Crows and cognac

I sing with the crows on a telephone wire
we sing of the summer we've lived
Of how we drank with the skipper on a golden boat
while the sea lay pale in the fog
We crawled into the bottle and signed on
we sang as we hoisted the sails
Hacer amor y dineros, farewell cruel world
I've sailed these waters for a thousand years
over the mantelpiece cliffs
to the telephone wire
La la la la la...

Amsterdam's girls, they sat in a row
like glittering stars in the evening
When the flower has fallen and the fruit remains
it can be plucked and eaten in bed
We rode a monsoon between waking and sleep
but one night near the Chinese sea
we were shanghai'd by an opium pirate
and slapped into irons
I've rowed his silver oars for a thousand years
between the poppy's red bloom
and the telephone wire
La la la la la...

I managed to flee here to the land of myths
where one dresses in cast-offs from New York
Yes, here I walk in yet another new Amsterdam
where every shop clerk looks like a sports car
And the crows are singing on the island of poets
where I've sailed the boat up on the shore
The summer has fled
but no one took spring from me
This in case you good people wonder
as you are out walking
Why an open bottle of cognac
sits on the telephone wire
And why are there so many crows
in the graveyard?
La la la la la...