The Downeaster 'Alexa' (Live at Yankee Stadium, Bronx, NY - June 1990)

[Intro]

Now being that this is the first day of summer

I hope we can all get to the beach

Without having that crap washed up on it this year

Don't ever go swimming in the Arthur Kill

This is a song dedicated to the fisherman in the place where I grew up in Long Island

This is called "The Downeaster 'Alexa'"

[Verse 1]

Well, I'm on the Downeaster Alexa

And I'm cruising through Block Island Sound

I have charted a course to the Vineyard

But tonight, I am Nantucket bound

We took on diesel back in Montauk yestеrday

Left this morning from the bell in Gardinеr's Bay

Like all the locals here, I've had to sell my home

Too proud to leave, I worked  my fingers to the bone

[Verse 2]

So I could own my Downeaster Alexa

And I go where the ocean is deep

There are giants out there in the canyons

And a good captain can't fall asleep

I got bills to pay and children who need clothes

I know there's fish out there, but where, God only knows

They say these waters aren't what they used to be

But I got people back on land who count on me

[Verse 3]

So if you see my Downeaster Alexa

If you work with the rod and the reel

Tell my wife I am trolling Atlantis

And I still have my hands on the wheel

[Bridge]

Ya-yo

[Verse 4]

Now I drive my Downeaster Alexa

More and more miles from shore every year

Since they told me I can't sell no stripers

And there's no luck in swordfishing here

I was a bayman like my father was before

You can't make a living as a bayman anymore

There ain't much future for a man who works the sea

But there ain't no island left for islanders like me

[Outro]

Ya-ya-ya-yo

Ya-ya-ya-yo

Ya-ya-ya-ya-yo

Ya-ya-ya-yo