The Mariner's Revenge Song

We are two mariners, our ships' sole survivors

In this belly of a whale

Its ribs our ceiling beams, its guts our carpeting

I guess we have some time to kill

You may not remember me, I was a child of three

And you, a lad of eighteen

But I remember you, and I will relate to you

How our histories interweave

At the time you were a rake and a roustabout

Spending all your money on the whores and hounds, oh-oh

You had a charming air, all cheap and debonair

My widowed mother found so sweet

And so she took you in, her sheets still warm with him

Now filled with filth and foul disease

As time wore on, you proved a debt-ridden drunken mess

Leaving my mother a poor consumptive wretch, oh-oh

And then you disappeared, your gambling arrears

The only thing you left behind

And then the magistrate reclaimed our small estate

And my poor mother lost her mind

Then one day in spring, my dear sweet mother died

But before she did, I took her hand as she, dying, cried, "Oh-oh"

"Find him, bind him

Tie him to a pole and break his fingers to splinters

Drag him to a hole until he wakes up, naked

Clawing at the ceiling of his grave"

It took me fifteen years to swallow all my tears

Among the urchins in the street

Until a priory took pity and hired me

To keep their vestry nice and neat

But never once in the employ of these holy men

Did I ever once turn my mind from the thought of revenge, oh-oh

One night, I overheard the prior exchanging words

With a penitent whaler from the sea

The captain of his ship, who matched you toe to tip

Was known for wanton cruelty

The following day, I shipped to sea with a privateer

And in the whistle of the wind I could almost hear, oh-oh

"Find him, bind him

Tie him to a pole and break his fingers to splinters

Drag him to a hole until he wakes up, naked

Clawing at the ceiling of his grave"

"There is one thing I must say to you

As you sail across the sea

Always, your mother will watch over you

As you avenge this wicked deed"

And then that fateful night, we had you in our sight

After twenty months at sea

Your starboard flank abeam, I was getting my muskets clean

When came this rumbling from beneath

The ocean shook, the sky went black, and the captain quailed

And before us grew the angry jaws of a giant whale, oh-oh, oh, oh

Don't know how I survived, the crew all was chewed alive

I must have slipped between his teeth

But, oh, what providence, what divine intelligence

That you should survive as well as me

It gives my heart great joy to see your eyes fill with fear

So lean in close and I will whisper the last words you'll hear, oh-oh