Around the Wild Cape Horn

I was born a land-bound farm boy and in New England raised
The rippling of the wheat fields, well they were my ocean waves
Each cry and call, each rise and fall of crows across the corn
Were seagulls swooping across the bow
Of the ship I dreamed I'd sail around Cape Horn

My deck was the dusty farmyard, my mast was the telegraph pole
The windblown choir and the telephone wire
Was the call heard in my soul
And it seemed to have been singing since the day that I was born
You're gonna take a trip on a sailing ship
All the way around the wild Cape Horn

Well, I found that ship in Hamburg, her name it was Peking
Our skipper's name was Captain Jürs, well I never met a man like him
He pulled two men out from the sea, by the hair in a raging storm
And he kept that grip on the sailing ship
All the way around the wild Cape Horn

Well, the cargo weighed five thousand tons
The ship three thousand more
An acre of sail was up aloft, some seventeen stories tall
And we had a pig and a scruffy dog and a turkey fed on corn
And willing hands to drive her on
All the way around the wild Cape Horn

Well, it's four hours on and it's four hours off
And you sleep in your wet clothes
The only dry thing on the ship is the cargo down below
Eleven thousand miles we sailed, nigh on one hundred dawns
Thirty two sails on a heaving ship
Hauling us around the wild Cape Horn

Seventeen days we were becalmed, then Friday the thirteenth
Sixty-eight great ships were lost in the storm of the century
We blew into the Atlantic on a sunlit sparkling morn
The turkey got sick, so we ate him quick
On the way around the wild Cape Horn

We lost two boys out on that voyage, they got washed overboard
Silence from us down below, no one could put in words
Two empty bunks to mark the space, their two lives to mourn
Torn between all life and death
On the way around the wild Cape Horn

'Cause she had us sort of hypnotized
No time to catch our breath
If you want to love your life, you have to flirt with death
Sail close to the harnessed wind and treat all risks with scorn
A farm boy and an unyoked team
Ploughed their way around the wild Cape Horn

Mountain waves like avalanches, crashed upon her decks
The screaming winds ripped ropes
And spars and tried to have us wrecked
But she rose and fell through foam and swell
Her sails all ripped and torn
Eight thousand tons, tossed like a cork
We made it 'round the wild Cape Horn

'Cause she had us sort of hypnotized
No time to catch our breath
If you want to love your life, well you have to flirt with death
Sail close to the harnessed wind and treat all risks with scorn
A farm boy and an unyoked team
Ploughed their way around the wild Cape Horn
A farm boy and an unyoked team
Ploughed their way around the wild Cape Horn