Douglas Closson: Lyrics

She went down last October in a pouring, driving rain
The Skipper, he’d been drinking and the mate, he felt no pain

To close to Three Mile Rock and she was dealt her mortal blow
Then Mary Ellen Carter settled low

There was just us five aboard her when she finally was awash
We worked like hell to save her all heedless of the cost
And the grown she gave as she went down caused us to proclaim
That the Mary Ellen Carter
would Rise Again

The owners wrote her not a nickel would they spend
“She gave twenty years of service, boys, then met her sorry end. But insurance paid the loss to us so let her rest below” then they laughed at us and said we had to go

But we’ve talked of her all winter, sometimes around the clock; She’s a 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
All those who loved her best and were with her ‘till the end will make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again

All spring we’ve been with
her on a barge lent by a friend
Three dives a day in hard-hat suit and twice I’ve had the bends.
Thank god it’s only sixty feet & the currents here are slow or I’d never have the strength to go below

But we’ve patched her rents, stopped her vents, dogged hatch and porthole down
Put cables to her fore and after and girded her around
Tomorrow noon we hit the air and then take up the strain
Make 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 will make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again

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 that left her to a sorry grave
They won’t be laughing in another day
And 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, like the Mary Ellen Carter rise again

Rise Again, Rise Again
Though your heart it be broken or 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