The Tiger Lillies
Dead Men’s Ship
The mariner alone survives
Survives in living hell
Each sailor there does lose their lives
As he rings his bell
There among the rotting corpses
He is left to play
The wreak of their rotting limbs
The stench of their decay
For seven days on that death ship
The mariner does lie
Haunted by the curse of
Each dead sailor’s eye
Until at last King Neptune
Mercy does him show
The albatross falls from his neck
At last the curse does go
So upon a dead man’s ship
The rain comes tumbling down
So the dead men come to life
And start to move around
These dead men do not speak
Each is a living corpse
Yet the helmsman steers his ship
A steady north
King Neptune carries this ship
Dead sailors all him serve
Now the mariner repents
Each action and each word
So homeward the mariner floats
On King Neptune’s sea
And when it is his time to die
King Neptune sets him free
Then he’ll be amongst the waves
A mermaid will he love
Each day be like a summer’s day
Stare at the skies above
So upon a dead man’s ship
The rain comes tumbling down