The Beadmakers Songbook - Nordmark

Mermaid, The
-Shel Silverstein
When I was a lad in a fishing town,
an old man said to me
You can spend your life, your jolly life,
Just sailing on the sea
You can search the world for pretty girls
‘til your eyes are weak and dim
But don’t go swimmin’ with a mermaid, son,
if you don’t know how to swim!
‘Cause her hair is green as sea-weed
Her skin is blue and pale
I’ll tell you now before you start
You can love that girl with all your heart
But you’ll only love the upper part;
You will -not- like the tail!
I signed on a sailing ship,
my very first day at sea
I see a mermaid in the waves,
Just reachin’ out to me
Come live with me in the sea, said she,
down on the ocean floor
I’ll show you a million wond’rous things
you’ve never seen before!
So over I jumped in and she took me down,
down to her sea-weed bed
A pillow made of tortoise shells,
she placed neath my head
She served me shrimp and caviar
upon a silver dish
From her head to her waist she was just my
taste
but the rest of her was a fish!
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Her hair was green as seaweed
Her skin was blue and pale
Her face it was a work of art
But I only gave her half my heart
‘Cause tho I loved the upper part;
I did -not- like the tail!
And then one day when I looked up
I saw a sailin’ ship
And I met the stare of a millionaire
Out on a fishing trip
A diamond ring he tied on a string
And lowered it down to her
And my love divine, she went for the line
And went for the usual lure!
So I sighed in the rolling tide,
and I cried to the clams and the whales
How I missed her hair and her seagreen
eyes;
I missed the shine of her scales
but then her sister swam by,
and set my heart a-whirl....
For her upper part was an ugly old fish.....
but the -bottom- half was GIRL!
Her toes are pink and rosey!
Her knees are smooth and pale!
Her legs they are a work of art
I love that girl with all my heart
And I don’t give a damn about the upper part
That’s how I end my tale!