Now back when this earth was a silver blue jewel

And back when your grandfather's father was young

Men of these shores made and gave up their lives

Pulling up fish from the sea



While down in the African slavery trade

Stealing young men to cut sugar cane

Rum to New Bedford and codfish from Maine

They were building a wall that will always remain



Oh, the crown and the cross the musket and chain

The white man's religion, the family name

Two hundred years later and who is to blame?

The captain or the cargo or the juice of the sugar cane



The doryman he knows when the riptides will run

He sets out his nets and he sits in the sun

He thinks of his family and drinks of his rum

And he waits for the codfish to come



It's the same god-damned ocean that keeps them alive

It will swallow you up, it will let you survive

It will heal you and steal you and take you away

Like a note in a bottle with nothing to say



Now back when this earth was a silver blue jewel

And back when your grandfather's father was young

Men of these shores made and gave up their lives

Pulling up fish from the sea