Oh listen while I tell you of the Arbroath tragedy Of how six gallant lifeboatmen were thrown into the sea On October twenty seven in the year of fifty three And only one brave man was saved in that calamity
The night was dark and stormy and the lifeboat standing by And all at once a rocket jumped into the angry sky The "Robert Lindsay" ventured out to find the reason why But nothing could they find that night no matter how they tried
Four hours they searched that Tuesday morn until the break of day But not a bit of wreckage could they find in Arbroath bay "It's home and mugs of cocoa for us sailors while we may Or else we'll never see the shore," they heard the Cox'n say
As they came back across the bar it was an awful sight The lifeboat overturned them in the sea as black as night They couldn't reach the shore alive though struggle as they might And only Archie Smith was saved upon that dreadful night
Two brothers sank beneath the waves, a father and a son The bowman, Thomas Adams went the way that they had gone And when the boat was washed ashore beneath the morning sun The Cox'n, David Bruce, was lash'd the steering wheel upon
So let's remember all the men who go down to the sea And all their wives and sweethearts dear wherever they may be And working men who give their lives in dire necessity The fishermen who died that night in Nineteen Fifty-Three.