A Debt in Silver

Verse 1 — Slow, deliberate, mournful. Single acoustic guitar.

There's

Verse 1

There's a man who walks the salted docks

With a blade worn smooth from years

His coat is black as harbor rocks

His eyes are dry of tears

They say his father died by night

Beneath a six-fingered hand

And Silver John swore afore the light

He'd make that devil stand

Chorus

Heave away, haul away

We're bound for blood and tide

John Silver's on the darkened bay

With vengeance as his guide

Heave away, haul away

The wind won't let him rest

He'll find the man, he'll make him pay

Or drown before he's blessed

Verse 2

He sailed from port to cursed port

Through fog and freezing rain

In every tavern, every court

He asked the same refrain

"A man with six fingers on his hand

Was here — which way'd he go?"

And every soul who'd seen him stand

Would answer, soft and low

Pre-Chorus

Twenty years, twenty seas

Twenty winters in his bones

Twenty years down on his knees

Praying vengeance for what's gone

The name lives carved behind his teeth

The blade lives in his hand

And somewhere under sky and sea

There waits a six-fingered man

Chorus

Heave away, haul away

We're bound for blood and tide

John Silver's on the darkened bay

With vengeance as his guide

Heave away, haul away

The wind won't let him rest

He'll find the man, he'll make him pay

Or drown before he's blessed

Accordion Solo

Verse 3

Then word came in from Tortuga's mouth

A lord of twisted hand

Had bought himself a manor south

And ruled a stretch of sand

John Silver laughed — the first in years —

And sharpened up his steel

He felt no joy, he felt no fear

Just something old made real

Pre-Chorus

He crossed the reef, he crossed the bar

He rode through mud and pine

He climbed the hill, he found the door

He crossed the final line

The candles burned, the man looked up

A face worn old and grey

And Silver raised his blade up high

And had one thing to say —

Verse 4

"My name is John Silver, you hear me now

You killed my father with that hand

I've crossed an ocean and I've crossed a vow

Prepare to die where you stand"

The six-fingered man said nothing first

Then slowly raised his eyes

And Silver saw behind the worst

Something he didn't recognize

Bridge

Narration: Johnny Cash

An old man broken, small and scared

A man who'd long since paid

In ways that no blade ever dared

A haunted, hollow shade

The fire in his father's killer's eyes

Was long since cold and dead

And Silver felt the hatred rise —

Then felt it break instead [Slow Accordion Solo]

Verse 5

He lowered the blade he'd carried so long

It fell upon the floor

He'd built his life around this song

But couldn't sing it anymore

The man before him was not the beast

That lived behind his eyes

Twenty years he'd fed that feast

On nothing but a lie

Outro Chorus

Heave away, haul away

We're bound for open sea

John Silver walks the morning bay

A man at last set free

Heave away, haul away

The tide will take the pain

Some vengeance dies before it's done

And mercy has no name

Narration

"Some men carry a grave inside them their whole lives.

The trick is knowing when to finally lay it down."