GIFT OF THE SEA       Bill Gallaher © SOCAN 1994

Old Jim was a dreamer, a deep-water sailor
Slim as a buntline, spare as a breeze
He filled my head up with songs about whalers
And tales of the South China Seas
We’d walk down the quay, old Jim and me
While the moon sailed a quicksilver sea
With me just an aimless and foolish young man
And Jim all the things I could be

The sea was his life; he knew all of its vices
Lost count of the times that he sailed round the Horn
To ports in the Far East for tea and for spices –
And all this before I was born
He chased down the whales through the ice and the gales
When he sailed the cold Kamchatka Sea
Though I was an aimless and foolish young man
I remember what Jim said to me

“You can worry like some
That your ship might go down
But there’s more ways than one
That a man has to drown
He can drown in his troubles and fears
Drown in his sorrow and tears”

Old Jim is long gone now, he’s hauled up his anchor
Sails by the wind out on some starry sea
But I still hear him say as he nods his head seaward
“Out there even poor men are free”
Now sometimes at night when the moon’s on the rise
And I’m anchored in some island’s lee
I think of old Jim and the times that we shared
When he gave me the gift of the sea

(From the Bill Gallaher Songbook. Chords given are in G.)