Portland Folk Song
Where the jolly sons of Neptune meet the riders of the sage,
They
will find there is a game not to their own advantage,
The
sailor’s boardinghouses run the police court and the mayor,
Nothing
here they do or try will ever come out fair.
Here
came the cowpokes from the sweet hills of the Paloose,
Rolled
in on some Cayuse ponies just in time to let ‘er loose,
In
some perfumed bagnio they’d fall asleep dead drunk,
To
wake up on the rolling main without a seaman’s trunk.
Says
he was a prizefighter, he never made it big,
In
Astoria he shipped sailors like salmon by the can,
He
set up shop in Portland as a big Republican.
Then
came Bunko Kelly horsefeathers for a brain,
Claimed
he sent 3,000 men to sail the rolling main,
When
he planned to break up the Sullivan monopoly,
He
was sent up for 13 years in the penitentiary.
The
last of the shanghaiers, Mysterious Billy Smith,
Diamond
belt welter weight, loved his young bride to death,
When
she died it made him mean, dirtiest fighter in the world,
Down
in the docklands of Albina he gave shanghaiing a whirl.
Where
the jolly sons of Neptune meet the riders of the sage,
They
will find there is a game not to their own advantage,
The
sailor’s boardinghouses run the police court and the mayor,
Nothing
here they do or try will ever come out fair.
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