[G]She went down last October in the[C] pouring, driving[G] rain.
The[Am] skipper he’d been drinking and the[C]
mate he felt no[D] pain.
Too[G] close to Three Mile Rock and she was[C] dealt her mortal[G] blow
And the[Am] Marry
Ellen Carter sitting[D] low.
There was just us five aboard her when she finally was a-wash.
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
That the Mary Ellen Carter’d rise again.
Well, the owners wrote her off, not a nickel would they spend.
"She gave twenty years of service, boys, and met her
sorry end.
But insurance paid the loss to us, so let her rest below,"
They laughed at us and said we’d have to
go.
But we talked of her all winter, some days around the clock,
She’s worth a quarter million, a-floating at the
dock.
And with every jar that hit the bar we swore we would remain
And watch the Mary Ellen Carter rise again.
[Am]Rise again,[D] rise a[G]gain,
Let her[C] name not be lost to the[G] knowledge of[D] men
For[G] those who
loved her best and were[C] with her[D] to the[G] end,
We’ll make the[C] Mary Ellen[D] Cater, 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 I’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;
And tomorrow, noon, we hit the air and then take up the strain
And watch the Mary Ellen
Carter rise again.
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.
And you, to whom adversity has dealt that 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,
Thou your heart, it be broken, your life about to end,
No matter what you’ve
lost, be it a home, a love, a friend,
Be like the Mary Ellen Carter:
rise again
