I waited and wondered If the dream would return What I saw through that porthole Is tattooed and burnt On the shore where we landed Three graves by the sea In the loneliest place You ever did see So I sing the verses You sing the chorus With 24,000 old Russian horses We crush through the ice In the bright summer night On the Kapitan Khlebnikov This is the life ♪ Seal skins drying In the bright frozen sun There's mouths to be fed The work's never done Through the Northwest Passage I stand at the bow And I thought I'd seen beauty 'Til right here right now So I sing the verses You sing the chorus With 24,000 old Russian horses We crush through the ice In the bright summer night On the Kapitan Khlebnikov This is the life On the Kapitan Khlebnikov This is the life Once we had dreams But they fell through the seams Like the ice here all melting away ♪ So I sing the verses And you sing the chorus With 24,000 old Russian horses We crush through the ice In the bright summer night On the Kapitan Khlebnikov This is the life On the Kapitan Khlebnikov This is the life