The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #42245   Message #4206410
Posted By: Charley Noble
01-Aug-24 - 08:48 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Cruising round Yarmouth
Subject: RE: Origins: Cruising round Yarmouth
My on take on this lovely old song, updated for the port city of Portland, Maine:

Words by Charlie Ipcar ©2002
Tune: traditional "Cruisin' Round Yarmouth"

Widgery Wharf

G------------C----G-----------Em
While cruisin’ ’round Portland one day for a spree,
-G---------------------------------D
I spied a fair damsel the wind blowin’ free;
-G-------------------Em
I buttoned me jacket and hove way me chew,
---C-------------------G
And drew along side, her bunting to view.

Chorus:

G--------------------------Em
Sing fal-de-ral, lad-dies, sing fal-de-ral-day,
----G------------C---G---D--------G
Sing fal-de-ral, lad-dies, sing fal-de-ral-day!

I said, “Pretty fair maid, where are you bound?”
She replied with a wink “The Old Port of Town;
To Widgery Wharf where me Friendship Sloop bides,
If you’d like to board her, I’ll lay you ’longside.” (CHO)

She tossed out a line and took me in tow,
To Widgery Wharf like a shot we did go;
We clewed up our tops’ls and rounded up neat,
And moored fore and aft, below Union Street. (CHO)

Now that sloop sure looked sharp, her fiddlehead neat,
And I admired her lines as I trimmed all her sheets;
She was round in the counter and broad at the beam,
Such a weatherly craft I seldom had seen. (CHO)

I checked out her cuddy and found lots of room,
And there deep inside I stowed me jib-boom;
We rode out the weather, the waves breaking free,
Hove to in her harbor, as snug as could be. (CHO)

Now, Widgery Wharf is a place I know well,
Since I’ve swallowed the anchor, in a bait shack to dwell;
Where I spend all me days a-mending fish gear,
But all of me nights in the arms of me dear. (CHO)