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 doryman 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