A Cautionary Song Lyrics

Colin Meloy A Cautionary Song

there's a place your mother goes when everybody else is
soundly sleeping
through the lights of beacon street
and if you listen you can hear her weeping, she's
weeping,

cause the gentlemen are calling and the snow is softly
falling on her petticoats.
and she's standing in the harbour and she's waiting for
the sailors in the jolly boat. see how they approach

with dirty hands and trousers torn they grapple 'til
she's safe within their keeping
a gag is placed between her lips to keep her sorry
tongue from any speaking, or screaming

and they row her out to packets where the sailor's
sorry racket calls for maidenhead
and she's scarce above the gunholes when her clothes
fall to a bundle and she's laid in bed on the upper
deck

and so she goes from ship to ship, her ankles clasped,
her arms so rudely pinioned
'til at last she's satisfied the lot of the marina's
teeming minions, in their opinions

and they tell her not to say a thing to cousin,
kindred, kith or kin or she'll end up dead
and they throw her thirty dollars and return her to the
harbor where she goes to bed, and this is how you're
fed

so be kind to your mother, though she may seem an awful
bother,
and the next time she tries to feed you colored grease,
remember what she does when you're asleep