Lyrics Amsterdam Scott Walker

Amsterdam

In the port of Amsterdam
There's a sailor who sings
Of the dreams that he brings
From the wide open sea
In the port of Amsterdam
There's a sailor who sleeps
While the riverbank weeps
With the old willow tree
In the port of Amsterdam
There's a sailor who dies
Full of beer, full of cries
In a drunken down fight
But in the port of Amsterdam
There's a sailor who's born
On a muggy hot morn
By the dawn's early light

In the port of Amsterdam
Where the sailors all meet
There's a sailor who eats
Only fish heads and tails
He will show you his teeth
That have rotted too soonThat can swallow the moon
That can haul up the sails
And he yells to the cook
With his arms open wide
Bring me more fish
Set it down by my side
And he wants so to belch
But he's too full to try
So he gets up and laughs
And he zips up his fly

In the port of Amsterdam
You can see sailors dance
Paunches bursting their pants
Grinding women to paunch
They've forgotten the tune
That their whiskey voice croaks
Splitting the night with the
Roar of their jokes
And they turn and they dance
And they laugh and they lust
Till the rancid sound of
The accordion bursts
Then out to the night
With their pride in their pants
And the slut that they tow
Underneath the street lamps

In the port of Amsterdam
There's a sailor who drinks
And he drinks and he drinks
And he drinks once again
He drinks to the health
Of the whores of Amsterdam
Who have promised their love
To a thousand other men
They've bargained their bodies
And their virtue's long gone
For a few dirty coins
And when he can't go on
He plants his nose in the sky
And he wipes it up above
And he pisses like I cry
For an unfaithful love

In the port of Amsterdam
In the port of Amsterdam