Amsterdam

In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who sings

Of the dreams that he brings from the wide open sea

In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who sleeps

While the river-bank weeps to the old willow tree

In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who dies

Full of beer, full of cries, in a drunken down fight

But in the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who's born

On a muggy hot morn, by the dawn's early light

In the port of Amsterdam, where the sailors all meet

There's a sailor who eats only fish-heads and -tails

And he'll show you his teeth that have rotted too soon

That can drink down the moon, that can haul up the sails

And he turns to the cook, with his arms open wide

"Bring me more fish, put it down by my side"

And he wants so to belch, but he's too full to try

So he gets up and he laughs, and he zips up his fly

In the port of Amsterdam, you can see sailors dance

Paunches bursting their pants, grinding women to paunch

They've forgotten the tune that their whiskey-voice croaks

Splitting the night with the roar of their jokes

And they turn and they dance and they laugh and they lust

Til the rancid sound of the accordion bursts

And it's into the night with their pride in their pants

And the slut that they tow underneath the streetlamps

In the port of Amsterdam there's a sailor who drinks

And he drinks, and he drinks, and he drinks once again

He drinks to the health of the whores of Amsterdam

Who have promised their love to a thousand other men

They have bargained their bodies, their virtues all gone

For a few dirty coins, and when he can't go on

He puts his nose in the air, and he wipes it up above

And he pisses like I cry for an unfaithful love

In the port of Amsterdam, in the port of Amsterdam

In the port of Amsterdam