Henry's Songbook

The saddest sound I've ever heard
Is the song of the hump-back whale
His moans and sighs and his eerie cries
Sing a sad familiar tale
For he sighs and blows as if he knows
His race is nearly run
And that soon with all of his kind he'll fall
Before the whaler's gun

For every living thing on earth
Nature made a space
Each a living strand of a fragile plant
That can never be replaced
And not from need but from want and greed
Man's torn down nature's web
With greed possessed he will not rest
Till the last of the whales is dead

In my mind's eye I can see them die
As the whaler finds his mark
Hear the muffled boom of a cruel harpoon
As it blasts their lives apart
I see the flood of the rich dark blood
As it stains the ocean red
That bloody green will not wash clean
Till the last of the whales is dead

Repeat 1

[1980:] All the whaling songs I've ever heard have been from the wrong end of the harpoon. This is a song about what it's like on the sharp end, i. e. the end that usually kills. (Notes Eric Bogle, 'Now I'm Easy')