It’s late. You’re in a pub, maybe in London, New York, or a tiny village in Galway, and the fiddle kicks in. Then comes that opening line about the skyscrapers looking like "great monuments of the sun." If you’ve ever felt the sting of leaving home, thousands are sailing lyrics aren't just words on a sleeve note. They’re a gut punch.
Written by the late Phil Chevron of The Pogues, this track from the 1988 album If I Should Fall from Grace with God manages to be both a history lesson and a modern-day heartbreak. It’s not your typical "Oirish" ballad about green hills and pretty girls. Honestly, it’s much darker and more honest than that. It captures that weird, liminal space of being an immigrant—the feeling of belonging nowhere while trying to find a "brand new world" that usually just turns out to be a different kind of struggle.
The ghost of the famine meets the neon of New York
Chevron didn't just write a song; he built a bridge between the 1840s and the 1980s. When you look closely at the thousands are sailing lyrics, you see he’s toggling back and forth between the "coffin ships" of the Great Famine and the planes taking young Irish kids to JFK in the eighties.
One minute he's talking about "the ghost of the Brendan Behan" dancing on the deck, and the next he’s mentioning "Manhattan Island alive with gold." It’s brilliant. It acknowledges that while we aren't literally starving to death in the hull of a wooden ship anymore, the psychological toll of forced emigration hasn't changed a bit. You’re still leaving. You’re still scared. You’re still looking for something that might not actually exist.
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People often mistake this for a happy anthem because of the swelling chorus. It’s catchy. You want to roar it out with a pint in your hand. But if you actually listen to what Shane MacGowan is growling, it’s a song about fear. It’s about the "fearful land" they left behind and the uncertain one they’re heading toward.
What those specific verses actually mean
Let’s break down the "Brendan Behan" reference because it’s sort of the heart of the song. Behan was the ultimate Irish literary rebel—a drinker, a writer, and a man who spent a lot of time in English prisons. By putting his ghost on the ship, Chevron is saying that the entire Irish identity, including its art and its rebellion, is being exported. We aren't just sending people; we’re sending our ghosts.
Then you have that line about the "Island that they passed," which is obviously Staten Island or Manhattan. But notice the phrasing: "To the land of opportunity / That was founded on the West." There’s a heavy dose of irony there. The eighties were a grim time in Ireland. Unemployment was through the roof. If you stayed, you were stagnant. If you left, you were a "Paddy" in a city that didn't always want you. The lyrics capture that desperation of being forced to choose between two versions of nothing.
The post-modern immigrant experience
Unlike older folk songs that romanticize the departure, thousands are sailing lyrics acknowledge the messy reality of the "plastic Paddy" or the kid who loses their accent to fit in. Chevron writes about the "shining city" but he also mentions the "hand of friendship" being "given with a curse."
It’s a cynical take.
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Most people focus on the "Sailing, sailing" part of the chorus, which feels triumphant. But the verses are where the truth lives. He talks about the "shores of Amerikay" with a K—a stylistic choice that feels old-fashioned and slightly mocking of the dream itself.
Why Phil Chevron wrote it (and why Shane sang it)
Phil Chevron wasn't actually the primary songwriter for The Pogues—that was usually Shane MacGowan—but this was his masterpiece. Chevron was an outsider within the outsider group. He came from a punk background with The Radiators from Space. He saw the world through a sharper, more political lens.
When MacGowan sings it, the song takes on another layer. Shane’s voice is the sound of a man who has been through the wringer. He sounds like the very people the song is about. There’s a recording of them performing this at Town & Country Club in 1988 where the energy is just feral. You can see the crowd—mostly Irish expats in London—screaming the words back at them. For those people, the song wasn't about the 19th century. It was about their Tuesday morning commute on the Tube.
The enduring legacy of the "Brand New World"
We still talk about this song because the cycle never really stopped. Sure, the countries change. Maybe it’s not Ireland to New York anymore. Maybe it’s Dublin to Sydney or London to Berlin. But the core sentiment—that "the dance goes on forever"—remains true.
The song basically argues that the Irish are a people defined by movement. We are a diaspora. The lyrics suggest that "thousands are sailing" isn't a temporary event; it’s a permanent state of being.
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Spotting the lyrical nuances
If you’re looking at the text, notice the lack of a traditional resolution. Most songs end with the protagonist finding success or going home. This song doesn't. It ends with the "shining city" and the "brand new world," but it leaves the characters right there, in the middle of the ocean or the middle of the street, still searching.
- The Coffin Ships: Referenced through the "thousands are sailing" line, echoing the 1840s tragedy.
- The "Great Monuments of the Sun": A beautiful, almost religious description of the New York skyline.
- The "Fearful Land": A stinging critique of the Ireland they left behind, which offered them no future.
How to actually appreciate the song today
If you want to get the most out of thousands are sailing lyrics, stop listening to it as a drinking song.
Try this: Put on the If I Should Fall from Grace with God album. Sit in a dark room. Listen to the way the mandolin and the banjo interact. Notice how the tempo actually feels like the swell of the Atlantic.
Honestly, the best way to understand the song is to look at the immigration statistics of the mid-1980s. Nearly half a million people left Ireland in that decade. For a country that small, it was a hemorrhage. The song is a primary historical document of that pain.
Actionable insights for the music fan
- Check out the live versions: Seek out the 1988 live recordings. The studio version is polished, but the live versions have a desperate, frantic energy that matches the lyrics better.
- Read about Phil Chevron: His life was fascinating, and his perspective on Irish culture was much more nuanced than the "drunken poet" trope often applied to the band.
- Compare with "The Fields of Athenry": Notice how "Thousands Are Sailing" is the cynical, punk-rock cousin to the more traditional "Fields." One mourns the past; the other stares the present in the face.
- Listen for the "Ghost": When you hear the mention of Behan, remember that he died in 1964. By 1988, he was already a myth. The song is about how we carry those myths in our suitcases.
The next time you hear this song, don't just toast to it. Think about the "brand new world" and whether any of us ever actually find it. The lyrics suggest we’re all still on the boat, somewhere between the past we can't go back to and a future that keeps moving the goalposts. That's why it still matters. It’s not a song about history. It’s a song about the restlessness that lives in everyone who has ever had to pack a bag and leave.
To really get into the spirit of the track, look up the lyrics and follow the narrative arc from the "ghosts" in the first verse to the "city" in the last. You’ll see a story of a people who are perpetually in transit, forever looking for a place to finally land.