Old Fid is a modern maritime song that spread through English folk music circles.
User "Crane Driver" on mudcat.org gives this account of collecting the full lyrics to Old Fid:
We made contact with the author Bill Lowndes last year, via an internet contact. He and his wife live in quiet retirement in Cornwall, UK - they don't want to be invaded by lots of folkies, so they asked us not to be more specific.
"Old Fid" himself was a retired Norwegian sailor who settled in Bill's town. Bill would see him every day, sitting on a bench staring out to sea, and eventually got to know him and heard his story. The old man would look down at his hands and say "Look at 'em - every thumb a marline-spike and every finger a fid",
which gave Bill his starting point for the song. When he heard our recording (Baggyrinkle - Old Swansea Town), he liked it but said that we, like everyone else, missed out half a verse. Apparently the first person to record Old Fid missed it out, and everyone's version goes back to that one. Bill was a bit upset that his song had been mutilated, sowe said "No problem, give us the missing bit, and we'll put it back in." He did. We have.
This then is the Authorised Old Fid, as dictated to us over the telephone by Bill Lowndes in 2002.
I'll sing me a song of the rolling sky,
To the land that's beyond the Main,
To the ebb-tide bell or the salt pork meal,
That I'll never taste me again.
There's many a night I've lied me down,
To hear the teak baulks cry,
To a melody sweet with a shanty-man beat
As the stars went swimming by
Don't ask me where I've damn well bin,
Don't ask me what I did,
For every thumb's a marline-spike,
And every finger's a fid.
I mind the times as we were becalmed,
With never a breath for the sheet,
With a red sun so hot that the water would rot,
And the decking would blister your feet.
And then there's the times, as we rounded the Horn,
With a cargo of silk for Cadiz,
The swell roll was so high it were lashing the sky
Till the whole ruddy world were a fizz!
(Chorus)
Be it spices from Java or copra from Yap,
Or a bosun so free with the lash,
It were "Up with the anchor!" and "Run out the spanker!"
And "Damn it, move faster than that!"
I've loved proud women from Spain's lusty land,
And I've seen where the Arab girl sleeps,
And the black girls as well, though they're fiery as hell,
Have all kissed me when silver was cheap.
(Chorus)
Lord, how the man's changed from the young cabin boy
To the old man that sits on this bench!
Now he's too old to fight or to stay out all night
In the company of some pretty wench.
Just an old clipper man who's long past his best years,
He knows that he'll never be free
From the smell of the tar that once braided his hair,
From the salty old tang of the sea.
(Chorus)