Crosby helps to inspire “A Search for Safe Passage”

Legendary singer-songwriter David Crosby passed away at the age of 81 on January 19, 2023. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

David Crosby’s music influenced creative director Frances Figart in writing GSMA’s award-winning title A Search for Safe Passage, geared for kids but offering much humor and significance for adults who love literature and music.

“His haunting post-apocalyptic anthem ‘Wooden Ships’ became the soundtrack for my creative work,” she says. “In the song, two groups of desolate people from opposite sides of a war encounter each other after the destruction has rendered them weak and nearly dead—and some don’t even know who won! The song began to represent for me a dreadful future when we have lost our iconic Appalachian species to our own blindness and apathy—a time when humans would say to the few remaining individual bear, deer, and elk:

Horror grips us as we watch you die
All we can do is echo your anguished cries

And the animals would reply:
We are leaving, you don’t need us.

Oh, but we do need them!”

A Search for Safe Passage alludes to “Wooden Ships” in several ways. You can purchase the book here to learn more.