Young man from the middle of nowhere
Hopped a bus and thought he'd go where
He could see the sea to the sky and back
And once he got there he swore he'd never go back
He got a job guarding the coast
In a white uniform on a big white boat and he
Looked at the sea and said "You know who I am"
I'm a soldier, sailor man
He met a girl in a port of call
Pretty soon she was the end all, the be all
He would spell her name in Morse code to make her laugh
And he went back to sea with a photograph
Of her.
But her mother didn't like him he was much too rough
Around the edges and her father said "Enough!
There ain't no way I'm gonna give my daughter's hand
To no soldier, sailor man
But that didn't matter they would still be together
They'd heard all the love songs--love was forever
They would meet by the dinghies, then they'd elope
He waited all night but she never showed up
He thought life without her just wasn't worth living
So he climbed to the top of some dirty gray bridge
And as he stood there a voice inside him said
"If you hit that water you'll never see the sea again"
Though he'd sworn he'd never do it he went back home
Got a job with his dad selling ladies clothes
And he made a lot of money, made a lot of friends
And he never did get married in the end
One day in an airport on a business trip
He saw the girl he'd loved with her three grown kids
And though he thought he'd gotten over her a long time ago
Next morning there were tears in his Cheerios
What's a man to do you think you've got it all together
Then you turn around and everything is lighter than feathers
Lighter than sea foam or sea spray
More fleeting than a kiss on the beach on a summer's day
He got into his car and drove out to the coast
Half-expecting he would find the ghosts
Of himself and her and the sailing men he'd known
But when he got there he found himself alone
With the condos that had sprouted up along the shore
And the fancy new marina where the dinghies once were
But one thing hadn't changed and that was the sea
And the sea knew what it meant to be
A soldier, sailor man
A soldier, sailor man
A soldier, sailor man
copyright 2005 Krista Weaver
from the album So Long, Arlington
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Lyrics submitted by Krista Weaver.