As recorded by Tom Lewis on "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Singer."


NEW YORK GIRLS

Shanghaied in San Francisco, we fetched up in Bombay,
They set us afloat in a *leasehold boat that steered like a bale of hay.
Chorus:
Away you Santee, my dear Annie,
Oh you New York girls, you love us for our money.

We know the track to Auckland, the light at the *Kinsale Head,
We've crept close-hauled while the leaderman bawled the depth of the Channel bed.

We've panted in the tropic, while the pitch boiled up on deck,
We saved our hides, little else beside, from an ice-cold North Sea wreck.

We know the quays of Glasgow, the boom of the lone Azores,
We've had our grub from a salt-horse tub condemmed by the Navy stores.

We've drunk our rum in Portland, we've thrashed through the Behring Strait,
We've toed the mark on a Yankee barque, with a hard-case Down-East mate.

We know the streets of Santos, the river at Saigon,
We've had a glass with a Chinese lass in a houseboat in Canton.

They'll pay us off in Liverpool, then after a spell ashore.
Again we'll ship on a southern trip in a week or barely more.

So, goodbye Sal and Lucy, it's time we were afloat,
With a straw-stuffed bed and aching head, a knife and an oilskin coat.

Sing "Time for Us to Leave Her," sing "Bound for the Rio Grande,"
As the tug turns back we'll follow her track for a last long look at land.

As the purple disappears and only the blue is seen,
Commend our bones to Davy Jones, our souls to Fiddler's Green

*an old Leith boat ? *Old Kinsale Head, Ireland

Tom Lewis: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Singer. Borealis ASM 104D.
Ex-British Navy, Lewis lives in Salmo, B. C. Canada. Several of his recordings of sea songs are out-of-print.