John Denver

Amsterdam

John Denver


Tom: Am

       Am                           G               
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        
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
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, 
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
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 spitting the night with the roar of their jokes.
         C                             G
And they turn and they dance, and they laugh and they lust
       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
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,
      Am                        E
for a few dirty coins, and when he can't go on,
              F                      Em
he plants his nose in the sky and we wipes it up above
        F             E          Am
then he splits like I cry for an unfaithful love,
       Em                        Am                        Em
in the port of Amsterdam, in the port of Amsterdam, in the port of Amsterdam.