You'll find me drinking in the harbour And if you have an hour 'til you set sail Join an old sea dog, sit here in the corner And gather round boys and hear my tale We were homeward bound from the far East Indies And filling up the hold in old Shanghai, When a horse and a carriage they came near us An old man and a young woman drew alongside There are stories told of the wind and the rock Of haunted ships that never made dock A thousand tales of the deep and the stormy brine And this one's mine She was the sweetest thing, the fairest beauty I wiped my brow, I leaped ashore He called me close and softly whispered Young man, for this one night she's yours My shipmates stretched their eyes in wonder As I climbed in the carriage and I rode away Passed that night in sweetest rapture And I didn't return 'til the break of day We stood by the sea as dawn was breaking Sadness in the old man's grey eyes Took my arm, he said now leave us But go tell the whole world about old Shanghai One every ship some loud-mouthed sailor Says it happened to him what happened to you But for one young man in all these oceans Well, I will have made this fiction true Forever known as a liar by all your crew