Legacy -- Mary Ellen Carter

Mary Ellen Carter
(Stan Rogers, 1949-1983)
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Stan Rogers was a Canadian who helped lead the East Coast Celtic music revival in the 60's and 70's. This song of loyalty and redemption was among his most popular. He died in an airplane accident at the age of 33, while returning from a folk music festival.

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 Three Mile Rock, and she was dealt her 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
That the Mary Ellen Carter'd rise again.

Well, the owners wrote her off; not one 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"
And 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 just floatin' at the dock"
And with every jar that hit the bar we swore we would remain
And make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again.

Chorus
Rise again, rise again that her name not be lost to the knowledge of men
Those who loved her best and were with her 'til the end
Will make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again

So, all spring now we've been with her on barge lent by a friend
Three dives a day in a hardhat suit and twice I've had the bends
Thank God it's only sixty feet and the current here is slow
Or I'd never have the strength to go below.
Well, we've patched her rents, stopped up her vents, dogged hatch and porthole down
Tied cables to her fore and aft and girded her around
Tomorrow noon, we'll hit the air and then take up the strain
And make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again

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

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