GOODBYE AMERICA
As sung by Hughie Jones on "Maritime Miscellany" (2013)

1. It took sixteen days to cross from the Cape Sierra Leone.
Sailing out of London we were sixty days from home,
And the watch and the day being ended, the lads ashore for beer,
We made her nice and fast, my lads, at the foot of Brooklyn pier.

CHORUS: So it's goodbye, America; farewell, New York town.
Your hard streets and concrete surely brought me down.
You courted me with tinsel, spent my money blind.
Adios, America, I'm leaving you behind.
Adios, America, I'm leaving you behind.

2. Well, I'd read about America in a thousand magazines,
And my mind was filled with images of a hundred TV screens.
You looked just like a fairyland as nighttime came down,
Riding in a taxi in the heart of New York town.

3. Your fairy lights were neon strips, cold to the touch.
Your castles in the air, they were really not so much.
The presents that I bought cost a lot of dough.
When the color faded, the plastic it showed through.

4. Now our ropes are singled up; we're loaded down with flour.
We're taking Pepsi Cola to the port of Calabar.
While sailing down the Hudson, no one seemed to mind.
Adios, America; I'm leaving you behind.