sissie wouldn't believe when I told her the old man was gone   the one who lived all alone in the shack on the shore    that's so hard to find, so har to go past    he used to light our cigarettes and never tell anyone    he had blue tattoos and he'd tell us tall stories from the bottom of a rum glass    he's got things to see on the spanish main he's gone away for awhile    he's gone skullduggering on the spanish main he's gone away far away      thought I heard sails creaking as the stars paled   anchor chains clinking as the night failed way out on the bay      no one else knows how he crowed when they crowned him king of the cannibal isles   or how he'd really feel blind drunk at the wheel through a high hurricane    he could dupe the devil at dice and charm charmers whit his beguiling smile    how he fell in love in Lima and a schemer stole his pearly girl and broke his heart again    now all the foes he killed call him in to fight with their beckoning bones    and all the gold he stole sparkles in the morning light    his sweet ladies are all alone      sissie dear let's not go near the church today    the big bells tolling the hearse goes rolling the holy joes pray    as they lay him away      lived one too many winters cold cold weather    had to sail down to the south sea waters warm    his old bones there    let an old man go through    let an old man go through