Jens Bjørneboe - Last Voyage Lyrics
Complimentary 'Last Voyage' Ringtone
Row, row to fishing-reef
All little children sleep.
No one knows where Daddy lies
Below the billows deep.
Three hardy sons once set sail
In a boat they went to sea.
Their Daddy went along with them—
All Mummy did was weep.
They traveled out to fishing-sea
And Daddy fell into the blue.
Daddy was dead, and gone from sight,
So far from the mainland, too.
Row, row to fishing reef
Old Daddy's fast asleep.
Among the many fish they took
From the salty deep.
The catch was absolutely great:
Many thousand kroner.
Money's what a wife and kid
Wait quietly at home for!
Everyone said "Of course, of course
Time and fish is money.
Daddy we must put on ice
To stop him from smelling funny!"
Row, row to fishing-reef
Boys will still be boys.
They'll sell the fish for plenty
And buy themselves big toys.
The first day out was pretty cold
And then it stayed that way.
But Dad was thoroughly salted down
And gutted, sad to say.
The fishing it went on and on,
Nobody'd time to quarrel.
It paid to put ol' Daddy down
Inside a herring barrel.
Row, row to fishing-reef.
Washed, well-shaven, billeted,
Ol' daddy's resting quietly
Neatly cleaned and filleted!
The flag was hoisted up on high
And Daddy's clever sons
Had salted fish for cargo now
In barrels by the tons.
The youngest of these clever boys
Said, "First let's empty out the boat.
Then we'll take the barrel out
Where Daddy's resting quartered.
The barrel that I'm talkin' 'bout,
The one where Dad's asleep,
Has a label with a herring on
With an anchor underneath."
Big brother was morose that night
And managed but some moans:
"I'd like to skin your flesh!" he cried,
"From all your bloody bones!
I somehow knew that this would take
A very nasty turn.
The label that you've just described
Is the LABEL OF THE FIRM!"
Row, row! At the fishing-reef
Your prayers will not go far.
'Cause no one can find Daddy now
Where all the barrels are!
They came ashore and sent the fish
To buyers 'round the globe.
How could they ever pick their Dad
From barrels that were sold?
Buyers and exporters there
Bought every single gram.
Sending fish, as Norsemen do,
To every single land.
Row, row to fishing-reef
Throughout the world so large
No one knows where Daddy is.
Daddy, bon voyage!
In a country graveyard
In a province by the sea
There stands a little white-washed church
Where Daddy rests in peace.
But no one knows except his sons
That what they were really burying
Was hardly Daddy's true remains
But 80 kilo of herring!
Oh, the world's so wide, so very wide.
In the distant town of Pindu
Gruesome traces were later found
Of a sadly murdered Hindu.
A salted herring importeur
Bought barrels of some herring.
When cross-examined by police,
He prayed and did some swearing.
But after awful torturing
He confessed to the killing,
And at the city's public wall
Got a painful grilling.
The executioner's branding iron
Singed and roasted him.
Whereupon he was dismembered
Limb from skinny limb.
In a church in Norway's North
Where mainly widows roam,
Three brothers can be seen to stand
Silently, at home.
Row, row to fishing-reef
The rain beats against the window.
No one knows that Daddy is
Buried as a Hindu.
Complimentary 'Last Voyage' Ringtone
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