Amsterdam    (video)    (intro)

 

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1. 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 sea,

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    in the port of Amsterdam there's a sailor who sleeps

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    while the river bank weeps to the old willow tree.

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    In the port of Amsterdam there's a sailor who dies,

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    full of beer, full of cries in a drunken town fight,

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    in the port of Amsterdam there's a sailor who's born

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    on a hot muggy morn by the dawn's early light.

 

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2. 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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    and he'll show you his teeth that have rotted too soon,

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    that can haul up the sails that can swallow the moon.

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    And he yells to the cook with his arms open wide,

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    “Hey, bring me more fish, throw 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 stands up and laughs and he zips up his fly.

 

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3. In the port of Amsterdam you can see sailors dance,

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    paunches bursting their pants, grinding women to porch,

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    they've forgotten the tune that their whiskey voice croaked,

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    splitting 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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    till the rancid sound of the accordion bursts,

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    and then out of the night with their pride in their pants,

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    and the sluts that they tow underneath the street lamps.

 

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4. 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'll drink to the health of the whores of Amsterdam,

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    who've given their bodies to a thousand other men.

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    Yeah, they've bargained their virtue, their goodness all gone,

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    for a few dirty coins, well, he just can't go on,

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    throws his nose to the sky and he aims it up above,

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    and he pisses like I cry on the unfaithful love.

 

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    In the port of Amsterdam, in the port of Amsterdam.

 

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    (David Bowie)