Tommy Makem The Good Ship Calibar
Come all ye dry land sail-i-ars and listen to my song
It's only forty verses and I won't detain you's long
It's all about the adventures of this old Lisburn tar
Who sailed as man before the mast on the good ship
Calibar
Now the Calibar was a spanking craft, pitch bottomed
for and aft
Her helm, it stuck out far behind and her wheel was a
great big shaft
With half a gale to fill her sail, she'd do a knot an
hour
She's the fastest craft on the Lagan Canal and she's
only one horse power
Now, the captain was a strapping lad and he stood just
four foot two
His eyes was red and his nose was green and his cheeks
was a prussian blue
He wore a leather medal that he won in the Crimea War
And the captain's wife was the passenger cook on the
good ship Calibar
Now, the captain say to me 'Me lad, look here, me lad'
says he
'Would you's like to be a sail-i-ar and sail the raging
sea?
Would you's like to be a sail-i-ar on foreign seas to
roll
For we're under orders from Portadown with a half a ton
of coal'
It was early next morning, the weather, it being
sublime
When passing under the old Queen's Bridge, we heard the
Albert's chime
When going along the gaswork straits, a very dangerous
part
We ran ahole on a lump of coal that wasn't marked down
on the chart
Then all became cunfuse-i-en and the stormy winds did
blow
The bos'n slipped on an orange peel, fell into the hold
below
'Put on more speed', the captain cried 'for we are
sorely pressed'
But the engineer from the bank replied 'The horse is
doing his best'
Then we all fell into the water and we all let out a
roar
There was a farmer standing there and he threw us the
end of his galloses
And he pulled us all ashore
No more I'll be a sail-i-ar or sail the raging main
And the next time I go to Portadown, I'll go by the
bloody train
