"The Mariner's Revenge Song" lyrics - THE DECEMBERISTS

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 [screaming]
Oh [screaming]

Don't know how I survived
The crew all was chewed alive
I must have slipped between its teeth

But, O! 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