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I was born a land-bound farm boy and in New England raised,
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The rippling of the wheat fields, well they were my ocean waves.
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Each cry and call, each rise and fall, of the crows a-cross the corn
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Were seagulls swooping a-cross the bow, of a ship I dreamed I?d sail a-round
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Cape Horn.
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My deck was the dusty farm yard, my mast was the telegraph pole
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And the windblow choir in the telephone wire was the call heard in my soul
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And it seemed to have been singing since the day that I was born
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I'm gonna take a trip on a sailing ship, all the way around the wild Cape
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Horn
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Well I found that ship in Hamburg, her name it was Peking
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Our skipper?s name was Captain Jürs, and I?d never met a man like him.
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He pulled two men out from the sea, by the hair, in a raging storm.
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And he kept that grip on a sailing ship, all the way around the wild Cape
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Horn.
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Well its four hours on and its four hours off and you sleep in your wet
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clothes
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The only dry thing on the ship is the cargo down below
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Eleven thousand miles we sailed, nigh on one hundred dawns
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Thirty two sails on a heaving ship, pulling us around the wild cape horn
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Well the cargo weighed five thousand tons, the ship three thousand more.
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An acre of sail was up aloft, some seventeen storeys tall.
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And we had a pig, and a scruffy dog and a turkey fed on corn.
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And willing hands who catch the wind, hauling us around the wild Cape Horn.
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For seventeen days we were becalmed and then Friday the thirteenth
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Sixty eight great ships were lost in the storm of the century.
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But we were swept into the Atlantic, on a sun-lit sparkling morn,
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The turkey got sick, so we ate him quick, on the way around the wild Cape
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Horn.
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Well she had us sort of hypnotised, no time to catch our breath,
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If you want to feel real alive, well you have to flirt with death.
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Sail close to the harnessed wind, and treat all risks with scorn
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A farm boy and an un-yoked team, ploughed their way around the wild Cape
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Horn.
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Now on that voyage we lost two boys, they got thrown overboard.
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Silence from us down below, no one could put in words.
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Two empty bunks to mark the space in our young lives to mourn,
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Voids between all life and death, on the way around the wild Cape Horn
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And mountain waves, like avalanches crashed upon the decks,
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The screaming winds snapped ropes and spars, and tried to have us wrecked.
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But she rose and fell through foam and swell, her sails were ripped and torn
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Eight thousand tons tossed like a cork, on the way around the wild Cape Horn.
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And she had us sort of hypnotised, no time to catch our breath,
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If you want to feel real alive, well you have to flirt with death.
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Sail close to the harnessed wind, and treat all risks with scorn
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A farm boy and an un-yoked team, ploughed their way around the wild Cape
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Horn.
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Well, a farm boy and un-yoked team, ploughed their way around the wild Cape
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Horn.