The Mary Ellen Carter - Stan Rogers (ukulele tutorial by MUJ)
The Mary Ellen Carter, by Stan Rogers, 1979; cover by The Longest Johns, 2020; performed/taught here on ukulele by Marco D.
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Although the Mary Ellen Carter is fictitious, the following story is true:
On 2/12/1983 the ship Marine Electric was carrying a load of coal from Virginia to Massachusetts. The worst storm in 40 years sank the ship at about 4 am, and the ship’s chief mate, Bob Cusick, spent the night alone on a partially deflated lifeboat, in water barely above freezing and air much colder. Inspired by the final stanzas of this song he started to sing, and was alternately shouting out “RISE AGAIN” and holding his breath as the rough seas washed over him. After 3 hours of this he was rescued, and attributes his survival to this song. (Only 3 men of the 34 aboard the ship survived.)
VERSE 1:
She went down last October in a pourin, drivin rain
the skipper, he’d been drinkin 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 fin’ly was awash
we’d worked like hell to save her - all heedless o’ the cost
And the groan she gave as she went down, it caused us to proclaim
that the Mary Ellen Carter would rise again
VERSE 2:
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 - 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
CHORUS:
Rise again - rise again
that her name not be lost to the knowledge of men
Oh those who loved her best and were with her til the end
will make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again
VERSE 3:
All spring, now, 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 and 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 aft and girded her around
Tomorrow, noon, we hit the air and then take up the strain
and make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again
REPEAT CHORUS:
Rise again - rise again
that her name not be lost to the knowledge of men
Oh those who loved her best and were with her til the end
will make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again
[REPEAT INTRO]
VERSE 4:
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 lyin to ya everywhere ya go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
and like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again
OUTRO CHORUS:
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
[REPEAT OUTRO CHORUS]