Amsterdam (Live Friars, Aylesbury, 25th September, 1971)

[Intro]
I want to go to another, hmm? "Port of Amsterdam"
This a number by another songwriter, yet again
It's, uh, by a French composer called Jacques Brel, who was writing a long time ago
And he wrote this song about fifteen years ago
Um, and it was called "Port of Amsterdam"
It was true then, it's not untrue now, merely, probably insufficient
Um, if we're slow, I haven't been up very long you see
I'm very bad at getting up, always have been bad at getting up, haven't you? It's terrible
When I was at school my mother could never get me up
She got over it, shе, she found out the trick of getting mе up
She used to put on a black dress and sit on the bed and cry
I'll be up like a shot
Enough of this frivolity
This is, this is the Jacques Brel number
Anyway, it's called "Port of Amsterdam"

[Verse 1]
In the port of Amsterdam there's a sailor who sings
Of the dreams that he brings from wide-open sea
And in the port of Amsterdam there's a sailor who sleeps
While the river bank weeps to the old willow tree
And in the port of Amsterdam there's a sailor who dies
Full of beer, full of cries, in a drunken down fight
In the port of Amsterdam there's a sailor who is born
On a hot muggy morn by the dawn's early light

[Verse 2]
In the port of Amsterdam where the sailors all meet
There's a sailor who eats only fish heads and tails
He'll show you his teeth that have rotted too soon
That can haul up the sails, that can swallow the moon
And he yells to the cook with his arms open wide
"Hey, bring me more fish, throw it down by my side"
And he wants so to belch but he's too full to try
So he stands up and he laughs and he zips up his fly

[Verse 3]
In the port of Amsterdam you can see sailors dance
Paunches bursting their pants, grinding women to porch
They've forgotten the tune that their whiskey voice croaked
Splitting the night with the roar of their jokes
And they turn and they dance and they laugh and they lust
Till the rancid sound of the accordion bursts
And then out of the night with their pride in their pants
And the sluts that they tow underneath the street lamps

[Verse 4]
In the port of Amsterdam there's a sailor who drinks
And he drinks and he drinks and he drinks once again
He drinks to the health of the whores of Amsterdam
Who've given their bodies to a thousand other men
Yeah, they've bargained their virtue, their goodness long gone
For a few dirty coins, when he just can't go on
Throws his nose to the sky, aims it up above
And he pisses like I cry for an unfaithful love
In the port of Amsterdam, in the port of Amsterdam

[Outro]
Thank you
Thank you very much indeed