C                    F
Let me tell you a story, it happened long ago
         C                                     G7
When the pines were dancing in the wind on the Mendocino shore
    Am                                   Em 
The town lights were blazing, there were parties everywhere
F      C                 G              C
It was Christmas eve and joy was in the air


                             F
In the dark and stormy night someone heard the sound
   C                                     G7
Of something breaking on the rocks and a big ship going down
Am                              Em 
Some said they saw a light some swore it was a star
     F                      C       G                C
That shone out there in the night although it wasn't far


                                  F
In the grey light of morning they walked along the sand
        C                         G7
Finding pieces of the ship but no sign of her hands
  Am                              Em 
Except a tiny pair of shoes and a woman's ragged coat
     F                C                   G                 C
That lay there at the water's edge in the driftwood and the foam


                                       F
Some said she sailed from India or the coast of Oregon
     C                                      G7
Some said by the size of her rigging it was some place far beyond
    Am                                Em 
But why she sailed into a port closed down so long ago
      F                 C           G                C
Or if all on board were lost at sea no one seemed to know


                                            F
The fire was crackling in the stove when he heard the wailing cry
     C                        G7
Of a little baby in the night somewhere close outside
   Am                                        Em 
He grabbed his gun and he left the house, he thought it was A cat
       F       C            G                   C
But he found a woman with a babe, fallen in her tracks


                                        F
She was cold, her eyes were glazed, her skin was ghostly white
   C                                 G7
He tried to make her speak, she just handed him the child
Am                            Em 
And then she passed into that endless sleep
       F     C                 G                     C
And he knelt beside her on the trail and he began to weep


                                       F
Rushing home he stoked the fire and he bathed the weary babe
    C                                  G7
Its skin was brown as a hazel nut, its eyes of greenest jade
   Am                            Em 
In age it was about two years or maybe six months more
       F                 C                  G               C
But he had the look of a wise old man who'd been this way before


                                                F
And so he stayed and he filled the heart of the man that he called dad
    C                                     G7
And Shipwreck Star was the only name that boy-child ever had
    Am                           Em 
His mama, she lies buried in the manzanita and the pines
          F            C            G               C
Where the wild azaleas bloom in the fog-bound summertime