Sugar Trade

Now back when this earth
Was a silver blue jewel
And back when your grandfather's
Father was young,
Men of these shores
Made and gave up their lives
Pulling up fish from the sea.

While down in the African slavery trade,
Stealing young men to cut sugar cane,
Rum to New Bedford
And codfish from Maine,
They were building a wall
That will always remain.

Oh, the crown and the cross
The musket and chain,
The white man's religion,
The family name.
Two hundred years later
And who is to blame?
The captain or the cargo
Or the juice of the sugar cane?

The dory man he knows
When the riptides will run,
He sets out his nets
And he sits in the sun.
He thinks of his family
And drinks of his rum
And he waits for the codfish to come.

It's the same god damned ocean
That keeps them alive,
It will swallow you up,
It will let you survive.
It will heal you and steal you
And take you away
Like a note in a bottle
With nothing to say

Now back when this earth
Was a silver blue jewel
And back when your grandfather's
Father was young,
Men of these shores
Made and gave up their lives
Pulling up fish from the sea.