Ralph McTell – Around The Wild Cape Horn (Guitar)

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I was born a land-bound farm boy and in New England raised,

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The rippling of the wheat fields, well they were my ocean waves.

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Each cry and call, each rise and fall, of the crows a-cross the corn

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Were seagulls swooping a-cross the bow, of a ship I dreamed I'd sail a-round

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Cape Horn.

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My deck was the dusty farm yard, my mast was the telegraph pole

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And the windblow choir in the telephone wire was the call heard in my soul

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And it seemed to have been singing since the day that I was born

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I'm gonna take a trip on a sailing ship, all the way around the wild Cape 

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Horn

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Well I found that ship in Hamburg, her name it was Peking

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Our skipper's name was Captain Jürs, and I'd never met a man like him.

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He pulled two men out from the sea, by the hair, in a raging storm.

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And he kept that grip on a sailing ship, all the way around the wild Cape

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Horn.

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Well its four hours on and its four hours off and you sleep in your wet

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clothes

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The only dry thing on the ship is the cargo down below

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Eleven thousand miles we sailed, nigh on one hundred dawns

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Thirty two sails on a heaving ship, pulling us around the wild cape horn

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Well the cargo weighed five thousand tons, the ship three thousand more.

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An acre of sail was up aloft, some seventeen storeys tall.

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And we had a pig, and a scruffy dog and a turkey fed on corn.

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And willing hands who catch the wind, hauling us around the wild Cape Horn.

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For seventeen days we were becalmed and then Friday the thirteenth

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Sixty eight great ships were lost in the storm of the century.

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But we were swept into the Atlantic, on a sun-lit sparkling morn,

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The turkey got sick, so we ate him quick, on the way around the wild Cape 

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Horn.

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Well she had us sort of hypnotised, no time to catch our breath,

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If you want to feel real alive, well you have to flirt with death.

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Sail close to the harnessed wind, and treat all risks with scorn

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A farm boy and an un-yoked team, ploughed their way around the wild Cape 

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Horn.

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Now on that voyage we lost two boys, they got thrown overboard.

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Silence from us down below, no one could put in words.

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Two empty bunks to mark the space in our young lives to mourn,

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Voids between all life and death, on the way around the wild Cape Horn

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And mountain waves, like avalanches crashed upon the decks,

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The screaming winds snapped ropes and spars, and tried to have us wrecked.

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But she rose and fell through foam and swell, her sails were ripped and torn

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Eight thousand tons tossed like a cork, on the way around the wild Cape Horn.

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And she had us sort of hypnotised, no time to catch our breath,

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If you want to feel real alive, well you have to flirt with death.

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Sail close to the harnessed wind, and treat all risks with scorn

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A farm boy and an un-yoked team, ploughed their way around the wild Cape 

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Horn.

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Well, a farm boy and un-yoked team, ploughed their way around the wild Cape 

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Horn.