Come and gather 'round me people
And a tale to you I'll tell
Of my father and his father
In the days before the spill
With an endless sky above 'em
And a restless sea below
And every blessin' flowing from the Gulf of Mexico
Well my Granddad worked the shrimp boats
From the time that he was grown
And he scrimped and saved and bought himself
A trawler of his own
He was rough and he was ready
And he drank when he was home
But he made his family's livin' on the Gulf of Mexico
He was rollin'
He was rollin'
'Cross the deep blue water
He was rollin'
Well my Daddy drove a crew boat
Haulin' workers to the rigs
He was sick of mendin' nets
And couldn't stand the smell of fish
So he drew a steady paycheck
Twenty years from Texaco
When he died we spread his ashes
On the Gulf of Mexico
He was rollin'
He was rollin'
'Cross the deep green water
He was rollin'
As for me I dreamed of nothing
Any grander than the day
That I stepped out on the drillin' floor
To earn a roughneck's pay
Then one night I swear I saw the devil
Crawlin' from the hole
And he spilled the guts of hell out in the Gulf of Mexico
We were rollin'
We were rollin'
'Cross the blood-red water
We were rollin'