2005Released
5:35

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about O' Sailor. By Songfacts®.

This song is about being in mourning, although what it is over, Apple doesn't make clear. Some of the lyrics suggest a death, and some seem to be about a man being unfaithful. It could possibly even be both. The song and video have an eerie "ghost ship" type of effect.

When Fiona sings: O' Sailor, why'd you do it What'd you do that for Saying there's nothing to it And then letting it go by the boards "By the boards" is an expression meaning cast aside. It's a sailing term meaning something being thrown overboard as useless - it would go by the boards as it went past the ship.

Extraordinary Machine was Apple's third album. It was finally released in 2005, six years after her previous LP, When The Pawn... She started recording the album in 2003 with Pawn producer Jon Brion, but they could only complete two tracks to their satisfaction: the title track and "Waltz (Better Than Fine)," which ended up being the first and last songs on the album. The other nine tracks they worked on stagnated; Mike Elizondo was brought in to take over production, and it still didn't gel. With production at a standstill, Brion's roommate, a producer named Brian Kehew, began surreptitiously recording new versions of the tracks with Fiona without the record company knowing. They were able to complete the unfinished nine tracks, plus another that Fiona brought in called "Parting Gift." (Here's Brian's full story about making the album.)

Top Listeners

Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of O' Sailor.
DKey
MinorMode
3/4Time Signature
106BPM

Album

The album O' Sailor is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released O' Sailor.
Epic/Clean Slate
(P) 2005 Epic Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment

See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.

Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.

5.8MArtists
73.5MSongs
12.3MAlbums
6.3KGenres
2.5MLabels
493KPlaylists