(Brel & Shuman)
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In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who sings
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of the dreams that he brings from the wide open seas.
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In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who sleeps
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while the riverbank weeps through the old willow trees.
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In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who dies full of beer,
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full of cries in a drunken down fight.
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In the port of Amsterdam, there a sailor who's born
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on a muggy hot morn, by the dawn's early light.
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In the port of Amsterdam, where the sailors all meet,
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there's a sailor who eats only fish heads and tails.
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He will show you his teeth that have rotted too soon
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that can swallow the moon, that can haul up the sail.
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And he yells to the cook with his arms open wide, bring me more fish, put it down by my side.
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And he wants so to belch, but he's too full to try
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so he gets up and he laughs, and he zips up his fly.
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In the port of Amsterdam, you can see sailors dance,
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haunchs bursting their pants, grinding women to paunch.
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They've forgotten the tune that their whisky voice croaked,
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and they're spitting the night with the roar of their jokes.
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And they turn and they dance, and they laugh and they lust
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to the rancid sound of the accordian's burst.
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then it's out into the night with their pride in their pants
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and a slut that they tow underneath the street lamps.
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In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who drinks.
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and he drinks, and he drinks, and he drinks once again.
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He drinks to the health of the whores of Amsterdam
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who have promised their love to a thousand other men.
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And they bargain their bodies and their virtue, long gone,
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for a few dirty coins, and when he can't go on,
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he plants his nose in the sky and we wipes it up above
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then he splits like I cry for an unfaithful love,
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in the port of Amsterdam, in the port of Amsterdam, in the port of Amsterdam.
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Amsterdam
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John Denver |