Sterling Hayden - Tom Russell

Sterling Hayden on a barge in Amsterdam

One of those backwater Dutch canals

A bottle of Johnny Walker between his legs

Drunk but articulate as hell

He was saying, «Yeah, I ratted on people

During the McCarthy hearings, huh, you haven’t the foggiest notion

Of the contempt I have for myself, maybe that’s why we drink, eh?

Some damn thing, shipwrecks the heart, huh?

Yah»

Sterling Hayden on a three-masted schooner

Kidnapped his kids and sailed 'round the globe

But a man can sail around in one big circle

And not escape his wounded sailor’s soul

So heave her up the main sail, boys

Heave her up and away we’ll go

We’re bound for the bay where the white whale plays

In the midnight straits of Jericho

And if ever I return, Pretty Peggy O

All your cities I will burn, yes, I would

With your cardboard sea and your paper moon

O’er the penny arcade called Hollywood

He ran guns through the German lines in World War II

The Viking God stood six-feet-five

Played in 'Johnny Guitar and The Asphalt Jungle'

'The Killing' and 'The Long Goodbye'

I saw him once on the Johnny Carson show

Late in his troubled career

He said, «Just give me a room over lookin' the Hudson

With a mattress and a typewriter and I’ll write you

A helluva novel, my dears»

So here’s to all the tough guy actors

And the false gods who made 'em

And wherever he sails tonight on the Seven Seas

May the Lord sail with Sterling Hayden