Lobster Trap Blues
I wrote Lobster Trap Blues when I was living in Portland, Maine. The song was inspired by a Vice News interview with a Maine lobsterman who spoke openly about his struggle with addiction. His story really stayed with me.
While our lives were different, I could relate to the struggle with addiction and the feeling of being caught in a gruelling cycle that’s hard to escape.
In the interview, the lobsterman told a story about showing up to the boat one morning dope sick. The captain looked at him, shook his head, and handed him a hundred dollars, telling him to come back in an hour. The fisherman did what he had to do, got his fix, came back, and worked a full day pulling traps.
Lobstering is incredibly hard work. Long days at sea, heavy traps, cold water, and years of strain on the body. Pain is part of the job. What many people don’t realise is that communities like this were heavily targeted during the rise of prescription opioids in the United States. Places where people worked physically demanding jobs became easy targets for painkillers like oxycodone.
That story stuck with me because it showed how addiction can quietly become part of everyday life, especially in tough working communities where people are just trying to get through the day.
I’ve been sober since 2010, and I’m incredibly grateful for the path that helped me get here. For me, recovery came through the help of a power greater than myself. These days, creativity is a huge part of how I stay connected to that power.
Writing songs like this reminds me where I’ve been, stuck in that lobster trap, and why I keep moving forward.
Lobster Trap Blues
I love the smell of the salty air
There’s a freedom being way out to sea
I got the best job in the whole wide world
But I know some day that it might kill me
Dopesick and lowdown
With a pain in my back
My rent is done and spent
Looking for work I drove down to the wharf
To get myself unbent
The captain he saw me
He shook his head
And said “son, you look worse for the wear”
He held a hundred dollar bill in his hand
Said “come back in an hour, there”
Oh woe is me
There we go again
Round and round and round we go
Into another downward spin
I gassed up my truck
And I called around
And drove out to the edge of town
Bought me two bags
That should last a few days
To keep these old wearies down
Drove back to the boat
After shooting my dope
And pulled traps in the heat of the day
Was the only time this goddamned pain in my spine
Was gone so far away
Oh woe is me
There we go again
Round and round and round we go
Into another downward spin
I know just how this is going to end
In a dark and early grave
I didn’t think when I took that first pill
That things might go this way
I wish I could run
I wish I could get clean
Pull myself up by my old bootstraps
When I pull them lobsters
From the cage
It’s me that’s in that old trap
Oh woe is me
There we go again
Round and round and round we go
Into another downward spin
