Let me tell you a story, it happened long ago
When the pines were dancing in the wind on the Mendocino shore
The town lights were blazing, there were parties everywhere
It was Christmas eve and joy was in the air
In the dark and stormy night someone heard the sound
Of something breaking on the rocks and a big ship going down
Some said they saw a light some swore it was a star
That shone out there in the night although it wasn't far
In the grey light of morning they walked along the sand
Finding pieces of the ship but no sign of her hands
Except a tiny pair of shoes and a woman's ragged coat
That lay there at the water's edge in the driftwood and the foam
Some said she sailed from India or the coast of Oregon
Some said by the size of her rigging it was some place far beyond
But why she sailed into a port closed down so long ago
Or if all on board were lost at sea no one seemed to know
The fire was crackling in the stove when he heard the wailing cry
Of a little baby in the night somewhere close outside
He grabbed his gun and he left the house, he thought it was A cat
But he found a woman with a babe, fallen in her tracks
She was cold, her eyes were glazed, her skin was ghostly white
He tried to make her speak, she just handed him the child
And then she passed into that endless sleep
And he knelt beside her on the trail and he began to weep
Rushing home he stoked the fire and he bathed the weary babe
Its skin was brown as a hazel nut, its eyes of greenest jade
In age it was about two years or maybe six months more
But he had the look of a wise old man who'd been this way before
And so he stayed and he filled the heart of the man that he called dad
And Shipwreck Star was the only name that boy-child ever had
His mama, she lies buried in the manzanita and the pines
Where the wild azaleas bloom in the fog-bound summertime