Lyrics Dogtown - Harry Chapin

Dogtown

Up in Massachusetts
There’s a little spit of land
The men who make the maps
Yes, they call the place Cape Ann
The men who do the fishing
Call it Gloucester Harbor Sound
But the women left behind
They call the place Dogtown
The men go out for whaling
Past the breakers and the fogs
The women stay home waiting
They’re protected by the dogs
A tough old whaler woman
Who had seen three husbands drown
Polled the population
And she named the place Dogtown
There’s all these grey-faced women
In their black widow’s gowns
Living in this graveyard granite town
Yeah, you soon learn there’s many
More than one way to drown
That’s while going to the dogs
Here in Dogtown
And she speaks:
My father was a merchant
All in the Boston fief
When my husband came
And asked him for my hand
But little did I know then
That a Gloucester whaler’s wife
Marries but the sea salt
And the sand
He took me up to Dogtown
The day I was a bride
We had ten days together
Before he left my side
He’s the first mate of a whaling ship
The keeper of the log
He said, «Farewell, my darling
I’m going to leave you
With my dog
And I have seen the splintered timbers
Of a hundred shattered hulls
Known the silence of the granite
And the screeching of the gulls
I’ve heard that crazy widow Cather
Walk the harbor as she raves
At the endless rolling whisper of the waves
Sitting by the fireside
The embers slowly die
Is it a sign of weakness
When a woman wants to cry?
The dog is closely watching
The fire glints in his eye
No use to go to sleep this early
No use to even try
My blood beats like a woman’s
I’ve got a woman’s breast and thighs
But where am I to offer them
To the ocean or the skies?
Living with this silent dog
All the moments of my life
He has been my only husband
Am I a widow, or his wife?
Yes, it’s a Dogtown and it’s a fog town
And there’s nothing around 'cept the sea pounding granite ground
And this black midnight horror of a hound
I’m standing on this craggy cliff
My eyes fixed on the sea
Six months past, when his ship was due
I’m a widow to be
For liking this half living with the lonely and the fog
You need the bastard of the mating of a woman and a dog
And I have seen the splintered timbers of a hundred shattered hulls
Known the silence of the granite and the screeching of the gulls
I’ve heard that crazy widow Cather walk the harbor as she raves
At the endless rolling whisper of the waves
At the endless rolling whisper of the waves
At the endless rolling whisper of the waves