Songfacts®:

• Hunter started writing "Ships" when he was with Mott The Hoople, but it didn't appear on vinyl until 1979 when he recorded it for his solo album You're Never Alone With A Schizophrenic; the song has been described as a hymn-like ballad about his relationship with his father.
• Surprisingly, this song was covered by Barry Manilow, and his version was a #9 US hit in 1979. Hunter recalled to Mojo magazine: "That whole Manilow thing was quite amusing. That guy's no slouch when it comes to arranging." >>

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• Hunter and his father often butted heads while he was growing up and it wasn't until he was older that he started to see things from his dad's perspective. Being a songwriter, he naturally explored his feelings through song.
  
  "I sat down to write 'Ships' when I finally reached the age of understanding with my father," he explained in Manilow's 1992 anthology, The Complete Collection And Then Some. "Two world wars and the Great Depression - fate handed him a rough time to grow up in - and he never was a happy man. My relationship with him throughout my teenage years was basically that of war and avoidance. I did learn discipline from him, and this proved useful to me as I am extremely lazy. It was from my father that I leaned the work ethic.
  
  So 'Ships' was a coming to terms with, and an appreciation of my dad, Walter Walker Patterson. He died 18 months after the song was released and I said goodbye on Blackpool beach where we had watched 'the dogs play around on the sand' (in later years)."
• Because he was raised by his single mother, and his father wasn't in the picture, Manilow found it difficult to connect with this song at first. "This song made a wonderful sounding record, but I was never really moved by it until I started to perform it," he noted in The Complete Collection And Then Some.
  
  "Having never known my real father, the sentiment crept up on me slowly and by the time we were touring with the Big Fun tour, I was very moved by 'Ships.' I'd sit on the steps of the stage and sing this song, imagining what it might have been like to be raised by both a mother and a father."
• Manilow's version, co-produced by Archies vocalist Ron Dante (of "Sugar, Sugar" fame), was featured on his sixth studio album, One Voice as one of three Top 40 singles, including "When I Wanted You" and "I Don't Want To Walk Without You."