Talk:Ride Captain Ride

USS Pueblo (AGER-2)

I'd heard this song was written about the Pueblo incident. Anyone else? AMCKen (talk) 04:15, 23 January 2009 (UTC)AMCKen

I had heard on a radio show that this song was written on the spot the same day it was being recorded. Blues Image was being pressured to hurry up and use their studio time, because Three Dog Night was scheduled next.

So this song was written on the fly. Eddie Rabbit had a similar situation with Suspicion, not to be confused with the 1962 song, but his session was more relaxed because there was nobody else scheduled in the studio. Nirradnaed 24 (talk) 15:45, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

  Here is a quote from Mike Pinera who wrote the song.  Taken from jeffkramer.blogspot.com/2014/11/a-very-candid-conversation-with-mike.html
  Unless the quote is fake, Pinera specifically says that someone from the Pentagon called him about the song's lyrics:

" The producer heard the song and said, “This is the hit. Let’s work on this. Drop everything else.” So, we worked all day on “Ride Captain Ride.” At the end of the day, everybody listened to it and said, “This is the most commercial thing we have. This could be a hit.” The record label heard it and said, “Okay, we’re back on track. We’ll give this serious promotion.” They did. We went out on tour. Now, we were playing with the Who at eighty-thousand-seat stadiums. We had gone up quite a bit from halls and theaters to stadiums. We were doing quite well.

Then, as fate would have it, I got a call from the Pentagon. They wanted to know how I knew about a secret spy ship called the USS Pueblo. I said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” They said, “Don’t give us that. There were seventy-three men. They sailed out of San Francisco. They got captured by a Korean destroyer out in international waters and were taken to Korea. It almost started an incident. The Koreans are saying that it was a spy ship, so we’re having some serious problems. Meanwhile, your song is out telling the whole story. It was exactly seventy-three men and exactly San Francisco.” I said, “It’s just a coincidence.” They didn't believe it. I assured them that the song was written about two months before it was recorded. I said, “How could I know about it four months before it happened, because that’s when I wrote the song.” They agreed with me. As it turns out, when I was on tour, sometimes people would come up to me who were on the crew of the Pueblo and say, “Thanks for writing that song for us. That’s really great.” I said, “I wrote it for you, but I wrote it for everybody else, too.”

I heard it was just coincidence that the USS Pueblo had a crew of 73 men, and sailed from San Francisco. Government investigators questioned the songwriters about this. Yumagah (talk) 00:57, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

This is some sort of urban legend. The crew complement when her last mission began was 83, not 73. Sadly, one sailor was killed by the North Koreans while chasing the ship down in international waters, leaving only 82 to be captured and ultimately released. (see http://www.history.navy.mil/library/special/pueblo.htm). Further, while the ship did indeed transit through San Francisco after leaving Bremerton (Seattle) where she was converted for intelligence work, her home port was San Diego, and it was from there that she ultimately sailed for the Far East (see http://www.usspueblo.org/v2f/incident/incidentframe.html). Finally, the incident took place in 1968 (capture through release) and was big news at the time (so it wasn't like a secret that leaked out later) - if this group were trying to capitalize on the notoriety of the events surrounding the capture, they sure took a long time to do so. Remember things were moving pretty fast back then: the war in SEA, riots in the streets at home, the landings on the moon, etc. - by 1970 when the song came out, The Pueblo Incident would have seemed like ancient history.Jmdeur (talk) 03:54, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

You're thinking of "I'm Your Captain (Closer to Home)," by Grand Funk Railroad. ----DanTD (talk) 20:41, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

The lyrics of "I'm your Captain" are a bit vague, but appear to be talking about a mutiny rather than the capture of a ship by outside forces. For example, in the first verse, the vocalist sings, "I'm your captain" in conjunction with his pleas to have his ship returned - one wouldn't tell a boarding party that obviously. Of course, this song also came out in 1970 - so the above argument about waiting a long time to capitalize on the capture of Pueblo would still hold. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.158.61.140 (talk) 19:07, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

"Government investigators questioned the songwriters about this." That's the kind of thing that civilians and conspiracy theorists always claim, but on what grounds would they need to be questioned by "Government investigators"? "Hey, we need to look into why you wrote a song about something that happened in the public eye 2 years ago"? Seriously?John Simpson54 (talk) 17:30, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Popular Culture section becoming an unreferenced Trivia List

We seem to have a problem in this section. I know the song is popular, but there are better ways to document that than to simply keep adding random mentions of its use in the media. Most of these are unreferenced and do not add to the understanding of the song's popularity. Please help me re-shape that section and write it out in such a way that helps to illustrate the song's pupularity through the decades. Citations are always helpful. Google Books is a good place to begin. Remember, there are editors who find these lists unencyclopedic and who might just delete it all and be justified under Wikipedia Guidelines. LiPollis (talk) 12:00, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Lead Singer

Can anyone verify who the lead singer is/was on this song. While all the singers in the group seem to blend harmony in the chorus parts, are the stanzas being sung by Mike Pinera? If it can be verified, place it in the article please. Thanks 2602:306:320A:AF0:3D94:95B9:B4D1:4841 (talk) 04:46, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes it's Mike Pinera Farwest110 (talk) 21:31, 14 September 2016 (UTC)