Digital Tradition Mirror

Polly on the Shore

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

Polly on the Shore
(Randy Newman)

Come all you wild young men and a warning take by me
Never lead your single life astray or into bad company
As I myself have done, being all in the month of May
When I, as pressed by a sea captain,
A privateer to trade
To the East Indies we were bound to plunder the raging main
And it's many the brave and a galliant ship
We sent to a watery grave
Ah, for Freeport we did steer, our provisions to renew
When we did spy a bold man-of-war sailing three feet to our two

Oh, she fired across our bows, "Heave to and don't refuse
Surrender now unto my command or else your lives you'll lose"
And our decks they were sputtered with blood
And the cannons did loudly roar
And broadside and broadside a long time we lay
Till we could fight no more
And a thousand times I wished myself alone,
All alone with my Polly on the shore

She's a tall and a slender girl with a dark and a-rolling eye
And here am I, a-bleeding on the deck
And for a sweet saint must lie
Farewell, my family and my friends, likewise my Polly too
I'd never have crossed the salt sea wide
If I'd have been ruled by you
And a thousand times I saw myself again,
All alone with my Polly on the shore

(aditional verses sung by Carthy):

We sailed on the ocean so wide
And our bonny bonny flag we let fly,
Let every man stand true to his gun
Or the lord knows who must die.
Oh, our captain was wounded full sore
And so were the rest of his men
Our main mast riggin' it was scattered on the deck
So that we were obliged to give in.

Copyright Randy Newman
Recorded by Fairport Convention on Nine; also Carthy & Swarbrick on
  Prince Heathen
JY

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!