Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction," in that it describes the consequences of an apocalyptic nuclear war. According to the liner notes, the writers "imagined ourselves as the few survivors, escaping on a boat to create a new civilization." This represents one of Kantner's recurring themes, to which he would return again in the 1970 concept album Blows Against the Empire. The words of the song depict the horrors confronting the survivors of a nuclear holocaust in which the two sides have annihilated each other. A man from one side stumbles upon a man (or woman, as in Jefferson Airplane's version) from the other side and asks him/her, "Can you tell me, please, who won?" Since the question has no real meaning in the circumstances or even at all, it is left unanswered. To stay alive, they share "purple berries", as a result of which they "haven't got sick once" (iodine pills, which protect against radioactive iodine-131 in nuclear fallout). The lyrics beg "silver people on the shoreline," described by David Crosby as "guys in radiation suits," to "let us be." As the wooden ships, devoid of metal that would become radioactive from neutron activation, are carrying the survivors away from the shores, radiation poisoning kills those who have not made it aboard. That grim tableau is described thus: Horror grips us as we watch you die All we can do is echo your anguished cries Stare as all human feelings die We are leaving you don't need us It is also described in an (unsung) prelude, included in the lyric sheet: Black sails knifing through the pitchblende night Away from the radioactive landmass madness From the silver-suited people searching out Uncontaminated food and shelter on the shores No glowing metal on our ship of wood Only free happy crazy people naked in the universe In popular culture The song is alluded to in Neil Young's 1986 song "Hippie Dream" from the album Landing on Water in the refrain "The wooden ships/were just a hippie dream" which is later altered to "The wooden ships are a hippie dream/capsized in excess/if you know what I mean". In 1975 Mike Friedrich and Steve Leialoha adapted the song into graphic format for issue #3 of the alternative Science-fiction and Fantasy magazine Star*Reach. Jackson Browne later asked David Crosby, "What about the guys who can't escape?" - referring to those who get left behind after