The Wild Cape Horn

歌詞

I was born a land-bound farm boy and in New England raised The rippling of the wheat fields, well they were my ocean waves Each rise and fall, each cry and call, of the crows across the corn Were seagulls swooping around the bow Of the ship I dreamed I'd sail around Cape Horn My deck was the dusty farmyard, my mast was the telegraph pole The windblown whine in the telegraph wire, was the sound called in my soul And it seemed to have been singing since the day that I was born You're gonna take a trip on a sailing ship All the way around the wild Cape Horn Well, I found that ship in Hamburg and her name it was Peking Our skipper's name was Jervis, well I never met a man like him He pulled two men out from the sea, by the hair, in a raging storm And he kept that grip on the sailing ship All the way around the wild Cape Horn Well, the cargo weighed five thousand tons, the ship three thousand more An acre of sail was up aloft, some seventeen stories tall And we had a pig and a scruffy dog and a turkey fed on corn Willing hands to drive her on All the way around the wild Cape Horn Well, its four hours on and its four hours off And you sleep in your wet clothes The only dry thing on the ship is the cargo down below Eleven thousand miles we sailed, nigh on one hundred dawns Thirty two sails on a heaving ship Hauling us around the wild Cape Horn Seventeen days we were becalmed, then Friday the thirteenth Sixty-eight great ships were lost in the storm of the century We blew into the Atlantic on a sunlit sparkling morn The turkey got sick, so we ate him quick On the way around the wild Cape Horn We lost two boys along the voyage, they got washed overboard Silence from us down below, no one could put in words Two empty bunks to mark the space, their two lives to mourn Torn between all life and death All the way around the wild Cape Horn Well, she had us sort of hypnotised No time to catch our breath If you want to love your life, you have to flirt with death Sail close to the harnessed wind and treat all risks with scorn A farm boy and an unyoked team Ploughed their way around the wild Cape Horn Mountain waves like avalanches, crashed upon the decks The screaming winds ripped ropes and spars and tried to have us wrecked But she rose and fell through foam and swell, her sails all ripped and torn Eight thousand tons, tossed like a cork We made it 'round the wild Cape Horn Well, she had us sort of hypnotised No time to catch our breath If you want to love your life, well you have to flirt with death Sail close to the harnessed wind and treat all risks with scorn A farm boy and an unyoked team Ploughed their way around the wild Cape Horn A farm boy and an unyoked team Ploughed their way around the wild Cape Horn