Now back when this earth was a silver blue jewel   And back when your grandfather's father was young   Men of these shores made and gave up their lives   Pulling up fish from the sea      While down in the african slavery trade   Stealing young men to cut sugar cane   Rum to new bedford and codfish from maine   They were building a wall that will always remain      Oh, the crown and the cross the musket and chain   The white man's religion, the family name   Two hundred years later and who is to blame?    The captain or the cargo or the juice of the sugar cane      The doryman he knows when the riptides will run   He sets out his nets and he sits in the sun   He thinks of his family and drinks of his rum   And he waits for the codfish to come      It's the same god-damned ocean that keeps them alive   It will swallow you up, it will let you survive   It will heal you and steal you and take you away   Like a note in a bottle with nothing to say      Now back when this earth was a silver blue jewel   And back when your grandfather's father was young   Men of these shores made and gave up their lives   Pulling up fish from the sea