Verse I:

    D5              B5          G5             A5
How still lies the bay, in the light western airs
      E5            G5         A5
Which blow from the crimson horizon
     D5            D5           G5         A5
Once more we tack home, with a dry empty hole
       E5            G5          A5
Saving nets with the breezes so fair
        D5           B5        G5             A5
She's a kindly cape islander, old but still sound
       E5          G5           A5
But so lost in the long liners shadow
         D5              D5          G5           A5
Make and Break and make do, but the fish are so few
         E5         G5                 D5
That she won't be replaced should she flounder

Verse II:

Now its so hard to not think of before the big war
When the cod went so cheap, but so plenty
Foreign trawlers go by now with long seeking eyes
Taking all where we seldom take any
And the young folk don't stay with the fisherman's ways
Long ago they all moved to the cities
And the ones left behind old and tired and blind
Won't work for a pound, for a penny.

Chorus:
   G5              A5           D5
In Make and Break Harbour the boats are so few
    B5       A5           G5         A5
Too many are hold up and rotten.
     D5           B5        D5            G5
Most towns stand empty old nets hung to dry
    A5          G5        D5
Are blown away lost and forgotten


Verse III

Now I can see the big draggers that stirred up the bay
Leaving lobster traps smashed on the bottom
And they think it don't pay to respect the old ways
That make and break men have not forgotten
For we still keep our time to the turn of the tide
In this boat that I built with my father
Still lifts to the sky, "wan loller" and I
Still talk like old friends on the water

Repeat Chorus Twice