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Ships may come and ships may go,
As long as the seas do roll;
Each sailor lad just like his dad,
He loves the flowing bowl.
A trip on shore he does adore,
With a girl who's nice and round;
When the money's gone,
It's the same old song,
"Get up Jack! John, sit down!"
Come along, come along,
You jolly brave boys,
There's lots of grog in the jar;
We'll plough the briny ocean,
With the jolly roving tar.
When Jack comes in, it's then he'll steer,
To some old boarding house;
They'll welcome him with rum and gin,
And feed him on pork souse.
He'll lend, spend and he'll not offend,
Till he's lyin' drunk on the ground;
But when the money's gone,
It's the same old song,
"Get up Jack! John, sit down!"
Come along, come along,
You jolly brave boys,
There's lots of grog in the jar;
We'll plough the briny ocean,
With the jolly roving tar.
Jack, he then, oh then he'll sail,
Bound down for Newfoundland;
All the ladies fair in Placentia there,
They love that sailor man.
He'll go to shore out on a tear,
And he'll buy some girl a gown;
But when the money's gone,
It's the same old song,
"Get up Jack! John, sit down!"
Come along, come along,
You jolly brave boys,
There's lots of grog in the jar;
We'll plough the briny ocean,
With the jolly roving tar.
When Jack gets old and weatherbeat,
Too old to roam about;
They'll let him stop in some rum shop,
Till eight bells calls him out.
Then he'll raise his eyes up to the skies,
Sayin', "Boys, we're homeward bound."
But when the money's gone,
It's the same old song,
"Get up Jack! John, sit down!"
Come along, come along,
You jolly brave boys,
There's lots of grog in the jar;
We'll plough the briny ocean,
With the jolly roving tar.
Come along, come along,
You jolly brave boys,
There's lots of grog in the jar;
We'll plough the briny ocean,
With the jolly roving tar.
This variant was arranged and recorded by Great Big Sea (Play, trk#15, 1997, Warner Music Canada, Scarborough, ON, produced by Danny Greenspoon).
See more songs by Great Big Sea.
The variant in the video above was arranged and recorded as Jolly Rovin' Tar by The Fables with D'Arcy Broderick singing lead (St. John's / The Fables, trk#3, 2002, Chummy Jigger Productions, St. John's, NL).
A variant was also recorded by Jim Payne and Fergus O'Byrne (Wave Over Wave: Old & New Songs Of Atlantic Canada, trk#7, 1995, SingSong, Inc., St. John's, NL).
