The Cruel Wars

1. The drums they beat at morning light, the sergeant’s at the door,
He’s come to take my darlin’ lad to some far-distant shore.
He’s traded in his plowshare for a pike of cold blue steel,
To serve a King he’s never met and turn a wooden wheel.
Chorus:
O, the cruel waves are calling, and the tide is running high,
They’ll march you to the harbor ‘neath a grey and weeping sky.
I’d give my gold and silver, and I’d give my life away,
To keep my true love’s weary feet from treading on the spray.
2. I’ll cut off all my golden hair and don the jacket blue,
I’ll go to face the cannons’ roar, my love, along with you.
But the Captain shook his heavy head with a dark and stony eye,
"No maid shall walk the quarterdeck where better men must die."
3. The anchor rose like heavy lead, the sails began to swell,
And every creak of hempen rope rang like a funeral bell.
I watched the white foam churning as the ship began to fly,
Until the mast was nothing but a needle in the sky.
4. Now some may seek for glory where the grapeshot whistles shrill,
And some may find a shallow grave beneath a foreign hill.
But the cruelest war is fought at home, beside the empty bed,
With nothing but a salt-stained shawl to wrap around my head

Chorus:
O, the cruel waves are calling, and the tide is running high,
They’ll march you to the harbor ‘neath a grey and weeping sky.
I’d give my gold and silver, and I’d give my life away,
To keep my true love’s weary feet from treading on the spray.

Melancholy folk shanty, soulful female voice, marching drums, bagpipes. A lover pressed to sea by a cruel war.