The Mariner’s Revenge Song
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| Mariner’s Revenge Song (photo by Alicia J. Rose) |
In its epic sweep and scope, and with its literary shades of Poe, Dickens, Shakespeare, and Melville, “The Mariner’s Revenge Song,” by The Decemberists could probably give us enough material for a week of its own here at Murder Ballad Monday. Nevertheless, it’s also a good fit in our week taking a look at 21st century murder ballads involving the vengeance of children (grown or otherwise). We may come back to it at some later time, and I’m sure we’ll revisit the Decemberists for their other material in our genre, but I thought this would be a rather fun way, frankly, to wrap up a week that began with the more troubled and noir-ish “The Wound That Never Heals.” Like that song, “Mariner” gives us revenge of the child deferred to adulthood, but in this case the revenge is decidedly not displaced on more or less innocent others…unless, as with “My Fondest Childhood Memories,” you have reason to think that our narrator might just be a little bit unreliable. You may, in fact, have good reason to think that.
“Mariner” is a staple of the Decemberists’ repertoire and a fan favorite. It was a regular encore for them at live shows. Appearing on their 2005 album Picaresque, the studio recording of the song was apparently done with one mike in one take.
A picaresque tale in its own right, here’s the song as it appears on the album:
And here’s the song as performed on the Decemberists’ live album We All Raise Our Voices to the Air.
As for the lyrics and the story, it’s a delightfully satisfying tale, filled with word-play and dark corners of detail, all of which add up to a fantastic characterization of our murderous narrator, painted entirely in his own words. The musical setting of the song, the fantastical nature of it, the whale attack (hmm…), the mixture of divine providence and murderous madness, and the complete and utter dedication to purpose that leads our protagonist to kill his mother’s betrayer, even though they are the only two survivors living in the belly of a whale and he is likely to die too, make for a great, great story. Perversely uplifting perhaps, but it is a tale well told.
There are so many details within the song, and the action moves along so quickly at the end, that there is a little bit of ongoing debate among fans about the precise details of the action. The lyrics below are from the Decemberists’ web site, and I think contain a typo in the second line that makes one small contribution to the confusion (One ship or two? Should it be “our ships’ sole survivors”?). But on the other hand, whether because of the lyrics themselves or Colin Meloy’s distinctive delivery of them, you come to doubt whether the narrator is giving you the real story. There’s a certain kind of instability there, and a fair bit of room for the listener to play around inside this song, which is also most welcome.
The Mariner’s Revenge Son
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| The Decemberists |
We are two mariners
Our ship’s sole survivors
In this belly of a whale
It’s ribs are ceiling beams
It’s guts are carpeting
I guess we have some time to kill
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)
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)
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 himTie 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”
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)
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)
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
As you sail across the sea
Always, your mother will watch over you
As you avenge this wicked deed”
And then, that fateful nightWe 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
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)
YouTube is far from lacking in videos of live and studio performances of the song. The above is one well-recorded example. Also interesting, from the perspective of merging visual art, literature, and music, are the videos that provide graphic novel or animated approaches to the song. To all appearances, the Decemberists have a pretty strong art school following. I’ll include a few here that I think do a particularly good job. I’ll skip the Lego version for the time being.
Here’s a graphic novel version by Artur Janz:
Natalie Reiss provides a visual interpretation that’s a little less dark..
Picaresques, providence, and pyrrhic victories
It’s rather difficult for me to think of a similar style of murder ballad to this one, in terms of depicting the long-term vendetta, and a song which seems so gleeful in its mad and sustained determination. A few of the songs we’ve discussed have involved crimes of passion among adults, where the vengeance for perceived wrong-doing is taken rather quickly. “Frankie and Albert” would be an example, however different the real facts of that story are from the song purporting to tell it. “Cruel Willy” also presents some parallels in being a relatively light-hearted revenge story with one sibling avenging another. The Female Warrior ballad, “Billy Taylor,” with its nautical setting and quest for the wrong-doer, is probably most similar to “Mariner’s” among the ones we’ve covered. Both Sarah Gray in “Billy Taylor” and our vengeful Mariner here present us with success stories of a kind, but the Mariner’s victory might seem pyrrhic from some angles–perhaps all angles save his,
That the vengeance this time is in the hands of a grown child to carry out on behalf of a dead parent does seem to make a meaningful difference. The mode here is definitely a kind of poetic justice. Whether the killer is morally right or wrong, though, somehow seems to be beside the point, regardless of whether our Mariner views his situation as a sign of divine providence. What matters most is the single-mindedness and determination, and perhaps the futile, fatal gesture to solve the unsolvable–which makes the song tragic and comic simultaneously. So, it’s unlike most other murder ballads we’ve listened to, which may ruefully and penitently review one’s crimes, or find sympathy with the victim. None of that is present here. Yet, the song still strikes me as enormously satisfying as a story, particularly as set to music.
Wrapping up
That’s it for this week. Pat will take the lead next week, and then we’re planning to go on a bit of a vacation until the new year. More on that shortly.