Songfacts®:

• Not to be confused with that other big ship of the traditional children's rhyme, this was written by Raymond Froggatt, and was a hit for Cliff Richard when he was still relatively young. It is constructed almost entirely from clichés: "Love is a big ship, following me," etc.
  
  Alas, that ship sailed leaving Cliff on the shore, and he remained a bachelor boy. In spite of the usual scurrilous rumors that surround a famous unmarried man of a certain age, Cliff was always emphatically heterosexual, but realized there were more important things in life than sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll, though it remains to be seen if he had to record "Millennium Prayer."
• "Big Ship" was released in May 1969 backed by "She's Leaving You." >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2