Rise Again (Catnip for Folksingers)
So, I have been on a sustained Stan Rogers bender. Since downloading seven songs on the 7th, I have listened to each of them at least 8 times, and my four favorites ("Barrett's Privateers," "The Mary Ellen Carter," "The House of Orange," and "Northwest Passage") at least 20 times each. I could probably blog about each of my four favorite Stan Rogers songs, and maybe I will, but for today, I will write about "The Mary Ellen Carter."
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.
Like many Stan Rogers songs, this is a song about the sea, at least initially. Rogers was actually from Hamilton, but developed a very Maritime sensibility, even going so far as to sing, "Ontario, y'know I've seen a place I'd rather be;/ your scummy lakes and the City of Toronto don't do a damn thing for me./ I'd rather live by the sea." I think of Mary Ellen Carter as being set on the Great Lakes, but I don't know if that's what he was thinking when he wrote it.
There were 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.
So, this song is built to be folksinger catnip. After Rogers died, this became one of the signature songs for his legacy. Folk festivals in Winnipeg and Owen Sound culminate in singalongs of "The Mary Ellen Carter," and this theme of rising again, the barely concealed allegory of the song, is what makes it such folk festival fodder.
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 them, they let her rest below.
Then they laughed at us and said we had to go.
In true folksong style, the lines are drawn very clearly. The captain and the mate, and the owners, they drink and they laugh but they have no soul. The narrator, the singer, and the audience, well, they're not that sort.
But we talked of her all winter, some days around the clock,
For 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.
They're the sort that will drink from jars and know that a ship is an investment, but more than just that.
Rise again,
rise again,
that her name not be lost
To the knowledge of men.
Those who loved her best and were with her till the end
Will make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again.
This is starting to dovetail with my readings of Patrick O'Brian novels. These are the guys "before the mast" -- the captain is supposed to go down with the ship, but these guys actually did. They knew the ship, they loved her, and they invite the singer and the audience to be guys like them, too. This is the bit everyone sings along together.
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.
Rogers uses his voice really well here, having the narrator sound a bit sheepish, admitting that the murky depths where his beloved ship lies are almost too much for him. But then, he rallies:
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 watch the Mary Ellen Carter Rise Again.
And then he rallies, leading into the refrain. He picks up the tempo, and builds to a crescendo, which at first I didn't even realize left ambiguous whether these sailors' plan worked or not.
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. . .
So, we're back to sticking it to "the man." The sailors have soul, the "laughing, drunken rats" don't. We (singing along to verses as well as refrain by now, I would imagine) will show them.
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.
And now, it is all brought back home.
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.
This, everyone, is what catnip for folksingers looks like.
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.
Like many Stan Rogers songs, this is a song about the sea, at least initially. Rogers was actually from Hamilton, but developed a very Maritime sensibility, even going so far as to sing, "Ontario, y'know I've seen a place I'd rather be;/ your scummy lakes and the City of Toronto don't do a damn thing for me./ I'd rather live by the sea." I think of Mary Ellen Carter as being set on the Great Lakes, but I don't know if that's what he was thinking when he wrote it.
There were 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.
So, this song is built to be folksinger catnip. After Rogers died, this became one of the signature songs for his legacy. Folk festivals in Winnipeg and Owen Sound culminate in singalongs of "The Mary Ellen Carter," and this theme of rising again, the barely concealed allegory of the song, is what makes it such folk festival fodder.
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 them, they let her rest below.
Then they laughed at us and said we had to go.
In true folksong style, the lines are drawn very clearly. The captain and the mate, and the owners, they drink and they laugh but they have no soul. The narrator, the singer, and the audience, well, they're not that sort.
But we talked of her all winter, some days around the clock,
For 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.
They're the sort that will drink from jars and know that a ship is an investment, but more than just that.
Rise again,
rise again,
that her name not be lost
To the knowledge of men.
Those who loved her best and were with her till the end
Will make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again.
This is starting to dovetail with my readings of Patrick O'Brian novels. These are the guys "before the mast" -- the captain is supposed to go down with the ship, but these guys actually did. They knew the ship, they loved her, and they invite the singer and the audience to be guys like them, too. This is the bit everyone sings along together.
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.
Rogers uses his voice really well here, having the narrator sound a bit sheepish, admitting that the murky depths where his beloved ship lies are almost too much for him. But then, he rallies:
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 watch the Mary Ellen Carter Rise Again.
And then he rallies, leading into the refrain. He picks up the tempo, and builds to a crescendo, which at first I didn't even realize left ambiguous whether these sailors' plan worked or not.
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. . .
So, we're back to sticking it to "the man." The sailors have soul, the "laughing, drunken rats" don't. We (singing along to verses as well as refrain by now, I would imagine) will show them.
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.
And now, it is all brought back home.
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.
This, everyone, is what catnip for folksingers looks like.