I was born in the shadow of a fairfield crane
When the blast of a freighter's horn was the very first sound that reached my ear
On the morning I was born
As I lay and I listened to the shipyard sound coming out of the great unknown
And was sung to sleep by the mother tongue that was to be my own
And when I grew to be one year old I heard the siren's scream
As the city watched in the blacked out night
A wandering search light's beam
And when at last I awoke and rose to my first day of peace
For I'd learned that the battle to stay alive
Was never going to sea