Girls of Every Colour                                        © Andy Sugden 2006

I was just a lad of fifteen years.
Destined for the mine,
But I couldn't stand that gloomy place
I like the sun to shine.
So I ran away, hitched to Hull,
Signed on the Empire Line.
I've been on that journey neigh on sixty years.

First run ashore, Lisbon town,
A lady of the night.
She took away my innocence
Then robbed me out of sight.
The other sailors laughed and howled
And said it served me right,
"But cheer up lad it'll stand you in good stead."

Chorus:

I've courted girls of every colour
In every distant land.
I've seen sights to make your eyes stare,
Let fortune slip my hand.
I've played mandolin and fiddle
In a roving gypsy band
I never had the urge to settle down.

Amelie in Toulon;
I was smitten from the start.
She got right underneath my skin
And wrapped around my heart.
She swore that she loved only me,
I adored her for my part.
She dumped me when the Yankee fleet came in.

For the love of a girl in Naples
I got put away for fourteen days.
Her papa said I "Was no good,
Beware a sailor's ways."
He was a man of great influence,
And influence always pays.
When they let me out, I still stole that girl away.

I've been chased by a jealous knifeman
Through the back streets of Rome,
Near froze on a Swedish balcony
When a husband, he came home.
Tried to shin over a harem wall
Behind a blue mosque's dome.
I've serenaded senoritas in Santiago.

I've been love struck by a geisha girl
In Tanobe, south Japan,
Had my eye blacked by a princess
In regal Rajasthan
And spent a fortune on a girl down Bugis Street
Who turned out to be a man.
Theres some lessons I'm just never going to learn.

I've had my heart broke and broken hearts
All around the Seven Seas,
From Vera Cruz east to Panama,
Where e'er I could take my ease.
From Spitsbergen in the far flung north
To Antarctica's icy seas,
These itching feet will always drive me on.

But now my bones are aching
And my eyesight's damned near failed,
I'm returning to that little town
Against which I've oft time railed.
And I'll tell tales in the pub at night
Of all the seas I've sailed.
Any regrets? No, not a blasted one!