In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who sings
Of the dreams that he brings from the wide open seas
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
And 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 them down by my side
And he wants so to belch, but he's too full to try
So he gets up and laughs, and he zips up his fly
In the port of Amsterdam, you can see sailors dance
Poachers boasting their pants, grinding women to barge
They've forgotten a tune that their whisky voice croaks
Splitting the night with the roar of their jokes
And they turn and they dance and they laugh and they laugh
Till the rancid sound of the accordion bursts
Then out to the night with their pride in their pants
With the sluts that they tow underneath their 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 ten thousand men
They've bargained their bodies, their virtue and their god
For a few dirty coins when he can't go on
He plants his nose in the sky, wipes it up above
And he pisses like a cry for an unfaithful love
In the port of Amsterdam, the port of Amsterdam
In the port of Amsterdam, in the port of Amsterdam