Contemporary: The Mary Ellen Carter
The Mary Ellen Carter
Stan Rogers
Two verses and choruses: Full song: (1.5M)
"Mary Ellen Carter" is performed by on their CD of St. Valery.
About the singer/songwriter by Bruce Eder
from "Stan Rogers came from Hamilton,
Ontario, a six-foot-four poet who started out as a rock bassist before
turning to folk music. With his rich voice, he used his music to call to
life all of the wonder and mysticism of his native Canada. His singing is
occasionally mistaken for that of Gordon Lightfoot, but it's huskier and
earthier than Lightfoot's, and his repertoire -- made up of song cycles
drawn from throughout Canada -- is also more tradition-oriented and more
mystical. Rogers died in a fire aboard an Air Canada flight at the
Cincinnati/Kentucky
airport in June 1983, leaving behind a half-dozen albums."
She went down last October in the pouring, driving rain.
The skipper he'd been drinking and the mate he felt no
pain.
Too close to Three Mile Rock and she was dealt her mortal blow
And the Marry Ellen Carter sitting 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.
Chorus:
Rise again, rise again,
Let her name not be lost to the knowledge of men
For those who loved her best and were with her to the end,
We'll make the Mary Ellen 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.
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.
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!
Last Chorus 2x
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!
Guitar chords:
Dm
Dm/Am/C/Dm
Dm
Bflat/C/Am/Dm
(same for chorus
and verses)