You can find full English lyrics for this elsewhere on the site, as the translated version has been covered by everyone from the Dresden Dolls to David Bowie to John Denver. (Seriously, John Denver?) Search for song title = Amsterdam and look for the first line "In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who sings..."
Amsterdam is what I think of as a portrait song. (That's not a technical term, and if there's a technical term for this, I'd love to know it.) It's a time and place and culture laid out in poetry. Tom's Diner (Suzanne Vega) is another song with a similar effect, though it's about a very different time and place.
It's about the nihilism, self-destructive excess, and perhaps joy in living of being a sailor on leave in a foreign port. They're born, they die, they drink and fight and f*** in the few days they have off the ship. It's not glamorous, it's filthy... but it is exuberant.
You can find full English lyrics for this elsewhere on the site, as the translated version has been covered by everyone from the Dresden Dolls to David Bowie to John Denver. (Seriously, John Denver?) Search for song title = Amsterdam and look for the first line "In the port of Amsterdam, there's a sailor who sings..."
Amsterdam is what I think of as a portrait song. (That's not a technical term, and if there's a technical term for this, I'd love to know it.) It's a time and place and culture laid out in poetry. Tom's Diner (Suzanne Vega) is another song with a similar effect, though it's about a very different time and place.
It's about the nihilism, self-destructive excess, and perhaps joy in living of being a sailor on leave in a foreign port. They're born, they die, they drink and fight and f*** in the few days they have off the ship. It's not glamorous, it's filthy... but it is exuberant.