From the recording Fisherman, Farmer, Fool - Part 1 - Fisherman
John Guliak - Acoustic Guitar, Vocals/Jamie Philp - Electric Guitars/Gordon Gunn - Violin/Mike Lent - Bass Guitar/Jason Kodie - Accordion/Daniel Stadnicki - Percussion/Andrea Vogel - Siren vocal/Mireille Moquin, Jason Kodie - Background Vocal
Lyrics
Sum of Survival
(SOS) - Written by John Guliak
The HMS Sappho had paid all her dues
Taking the slave ships to task
Banished to the south seas she swallowed her crew
Though many lay claim her past
39 died on the SS Marine Sulphur Queen
Sometimes your fate’s in a name
Unsafe and unfit to sail in 1963
They sent her to sea just the same
Chorus
If the sum of survival is leaving your mark
The sea won’t remember your name
Come join us below in the deep and the dark
Where it’s always and never the same
Theodora Burr Alston presumed lost at sea
Was fleeing the death of her son
There were tales of the plank, how she smiled as she sank
So thankful her peace had been won
The USS Cyclops set sail from Brazil
But never delivered her hold
300 souls lost without living their fill
In a shipload of tales never told
Chorus
The richest plunder ever lost was in 1641
When the Merchant Royal sank off Land’s End
Her treasure cast away has never been won
El Dorado returned to the dead
Ghosts roamed the decks of the Mary Celeste
All possessions and provisions in their place
Not a bone or a breath of the crew nor the guests
Was found or ever heard of again
Chorus