Make and Break Harbour
Words and Music By Stan Rogers
Posted by: Karl Griffiths (karl@engr.mun.ca)
This version of the song was taken from the live album "Home in Halifax".
Please send any comments of suggestions to karl@engr.mun.ca. There is an
error in the last verse. I've put in what it sounds like on the CD, but if
anyone knows what its supposed to be please let me know.
Verse I:
How still lies the bay, in the light western airs
Which blow from the crimson horizon
Once more we tack home, with a dry empty hole
Saving nets with the breezes so fair
She's a kindly cape islander, old but still sound
But so lost in the long liners shadow
Make and Break and make do, but the fish are so few
That she won't be replaced should she flounder
Verse II:
Now its so hard to not think of before the big war
When the cod went so cheap, but so plenty
Foreign trawlers go by now with long seeking eyes
Taking all where we seldom take any
And the young folk don't stay with the fisherman's ways
Long ago they all moved to the cities
And the ones left behind old and tired and blind
Won't work for a pound, for a penny.
Chorus:
In Make and Break Harbour the boats are so few
Too many are hold up and rotten.
Most towns stand empty old nets hung to dry
Are blown away lost and forgotten
Verse III
Now I can see the big draggers that stirred up the bay
Leaving lobster traps smashed on the bottom
And they think it don't pay to respect the old ways
That make and break men have not forgotten
For we still keep our time to the turn of the tide
In this boat that I built with my father
Still lifts to the sky, "wan loller" and I
Still talk like old friends on the water
Repeat Chorus Twice