetta - "Sail Away Ladies"

If I could do it over again, I'd have my life start in precisely the way that "Sail Away Ladies" does - with a contrabass riff. After all, "Sail Away Ladies" turned out alright - it doesn't eat too much candy, drink too much Diet Pepsi, swear like a sailor, sail like Norman Mailor (i.e. badly), or suffer, really, from any of the myriad inadequacies that make me an unsuitable suitor, among other unfortunate things. It's easy to think of that bass riff as a source of life, too, since "SAL" sprouts from it like a plant from the earth, Odetta's voice a sturdy, striving stock, and the guitar parts, emerging at intervals, intricate and intertwining leaves. And like the earth, the riff is a cool cat; even as a song bursts forth from its very being, the stalwart bass riff remains aloof and unchanged, rising up out of the din and diving back down into it.

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