Mary Ellen Carter Lyrics

Mary Ellen Carter

 

She went down last October in a pouring driving rain,

The skipper, he’d been drinking and the mate, he felt no pain,

Too close to Bishop Rock, and she was dealt a mortal blow,

And the Mary Ellen Carter settled low

There were just us five aboard her when she finally was awash,

We worked like hell to save her, all heedless of the cost,

And the groan she gave as she went down, it caused us to proclaim,

We’d make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again

Well, the owners wrote her off; not a penny would they spend,

“She gave twenty years of service, boys, then met her sorry end,

The insurance paid the loss to us so let her rest below”,

Then they laughed at us and said we had to go

.

But we talked of her all winter, some days around the clock,

“She’s worth a quarter million, afloat and at the dock”,

And with every jar that hit the bar, we swore we would remain,

And make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again

Rise again, rise again,

that her name not be lost to the knowledge of men.

For those who loved her best and were with her till the end,

We’ll make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again

All spring, now, we’ve been with her on a barge lent by a friend,

“Three dives a day in a hard hat suit and twice I’ve had the bends”,

“Thank God it’s only sixty feet and the currents here are slow”,

Or we’d never have the strength to go below

But we’ve patched her rents and stopped her vents, dogged hatch and porthole down,

Put cables to her, ‘fore and aft and girded her around,

Tomorrow, noon, we’ll hit the air and then take up the strain,

And watch the Mary Ellen Carter rise again

Chorus

For we couldn’t leave her there, you see, to crumble into scale,

She’d saved our lives so many times, living through the gale,

And the laughing, drunken rats who left her to a sorry grave,

They won’t be laughing in another day. . .

All you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow,

With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go,

Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain,

And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again

Rise again, rise again,

Though your heart it be broken, and your life about to end,

No matter what you’ve lost, be it a home, a love, a friend

Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again

Rise again, rise again, that her name not be lost

To the knowledge of men.

All those who loved her best and were with her till the end

We made the Mary Ellen Carter rise again.