We Are The Men Left Alive
Words and music by Joe Ficklin

In the port of old San Juan / There’s a pub the sailors shunG G C G / C G D D
Some say the place is cursed beyond all ken		G G C C D
In the pub there is a table / If you go there you are ableG G C G / C G D D
To see the most unfortunate of men			C C D D G

The Broken Oar is now the home / A filthy, stinking catacomb
A dozen men who’ve washed up on the shore
Pulled in by the ocean’s swell / And each one with a tale to tell
Of when they stood before Hell’s grasping door

	We are the men left alive			D D G
	When the ship was all lost, yet we somehow surviveD D C D
	‘Tis bad luck to die and worse luck to live	C G D G
	With no God to bless and no sins to forgive	C D C D
	Our comrades are gone and we cannot find crew	C G C D
	So we sit here and drink with nothing to do	G D C/D G
	Living no life at all but a slow creeping death	D D G G
	Until we_ draw our last breath			C D G

Young Jackie sailed from London town / And to the colonies was bound
A silver squall came tearing flesh from bone
The Bonnie Mary-Kate was lost / With sixty living souls as cost
And Jackie floating on the sea alone

Henri came from Limoges / And left the green to sail the gray
The fleet from France came under British fire
The battle raged for thirteen days / With ships and men both set ablaze
And only he escaped the funeral pyre

Tilly crewed a merchantman / Hailing out of Amsterdam
Mikel’s schooner sailed from Baltimore
Survivors of the hurricane / Driven by the pounding rain
To find their seats within The Broken Oar

Refrain

Victor’s whaler came to grief / On an unseen rocky reef
But he alone survived the lifeboat’s drift
Forty days beneath the sun / Until he was the only one
His madness is a fog that will not lift

And I, who served a bloody king / I bent the knee and kissed the ring
To venture forth and claim the native gold
With slaves that died at my command / I find myself among the damned
And lost the love that sea could never hold

Survivor, then we welcome you / To join our landlocked luckless crew
For who can guess at whom the ocean saves?
So we will sit and linger here / Tell our tales and drink our beer
Until at last we walk into the waves

Refrain