Am G
In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who sings
F E
of the dreams that he brings from the wide open seas.
Am G
In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who sleeps
F E Am
while the riverbank weeps through the old willow trees.
C G
In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who dies
Am E
full of beer, full of cries in a drunken down fight.
F Em
In the port of Amsterdam, there a sailor who's born
F E Am
on a muggy hot morn, by the dawn's early light.
Am G
In the port of Amsterdam, where the sailors all meet,
F E
there's a sailor who eats only fish heads and tails.
Am G
He will show you his teeth that have rotted too soon
F E Am
that can swallow the moon, that can haul up the sail.
C G
And he yells to the cook with his arms open wide,
Am E
bring me more fish, put it down by my side.
F Em
And he wants so to belch, but he's too full to try
F E Am
so he gets up and he laughs, and he zips up his fly.
Am G
In the port of Amsterdam, you can see sailors dance,
F E
haunches bursting their pants, grinding women to paunch.
Am G
They've forgotten the tune that their whisky voice croaked,
F E Am
and they're spitting the night with the roar of their jokes.
C G
And they turn and they dance, and they laugh and they lust
Am E
to the rancid sound of the accordion's burst.
F Em
then it's out into the night with their pride in their pants
F E Am
and a slut that they tow underneath the street lamps.
Am G
In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who drinks.
F E
and he drinks, and he drinks, and he drinks once again.
Am G
He drinks to the health of the whores of Amsterdam
F E Am
who have promised their love to a thousand other men.
C G
And they bargain their bodies and their virtue, long gone,
Am E
for a few dirty coins, and when he can't go on,
F Em
he plants his nose in the sky and we wipes it up above
F E Am
then he splits like I cry for an unfaithful love,
Em Am Em
in the port of Amsterdam, in the port of Amsterdam, in the port of Amsterdam.
