Not many lead singers from an 80’s rock and roll band could write a compelling song about ship scrapping, but then Mark Knopfler is not just any singer/songwriter. Knopfler was born in Glasgow, Scotland on the River Clyde, which was once a major shipbuilding center. In the early 1900s, a fifth of all ships in the world were built on the banks of the River Clyde in Glasgow.  There are not many Clyde-built ships left. Most ended up in scrap yards, so far from the Clyde. Mark Knopfler singing “So Far from the Clyde” in a video by Alec Beaton.

Mark Knopfler — So Far from the Clyde

Lyrics
They had a last supper the day of the beaching
She’s a dead ship sailing skeleton crew
The galley is empty the stove pots are cooling
Whats left of the stew
The time is approaching the captain moves over
The hang man steps in to do what hes paid for
With the wind down the tide she goes proud a head steaming
He drives her hard into the shore

So far from the Clyde
Together we ride we did ride

A drift to a wave from her bows to her rudder
Bravely she rises to meet with the land
Under their feet you can feel the kings shudder
The shallow sea washes their hands
Later the captain shakes hands with the hangman
Climbs slowly down to the oily wet ground
Goes back to the car that has come here to take him
Through the graveyard back to the town

So far from the Clyde
Together we ride we did ride

They pull out her cables and hack off her hatches
Too poor to be wasteful with pity or time
They sworn on her carcass with torches and axes
Like a whale on a bloody shore line
Stripped of her pillars her stays and her stanchions
When their only her bones on the wet poison land
Steel rods will drag her with winces and engines

So far from the Clyde
Together we ride we did ride
So far from the Clyde
Together we ride we did ride