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Wave over Wave

Jim Payne

Strum: B   D U D U

       1 + 2 + 3 +

       G                D              Em             G

Me name's Able Rogers, a shareman am I

            C                   G                   C           D
On a three-masted schooner from Twillingate Isle

        C                   D                 G                       G/B             
I've been the world over, north, south, east, and west

             C            G                C                D
But the middle of nowhere's where I like it best

         G           D                 Em         G

The work it is hard and the hours are long

        C        G              C               D
My spirit is willing, my back it is strong

         C                      D              G                  G/B             
And when our work's over then whiskey we'll pour

         C                     G             C                    D
We'll dance with the girls upon some foreign shore

Chorus

       G                  D              Em                G

I'd leave my wife lonely ten months of the year

         C              G                       C                  D
She made me a home and raised my children dear

        C                        D            G               G/B             
But she'd never come out to bid farewell to me

      C               G              C                D
Or ken why a sailor must sail the salt sea

Chorus

         G                     D              Em              G

I've sailed the wide oceans four decades or more

         C               G                   C         D
And many times wondered what I do it for

    C                    D                 G                 G/B             
I don't know the answer, it's pleasure and pain

        C             G           C          D
With life to live over, I'd do it again

Final Chorus:

                 C              G      Em         G

Where it's wave over wave, sea over bow

           C           G               C           D
I'm as happy a man as the sea will allow

            C           D            G             G/B             
There's no other life for a sailor like me

           C                G             C          D
But to sail the salt sea, boys, sail the sea

             G          G/B          D               C      G
There's no other life but to sail the salt sea

 C                G             C          D
Sail the salt sea, boys, sail the sea

             G          G/B          D               G (hold)
There's no other life but to sail the salt sea