In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who sings
Of the dreams that he brings from the wide open seas
In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who sleeps
While the riverbank weeps to the old willow trees

In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who dies
Full of beer, full of cries, in a drunken down fight
But in the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who's born
On a muggy hot morn, by the dawn's early light

In the port of Amsterdam where the sailors all meet
There's a sailor who eats only fish heads and tails
He will show you his teeth, that have rotted too soon
That can swallow the moon, that can haul up the sails

And he yells to the cook with his arms open wide
"Bring me more fish, put it down by my side"
Then he wants so to belch but he's too full to try
So he gets up and laughs and he zips up his fly

In the port of Amsterdam, you can see sailors dance
Paunches bursting their pants, grinding women to paunch
They've forgotten the tune, that their whiskey voice croaks
Splitting the night with the roar of their jokes

And they turn and they dance and they laugh and they lust
'Til the rancid sound of the accordion bursts
Then out to the night with their pride in their pants
With the slut that they tow underneath the street lamps

In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who drinks
And he drinks and he drinks and he drinks once again
And he drinks to the health of the whores of Amsterdam
Who have promised their love to a thousand other men

They've bargained their bodies and their virtue long gone
For a few dirty coins when he can't go on
He plants his nose in the sky and he wipes it up above
And he pisses like I cry for an unfaithful love

In the port of Amsterdam
In the port of Amsterdam