
Date of issue: 30.11.2009
Song language: English
The Derelict |
The mate was fixed with the bo’sun’s pike |
And the bo’sun brained with a marlin-spike |
Cookie’s throat was marked belike |
It had been gripped by fingers ten |
And there they lay, all good dead men |
Like break o' day in a boozin' den |
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum! |
Fifteen men of the whole ship’s list |
Dead and bedamned and the rest gone whist |
The skipper lay with his nob in gore |
Where the scullion’s axe his cheek had shore |
And the scullion he’d been stabbed times four |
And there they lay, and the soggy skies |
Dripped all day long up staring eyes |
By murk sunset and by foul sunrise-- |
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum! |
Fifteen men of 'em stiff and stark |
Ten of the crew with a murder mark |
'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead |
Or a yawning hole in a battered head |
And the scupper’s a-glut with a rotting red |
And there they lay, aye, damn me eyes |
Their lookouts clapped on Paradise |
And their souls gone just as contrariwise-- |
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum! |
Fifteen men of 'em good and true |
Every man-jack could 'a sailed with Old Pew |
There was just no chest full of Spanish gold |
With a ton of plate in the middle hold |
The cabins a riot of loot untold-- |
And there they lay that took the plum |
With sightless glare and lips struck dumb |
While we shared all by the rule of thumb-- |
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum! |
More was seen through a stern light screen |
Charting, no doubt, where a woman had been |
A flimsy shift on a bunkered cot |
With a thin dirk slot through the bosom spot |
And the lace stiff dry with a purplish blot-- |
Oh, was she a wench, some shuddering maid |
That dared the knife and took the blade |
By God, she was tough for a plucky jade-- |
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum! |
Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s chest |
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum! |
Drink and the Devil had done for the rest |
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum! |
Wrapped them all in the mainsail tight |
Twice ten turns of a hawser’s bight |
And we heaved them over and out of sight |
With a yo-heave-ho and a fare-ye-well |
A sudden plunge in a sullen swell |
Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell-- |
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum! |