Amsterdam (1970) (video) (midi)

Am - Em - Am - Em - Am - Em - Am

Am G

1. In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who sings

F E

of the dreams that he brings from the wide open seas.

Am G

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

F E Am

while the riverbank weeps through the old willow trees.

C G E

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

Am E

full of beer, full of cries in a drunken down fight.

F Em

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

F E Am

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

Am G

2. In the port of Amsterdam, where the sailors all meet,

F E

there's a sailor who eats only fish heads and tails.

Am G

He will show you his teeth that have rotted too soon,

F E Am

that can swallow the moon, that can haul up the sail.

C G

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

E - Am E

bring me more fish, put it down by my side.

F Em

And he wants so to belch, but he's too full to try,

F E Am

so he gets up and he laughs, and he zips up his fly.

Am G

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

F E

haunches bursting their pants, grinding women to paunch.

Am G

They've forgotten the tune that their whisky voice croaked,

F E Am

and they're splitting the night with the roar of their jokes.

C G

And they turn and they dance, and they laugh and they lust

E - Am E

to the rancid sound of the accordion's burst.

F Em

Then it's out into the night with their pride in their pants

F E Am

and a slut that they tow underneath the street lamps.

Am G

4. In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who drinks,

F E

and he drinks, and he drinks, and he drinks once again.

Am G

He drinks to the health of the whores of Amsterdam,

F E Am

who have promised their love to a thousand other men.

C G

And they bargain their bodies and their virtue, long gone,

E Am E

for a few dirty coins, and then when he can't go on,

F Em

he plants his nose in the sky and he wipes it up above,

F Am

then he spits like I’d cry for an unfaithful love,

Em Am

in the port of Amsterdam, in the port of Amsterdam,

Em - Am

in the port of Amsterdam.

(orig.=cap 1st; midi=capo 3rd: Em-D-C-B7...)    (John Denver)