Grateful Dead

handsome cabin boy

Handsome Cabin Boy

It's all a pretty female, as you may understand
Her mind invent her ramblin' unto some foreign land
She dressed herself in sailors clothes or so it does have been
And she hidin' with the Capt'n to sailin' for a year
The Capt'n's wife she'd on board she'd seen it in great joy
To think her husband had engaged such a hansome cabin boy
And now and then she'd slip him a kiss and she would have liked to toy
But it was the Capt'n who found out the secret of the hansome cabin boy
Her cheeks they were like roses and her hair all in a curl
The Sailors often smiled and said she looks just like a girl
But 'e didn't know the Capt'n's bisquits they're colored and destroyin'
The wasted swell of Pretty Nell, the hansome cabin boy
It was in the Bay of Bisquane our gallant ship did plow
One night one of the sailors was fearful an blowin' aroun'
They tumbled from their hammocks, Whoa their sleep it did destroy
They swore about the groanin' O' the hansome cabin boy
"O Doctor, Dear O Doctors the cabin boy did cry
Me time has come, I am undone, and I shall surely die!"
The doctor come a runnin' an smilin' an havin' fun
To think his sailor had latchered out a daughter or a son!
The sailors went, THEY SAW THE JOKE, they all did stand and stare
The child belonged to none of them, they solemnly did swear
And the Capt'n's wife she says to him, "My dear, I wish you joy
For it's either you or me has betrayed the hansome cabin boy"
So each man took his dock of rum and 'e drank success to trade
And likewise too, the cabin boy who was neither man nor mate
'ERE'S 'OPIN' THE WARS DON'T RISE AGAIN OUR SAILORS NOT DESTROYED
AND 'ERE'S 'OPIN' FOR A JOLLY LOT MORE LIKE THE HANSOME CABIN BOY