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My memory often wandered back when I was but a lad,
When the boats came in from fishing, I ran to meet my dad;
He would take his old sou'wester off and throw it ashore to me,
And I would put it on my head, how happy I would be.
My father's old sou'wester he wore in days gone by,
And every time he put it on, his face would beam with joy;
It reminds me of the happy days, those happy days of old,
I would not part with that old hat for the full of it in gold.
He wore it every Sunday, he never liked a cap,
He wore it every Monday when he went to haul the trap;
He wore it in the sunshine, he wore it in the rain,
On Sunday and on Monday he wore it just the same.
If that old hat could only speak, what stories it would tell,
Would tell you of many's the time he fought the raging swell;
It would tell you of the happy time out on the squiddin' ground,
Wherever that my father went, it was perched upon his crown.
And now he's dead and laid to rest, he'll wear it nevermore,
For there's no stormy weather over on the other shore;
He said to me before he died, "There's one request I'll make,
Go take my old sou'wester hat and wear it for my sake."
Published in Gerald S. Doyle's Old-Time Songs And Poetry Of Newfoundland: Songs Of The People From The Days Of Our Forefathers (Third edition, pp.42-43, 1955).
A variant was collected by MacEdward Leach, and published as #118, Old Southwester in Folk Ballads And Songs Of The Lower Labrador Coast by The National Museum of Canada (Ottawa, 1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved.
