© 1992 Mary Garvey
Another of Mary's Columbia River songs. This is a good song to sing on the Maine coast where many of us still remember the sardine packing plants here. Quite a few of my school friends had summer jobs in those plants.
Mary says "Stella is a beautiful little town on the lower Columbia. The whole town was on piers when I was growing up."
Carol Rohl and January Men and Then Some – vocals
David Dodson – acoustic bass guitar
I've worked all my life in the cannery shed
And if I am dying or you think I am dead
Don't bury my bones but put me instead
In a can in the cannery shed
The cannery shed perches over the river
When the winter winds blow we freeze and we shiver
When the boss comes around I just might have to give her
My opinion of the cannery shed
There's no time to rest and there's no time to linger
And you'd better move sharp or you might lose a finger
It's make you stomach turn if you knew everything here's
Been canned in the cannery shed
We chop off the heads and chop off the tails
Scoop out the guts and throw them in the pails
We won't get a rest till the next schooner sails
From the dock at the cannery sheds
LaFaye he went away and he wrote me a letter
I tucked it up high in the sleeve of my sweater
And it slipped and it fell and ended in the shredder
And got canned in the cannery shed
The cannery boy he's a very happy fella
If he gets him a girl from the little town of Stella
I would if I could but I'm not going to tell ya
What goes on behind the cannery shed
Cannery Shed is recorded on the album Herrings in the Bay