This song is a work of storytelling — part history, part imagination, part exaggeration. Like all good shanties, take it with a pinch of salt and a shot of rum. 



The Ballad of the Captain and the Plate 

Come gather 'round lads, and I'll sing ye a song
Of a captain once bold, but it didn't last long
He ruled Edward Teach with a fist full of flame
And Gary Sholar, aye, that was his name

The bar was his kingdom, the beer flowed like tide
With music and laughter and legends beside
But storms, they come sudden, and tempers do spark
And even the brightest can fade into dark

Oh the glass did shatter and the room stood still
When the plate took flight down the windowsill
And the songs turned to silence, the cheers to a hush
As the weight of the night turned the proud into crushed

They say there was drinkin', a woman, a tune
And a fight that had boiled by the rise of the moon
A word was misread or a look overplayed
And the calm of the harbor was lost in the fray

A waiter stood stunned with a plate at his feet
The town lit in rumors from market to street
What's truth, what's tale, no soul really knows
But the headlines they carried where dignity goes

Oh the glass did shatter and the room stood still
When the plate took flight down the windowsill
And the songs turned to silence, the cheers to a hush
As the weight of the night turned the proud into crushed

Now the taps don't flow like they did before,
And the shadows run longer across that floor
The name Edward Teach still hangs on the breeze
But the captain they knew now drifts with the seas

Oh the tales we sing when the moon is low
Of a man and his pride and the undertow
With a plate, a spark, and a song gone wrong
He's a whisper now, not a toast or a song

So here's to the fall of the ones we crowned
May we all watch our steps when the tide comes 'round

Dive In

Dave Matthews Band