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I was strolling down Sand Street one fine summer night
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And I spied a fair damsel as she hove in sight.
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I ran up my number, to which she replied,
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"I'm a Chinatown bumboat going out with the tide,
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"I'm a Chinatown bumboat going out with the tide."

[Verse 2]
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I passed her a hawser and took her in tow,
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We crossed down the way like a couple should go.
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We turned in an alley not too clean or neat,
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And we dropped out mudhooks at the end of the street.
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And we dropped out mudhooks at the end of the street.

[Verse 3]
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She then led me up to a third-story floor,
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And in her fine stateroom I soon laid her o'er.
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She cleaned up her courses and her red flag downhaul,
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Laid her lily-white hand on me reeftackle-fall.
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Laid her lily-white hand on me reeftackle-fall.

[Verse 4]
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I gazed in her sternsheets, saw plenty of room,
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And into her hullpipe I shoved my jibboom.
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With her fenders o'erhanging like a bent scupper's lip,
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Pretty Polly's a pirate who scuttled my ship.
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Pretty Polly's a pirate who scuttled my ship.

[Verse 5]
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She rolled and she pitched like a ship in a storm,
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And cried out, "Oh, sailor, you're doing me harm!
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You're in the wrong port!" she cried out in alarm.
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Well, the wrong port be damned, any port in a storm.
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Well, the wrong port be damned, any port in a storm.

[Verse 6]
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She burnt down me rigging clean down to the hull,
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And back to the sickbay me punt I did scull.
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With me foregaps all bent and me mainmast unstrung,
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The doctor said, "Sailor, yer jibboom is sprung."
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The doctor said, "Sailor, yer jibboom is sprung."

[Verse 7]
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Now I'm lying in sickbay, me stern to the wall,
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The Chinatown bumboat the cause of it all.
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It's ashes to ashes and dust unto dust,
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Tell me, where is the woman a sailor can trust?
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Tell me, where is the woman a sailor can trust?