John Gorka Home videos
15th homemade video (July 12, 2020)
The Dutchman

On July 12, 2020 John wrote: "Home Video # 15 — The Dutchman, by the great Michael Smith, is a song that changed my idea of what a song could be. Michael is a masterful songwriter and I wish him well. By the way we were both born in the same hospital in Newark, NJ. I wanted to follow in his foot steps!"

Click here for Red River Valley (April 5, 2020)
- Click here for Better times Will Come (April 12, 2020)
- Click here for Polly Wally (April 19, 2020)
- Click here for Soap Opera (April 26, 2020)
- Click here for Maya May I, (May 1, 2020)
- Click here for My Creole Belle (May 10, 2020)
- Click here for Careless Love (May 17, 2020)
- Click here for You Can Run (May 24, 2020)
- Muting the Sea (May 31,2020)
- Click here for Ignorance and Privilege (June 7, 2020)
- Click here for The Mercy of the Wheels. (June 14, 2020)
- If I Could Forget To Breathe (June 21, 2020)
- Let them in (June 28, 2020)
- Unblind The Referee (July 5, 2020)
- The Dutchman (July 12, 2020)
- Morningside (July 19, 2020)
- Cowboy Song (July 26, 2020)
- That's How Legends Are Made (August 2, 2020)
- If Not Now (August 9, 2020)
- Arroyo Seco (August 16, 2020)
- Shenandoah (August 23, 2020)
- Outside (August 30, 2020)
- Outnumbered (September 6, 2020)
- Brown shirts (September 13, 2020)
- Jack’s Crows (September 20, 2020)
- Where No Monument Stands (September 27, 2020)
- Blue Chalk (October 4, 2020)
- Zuly (October 11, 2020)
- The Sentinel (October 18, 2020)
- Where The Bottles Break (October 25 2020)
- If I Could (November 1, 2020)
- Particle & Wave (November 8, 2020)
- True in Time (November 15, 2020)
- Edgar The Party Man ( November 22, 2020)
- The Water is Wide (November 29, 2020)
- The Streets of Laredo (December 6, 2020)
- Spanish is the Loving Tongue (December 13, 2020)
- Christmas Bells (December 20, 2020)
- Riverside (December 27. 2020) Recorded earlier
- Auld Lang Syne (January 3, 2021)

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The Dutchman

The Dutchman's not the kind of man
Who keeps his thumb jammed in the dam
That holds his dreams in
But that's a secret that only Margaret knows

When Amsterdam is golden in the morning
Margaret brings him breakfast
She believes him
He thinks the tulips bloom beneath the snow
He`s mad as he can be but Margaret only sees that sometimes
Sometimes she sees her unborn children in his eyes

Chorus:
Let us go to the banks of the ocean
Where the walls rise above the Zuiderzee
Long ago, I used to be a young man
And dear Margaret remembers that for me

The Dutchman still wears wooden shoes
His cap and coat are patched with the love
That Margaret sewed in
Sometimes he thinks he's still in Rotterdam

He watches tug boats down canals
And calls out to them when he thinks he knows the Captain
'Til Margaret comes to take him home again
Through unforgiving streets
That trip him though she holds his arm
Sometimes he thinks that he's alone and calls her name

The windmills whirl the winter in
She winds his muffler tighter,
They sit in the kitchen
Some tea with whiskey keeps away the dew
He sees her for a moment, calls her name

She makes the bed up humming some old love song
A song Margaret learned when the tune was very new
He hums a line or two, they hum together in the night
The Dutchman falls asleep and Margaret blows the candle out

John Gorka recorded his version of the Dutchman on "So Dark You See" (Red House Records, 2009) Click here for more information about this great CD