In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who sings Of the dreams that he brings from the wide open sea In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who sleeps While the riverbank weeps to the old willow tree In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who dies Full of beer, full of cries, in a drunken down fight But in the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who's born On a muggy, hot morn, by the dawn's early light In the port of Amsterdam, where the sailors all meet There's a sailor who eats only fish heads and tails He will show you his teeth that have rotted too soon That can swallow the moon, that can haul up the sails And he yells to the cook with his arms open wide Bring me more fish, put it down by my side And he wants so to belch, but he's too full to try So he gets up and he laughs, and he zips up his fly In the port of Amsterdam, you can see sailors dance Punches bursting their pants, grinding women to punch They've forgotten the tunes that their whiskey voice croaks And they're splitting the night with a roar of their jokes And they turn, and they dance, and they laugh and they lust Till the rancid sounds of the accordions burst Then it's out into the night with their pride in their pants With the slut that they tow underneath the street lamps In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who drinks And he drinks, and he drinks, and he drinks once again He drinks to the health of the whores of Amsterdam Who have promised their love to a thousand other men And they bargain their bodies and their virtue long gone For a few dirty coins, and then when he can't go on He plants his nose in the sky, and he wipes it up above And he spits like I cry for an unfaithful love In the port of Amsterdam In the port of Amsterdam In the port of Amsterdam