Sugar Trade lyrics by James Taylor
Title: Sugar TradeArtist: James Taylor
Composers: TAYLOR J/BUFFETT J/MAYER T
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Now back when this earth
was a silver blue jewel
and back when your
grandfather's
father was young
Men of these shores made
and gave up their lives
pulling up fish from the sea
While down in the
African slavery trade
Stealing young men
to cut sugar cane
Rum to New Bedford
and codfish from Maine
They were building a wall
that will always remain
Oh, the crown and the cross
the musket and the chain,
the white man's religion
the family name
Two hundred years later
and who is to blame?
The captain or the cargo
or the juice of the sugar cane?
The doryman, he knows
when the reptiles will run
He sets out his nets and
he waits in the sun
He thinks of his family and
drinks of his rum
and he waits for
the codfish to come
It's the same god damned
ocean that keeps them alive
It will swallow you up
It will let you survive
It will heal you and steal you
and take you away
like a note in a bottle
with nothing to say
Now back when this earth
was a silver blue jewel
Back when your
grandfather's
fathers were young
Men of these shores made
and gave up their lives
pulling up fish from the sea
