Sugar Trade

Now back when this Earth was a silver blue jewel
 And back when your grandfather's fathers were 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 the 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 waits 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 goddamned 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
 Back when your grandfather's fathers were young
 Men of these shores made and gave up their lives
 Pulling up fish from the sea