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Polly on the Shore 
Polly on the Shore (Randy Newman) 
Come all you wild young men and a warning take by me Never lead your single life astray or into bad company As I myself have done, being all in the month of May When I, as pressed by a sea captain, A privateer to trade To the East Indies we were bound to plunder the raging main And it's many the brave and a galliant ship We sent to a watery grave Ah, for Freeport we did steer, our provisions to renew When we did spy a bold man-of-war sailing three feet to our two 
Oh, she fired across our bows, "Heave to and don't refuse Surrender now unto my command or else your lives you'll lose" And our decks they were sputtered with blood And the cannons did loudly roar And broadside and broadside a long time we lay Till we could fight no more And a thousand times I wished myself alone, All alone with my Polly on the shore 
She's a tall and a slender girl with a dark and a-rolling eye And here am I, a-bleeding on the deck And for a sweet saint must lie Farewell, my family and my friends, likewise my Polly too I'd never have crossed the salt sea wide If I'd have been ruled by you And a thousand times I saw myself again, All alone with my Polly on the shore 
(aditional verses sung by Carthy): 
We sailed on the ocean so wide And our bonny bonny flag we let fly, Let every man stand true to his gun Or the lord knows who must die. Oh, our captain was wounded full sore And so were the rest of his men Our main mast riggin' it was scattered on the deck So that we were obliged to give in. 
Copyright Randy Newman 
Recorded by Fairport Convention on Nine; also Carthy & Swarbrick on Prince Heathen 
JY