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There's a place your mother goes |
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When everybody else is soundly sleeping |
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Through the lights of Beacon Street |
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And if you listen, you can hear her weeping |
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She's weeping |
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'Cause the gentlemen are calling |
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And the snow is softly falling on her petticoat |
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And she's standing in the harbor |
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And she's waiting for the sailors in the jolly boat |
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See how they approach |
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With dirty hands and trousers torn |
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They grapple till she's safe within their keeping |
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A gag is placed between her lips |
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To keep her sorry tongue from any speaking |
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Or screaming |
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And they row her out to packets |
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Where the sailors' sorry racket falls for maidenhead |
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And she's scarce above the gunwales |
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When her clothes fall to a bundle and she's laid in bed |
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On the upper deck |
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And so she goes from ship to ship |
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Her ankles clasped, her arms so rudely pinioned |
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'Till at last she's satisfied |
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The lot of the marina's teeming minions |
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In their opinions |
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And they tell her not to say a thing |
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To cousin, kindred, kith or kin or she'll end up dead |
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And they throw her thirty dollars |
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And return her to the harbor where she goes to bed |
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And this is how you're fed |
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So be kind to your mother |
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Though she may seem an awful bother |
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And the next time she tries to feed you collard greens |
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Remember what she does when you're asleep |
