A Capital Ship

A Capital Ship
Traditional
Arrangement by John Forster & Tom Chapin
© 1990 Limousine Music Co. & The Last Music Co. (ASCAP)

A capital ship for an ocean trip
Was the Walloping Window Blind.
No wind that blew dismayed her crew
Nor troubled the captain’s mind.
The man at the wheel was made to feel
Contempt for the wildest blow-ow-ow,
Though it oft appeared,
When the gale had cleared,
He had been in his bunk below.

So blow ye winds heigh-ho!
A-roving I will go,
I’ll stay no more on England’s shore
So let the music play-ay-ay.
I’m off for the morning train,
I’ll cross the raging main,
I’m off for my love with the boxing glove
Ten thousand miles away.

The bosun’s mate was very sedate,
Yet fond of amusement, too.
He played hopscotch with the starboard watch
While the captain tickled the crew.
The gunner we had was apparently mad,
For he sat on the after ra-ai-ail
And fired salutes with the captain’s boots
In the teeth of a booming gale.

The captain sat on the commodore’s hat
And dined in a royal way
Off pickles and figs and little roast pigs
And gunnery bread each day.
The cook was Dutch and behaved as such,
For the diet he served the crew-ew-ew
Was a couple of tons of hot-cross buns,
Served up with sugar and glue.

Then we all fell ill, as mariners will,
On a diet that’s rough and crude.
And we shivered and shook
As we dipped the cook
In a tub of his gluesome food.
All nautical pride we cast aside
And we ran the vessel asho-o-ore
On the Gulliby Isles, where the poopoo smiles
And the rubbily ubdugs roar.

This song appears on Tom Chapin's Mother Earth CD.

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