Billy Joel - The Downeaster 'Alexa': chords

         C          G        Am
Well I'm on the Downeaster Alexa
          C                G            F
And I'm cruising through Block Island Sound.
         F        C             Dm
I have charted a course to the Vineyard,
       C          G          F   C F
But tonight I am Nantucket bound.
F            G             C             F
We took on diesel back in Montauk yesterday,
F              G               Am
And left this morning from the bell in
         G/B
Gardiner's Bay.
F             G                C              F
Like all the locals here I've had to sell my home,
F             G                  Am            G/B
Too proud to leave, I worked my fingers to the bone

So I could own my downeaster "Alexa"
And I go where the ocean is deep
There are giants out there in the canyons
And a good captain can't fall asleep
I got bills to pay and children who need clothes
I know there's fish out there,
but where God only knows
They say these waters aren't what they used to be
But I got people back on land who count on me

So if you see my downeaster "Alexa"
And if you work with the rod and the reel
Tell my wife I am trolling Atlantis
And I still have my hands on the wheel

Now I drive my downeaster "Alexa"
More and more miles from shore every year
Since they told me I can't sell no stripers
And there's no luck in swordfishing here
I was a bayman like my father was before
Can't make a living as a bayman anymore
There ain't much future for a man who works the sea
But there ain't no island left for islanders like me