[00:00.68]Ballad of the Great Eastern - Sting
[00:08.35]In 18 hundred and 59, the engineer Brunel,
[00:11.66]
[00:12.71]Would build the greatest ship afloat,
[00:14.72]and rule the ocean's swell.
[00:16.22]
[00:17.14]Nineteen thousand tons of steel
[00:19.21]they used to shape the mighty keel,
[00:21.57]Forged inside the smelter where
[00:23.26]
[00:23.82]they made the gates of Hell...
[00:25.82]
[00:26.94]And the name upon the contract,
[00:28.56]
[00:29.44]Isambard Brunel.
[00:30.50]
[00:34.99]As day-by-day the monster grew,
[00:37.24]the engineer Brunel,
[00:38.35]
[00:39.48]Would watch the devil's handiwork,
[00:41.35]and woe betide a man who shirks,
[00:43.23]
[00:43.91]Or slows the pace to build the keel,
[00:46.17]nineteen thousand tons of steel,
[00:47.98]
[00:48.72]Anyone with eyes to see is but a bride of Hell,
[00:52.03]
[00:52.90]And the name upon the draftsman's chart, Isambard Brunel.
[00:57.83]
[01:01.89]A riveter was on the hull with his apprentice lad,
[01:05.26]
[01:06.20]He'd served his time with the older man,
[01:08.57]some say it was his dad.
[01:09.88]
[01:10.63]200 men upon the shift but when the day is done,
[01:14.11]
[01:15.00]The count is hundred 98...before the setting sun,
[01:19.92]
[01:20.54]They searched the yard
[01:22.00]all through the night until the morning bell,
[01:23.81]No more delays are countenanced by Isambard Brunel,
[01:28.23]
[01:29.35]And so they work a double shift,
[01:31.67]to make the time in full,
[01:32.98]
[01:34.03]No mention of the missing men...they seal the double hull.
[01:40.15]
[01:57.82]The ship was launched upon the tide
[01:59.69]and all the townsfolk cheered,
[02:01.06]
[02:02.11]A brass band played
[02:03.56]but not a word of omens they had feared,
[02:05.49]
[02:06.48]But before the afternoon was out,
[02:08.61]the celebration wrecked,
[02:09.73]
[02:10.79]A dignitary clutched his heart...and collapsed upon the deck.
[02:15.35]
[02:15.97]No doctors could revive him
[02:18.03]as the telegraphs would tell,
[02:19.40]
[02:20.40]And the name upon the coffin...Isambard Brunel.
[02:25.08]
[02:33.32]And now upon the open sea, the mighty ship did plough,
[02:36.75]
[02:37.75]But many feared the darkness, in the shadow of its prow.
[02:40.87]
[02:41.74]An explosion on the lower deck, would take the souls of five,
[02:45.36]
[02:46.38]With a growing superstition 'mong the sailors still alive.
[02:49.75]
[02:52.99]The captain and his boy are lost while rowing to the shore,
[02:55.92]
[02:56.92]The crew will threaten mutiny and say they'll work no more,
[03:00.49]
[03:01.35]They began to say the ship was cursed,
[03:03.73]they hadn't even seen the worst,
[03:05.18]
[03:05.80]They'd signed on able-bodied men,
[03:07.94]but they wouldn't sail to Hell...
[03:09.30]
[03:11.12]When the name upon the manifest is Isambard Brunel.
[03:14.62]
[03:19.24]For 14 years that ship will sail,
[03:21.04]
[03:22.10]misfortune taken hard,
[03:23.23]
[03:24.41]The owners barely find a crew to reach the breakers' yard.
[03:27.59]
[03:28.52]And as they take the plates apart,
[03:30.34]unseal the double hull,
[03:32.21]
[03:33.27]The breakers call the foreman o'er,
[03:34.89]
[03:36.01]they'd found a human skull.
[03:37.21]
[03:38.82]And then they find the younger man,
[03:40.32]
[03:41.25]perforced to understand,
[03:42.20]
[03:43.44]That in the hour of their torment,
[03:45.07]
[03:45.81]he'd reached his father's hand.
[03:47.88]
[03:51.81]In 18 hundred and 59, the engineer Brunel,
[03:55.18]
[03:56.24]Would build the greatest ship afloat,
[03:58.36]and rule the mighty swell.
[03:59.79]
[04:00.67]The final shift was over, and the breakers' hammers fell,
[04:04.28]
[04:05.03]And the name upon the manifest,
[04:06.65]
[04:07.22]the contract signed in Hell,
[04:08.72]
[04:09.46]Was the same as on the draftsman's chart...one Isambard Brunel.