Story Behind The Song

The British merchant seaman's role during the WW2 and the way they were treated then and now.

Song Description

A contemporary sea shanty

Lyrics

The Mercantile Marine

Verse 1
I found a book, when I was ten, of wartime bound in blue:
Entitled bold, The Mercantile Marine
I asked my father ?what it meant ??as he washed when he came home
but the factories oil and swarf would never clean.
He told of convoys passing dark and silent in the night
In the cold off Aberdeen and Northern Lights
Of hands that froze upon the rails, the gun metal face of tars
signed on for war as Mercantile Marine.

Verse 2
I watched the TV?s armchair storms and the words of men who lived
With the screams inside their dreams of men deceased
The gray slate names engraved in gold of a thousand race of men
And the thousand names of God to all at sea
Who kept lone Britains pride alive against the Nazi tide
Who lost their apy the day their ship beneath them died
Of how they lost their youth, their limbs, their skin, pension and dreams
For King and Empire?s Mercantile Marine

Verse 3
It?s said that all discretion dies within the telling of a tale.
The passions half a century can?t abate
Became an understatement in the lining of a face
Of terrors no debate articulates.
Sweet politics that murdered 25% of all and 75% non - British too
Joe Stalin gave them a medal. The British Empire none
And they?re not allowed to wear the Russian one.

Coda
It seems that Britain?s gratitude extends and downward thumb
To the sailors of the Mercantile Marine

© Words by Alan J Ingram Music by Keith Ingram and Alan J Ingram