natalie merchant
the walloping window blind
A capital ship for an ocean trip Was the walloping window blind No gale that blew dismayed her crew Or troubled the captain's mind The man at the wheel was taught to feel Contempt for the wildest blow And it often appeared when the weather had cleared That he'd been in his bunk below The boatswain's mate was very sedate Yet fond of amusement too And he played hopscotch with the starboard watch While the captain tickled the crew And the gunner we had was apparently mad For he stood on the cannon's tail And fired salutes in the captain's boots In the teeth of a booming gale The captain sat in a commodore's hat And dined in a royal way On toasted pigs and pickles and figs And gummery bread each day But the rest of us ate from an odious plate For the food that was given the crew Was a number of tons of hot cross buns Chopped up with sugar and glue We all felt ill as mariners will On a diet that's cheap and rude And the poop deck shook when we dipped the cook In a tub of his gluesome food Then nautical pride we laid aside And we cast the vessel ashore On the gulliby isles, where the poohpooh smiles And the anagzanders roar Composed of sand was that favored land And trimmed in cinnamon straws And pink and blue was the pleasing hue Of the tickletoeteasers claws We climbed to the edge of a sandy ledge And soared with the whistling bee And we only stopped at four o'clock For a pot of cinnamon tea From dawn to dark, on rubagub bark We fed, till we all had grown Uncommonly thin Then a boat blew in On a wind from the torriby zone She was stubby and square, but we didn't much care And we cheerily put to sea We plotted a course for the land of blue horse Due west 'cross the peppermint sea