Henry's Songbook

She went down last October in a pouring, driving rain
The skipper had 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 was just us five aboard her when she finally was awash
We'd 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 would rise again

Well the owners wrote her off, 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 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 make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again

Rise again, rise again
Let her name not be lost to the knowledge of men
All those who loved her best and were with her to the end
Will 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 I'd never have the strength to go below
But we patched her rents, stopped her vents, dogged hatch and porthole down
Put cables to her fore and aft and girded her around
Tomorrow noon we hit the air and then take on the strain
And make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again

Rise again, rise again
Let her name not be lost to the knowledge of men
All those who loved her best and were with her to the end
Will make 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 the final blow
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
Turn to, 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

(as sung by Rod Sinclair)

[1994:] The golden rule is don't ascend too quickly, because nitrogen dissolved in your bloodstream is liable to expand and appear as bubbles in your blood, which gives rise to the condition known as 'the bends'. [A] mild attack makes you feel generally unwell with pricking or tingling of the skin. In more severe cases nitrogen bubbles appear in the fluid of the joints, causing excruciating pain. The worst possible outcome is when air bubbles appear in the blood vessels of the brain because this may cause paralysis. (John Collee, Observer Magazine, 8 May)

[19?:] I really like the guy in this song. He's every person who ever had experts tell him what he wanted to do was impossible, then did it anyway. May you always be like the Mary Ellen Carter. (Notes Stan Rogers, 'Between the Breaks...Live!')

[1999:] The engineer [who claimed to have saved his life by singing this song] was one of only a few survivors of the vessel "Marine Electric," which had sunk just a few months previously. I recall Stan saying that many people had told him that song, "Mary Ellen Carter," had saved their lives, but that this mariner was the only one who had offered supporting evidence. He didn't say anything about any particular actual shipwreck, so I should assume that the song is wholly fictional. (Ken Hill, rec.music.folk, 4 Nov)

The survivor interviewed is "Robert Cusick, Chief Mate 'Marine Electric'" as the [...] caption reads about 39 minutes into the tape. (Richard L. Hess, rec.music.folk, 4 Nov)

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=8054
http://phobos.astro.uwo.ca/~sshorlin/mycarter.html