Remembering back when I was a kid
I'd sneak down to the docks
Watch the old men carving wood
I'd watch the sailors tying knots
But the thing I remember best was grey-haired old Patch Eye
And the stories that he'd tell me about his younger days
As we watched the ships go by

He'd talk about his missing eye
He'd talk about his wooden leg
But he'd never talk about the old tattoo
On his right arm that said "Meg"

He [told] said he was captain of a pirate ship
Sailing seas both blue and green
And he said that all pirates gots to have a patch
So's they can look real mean
He'd make the bad guys walk the plank
The pretty ladies he would save
And then he'd take the treasure from the ships
And then sink it to a watery grave

He'd talk about his missing eye
Yeah, he'd talk about his wooden leg
But he'd never talk about the old tattoo
Or the brown-haired, blue-eyed 'Meg'

He told me a story about his wooden leg
As he sat there spinning yarns
Once he lost it to a mamba snake
Down in the Amazon
Another time it was way out west
In a gunfight, or so he said
'Ah, but that's alright, a man's got two legs'
You know, he could have lost his head

He told me all about his missing eye
He told me all about his wooden leg
But he took the story to the grave
About the tattoo that said 'Meg'

He told me how he lost his eye
And how he lost his leg
But he never told me how he lost the love
Of brown-haired blue-eyed Meg