Make And Break Harbour

Intro:
C  Am  C  Am

Verse 1:
    C              Am         F             G
How still lies the bay in the light western airs
      Dm            F          G
Which blow from the crimson horizon
     C            C7          F         G
Once more we tack home with a dry empty hold
       Dm           F          G
Saving gas with the breezes so fair
        C           Am       F              G
She's a kindly Cape Isander, old, but still sound
       Dm          F           G
But so lost in the longliner's shadow
         C               C7          F
Make and break, and make do, but the fish are so few
         G          F                 C
That she won't be replaced should she founder

Verse 2:
        C           Am         F            G
It's so hard to not think of before the big war
         Dm          F            G
When the cod were so cheap and so plenty
        C           C7          F           G
Foreign trawlers go by now with long-seeing eyes
       Dm            F           G
Taking all, where we seldom take any
        C                Am            F           G
And the young folk don't stay with the fisherman's way
      Dm           F            G
Long ago, they all moved to the cities
        C           C7         F
And the ones left behind, old, tired, and blind
      G           F          C
Can't work for "a pound or a penny".

Chorus:

   F              G           C
In Make and Break Harbour the boats are so few
    Am       G             F      G
Too many are pulled up and rotten
     C            Am         C            F
Most houses stand empty, old nets hung to dry
    G           F           C
Are blown away, lost and forgotten.

Verse 3:
          C           Am            F              G
Now I can see the big draggers have stirred up the bay
        Dm            F              G
Leaving lobster traps smashed on the bottom
         C              C7       F             G
Can they think it don't pay to respect the old ways
     Dm             F               G
That Make and Break men have not forgotton?
       C              Am          F           G
For we still keep our time to the turn of the tide
         Dm          F               G
And this boat that I built with my father
      C            C7           F
Still lifts to the sky! The one lunger and I
      G             F              C
Still talk like old friends on the water.

Chorus (twice):
   F              G           C
In Make and Break Harbour the boats are so few
    Am       G             F      G
Too many are pulled up and rotten
     C            Am         C            F
Most houses stand empty, old nets hung to dry
    G           F           C
Are blown away, lost and forgotten.

Extro:
    C           Am          C            F
    G           F           C

• Am
• C
• C7
• Dm
• F
• G