"Oh the engine's gone dead," cried the men who work there
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And she passed up the dock on the wide Delaware
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Then the ship ran aground and the oil got away
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And they penned that report, "The Big Spill" on that day
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It was hundreds of thousands of gallons galore
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Stretching thirty-two miles down the Delaware shore
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There were geese in the marshes out looking for food
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They got stuck where they stood in the oncoming crude
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And it's oil, oil
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Ah, drifting to the sea
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Oil, oil
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Don't buy it at the station, you can have it now for free
|
Just come on down to the shoreline where the water used to be
|
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In the well-charted waters of the Nantucket shoals
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There's a ship run aground full of oil, we were told
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In a week's worth of rough winter weather and waves
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The boat started cracking and it could not be saved
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It was seven-point-six million gallons this time
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Consider the danger and think of the crime
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As it poured out a slick stretching into the tide
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Over hundred-miles and yes, it came deep, it came wide
|
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And it's oil, oil
|
Oil pouring in the sea
|
Oil, oil
|
Oh, don't buy it at the station, you can have it now for free
|
Just come on down to the shoreline where the water used to be
|
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There's talk of some writing found in the ship's log
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Saying one of the helmsmen's unfit for his job
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And the ship's gyro compass was six degrees shy
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Their charts were outdated but they, they tried to get by
|
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And you know it's oil, oil
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Yeah, pouring in the sea
|
Oil, oil
|
Don't buy it at the station, you can have it now for free
|
Just come on down to the shoreline where the water used to be
|
Yeahhh
|
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Now both of these ships, like a great many more
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Got registered in through Liberian doors
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Inspections are quick and regulations are few
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Just sign on the line and go find you a crew, yes
|
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One of these ships was the Olympic Games
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The Argo Merchant was the other one's name
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Well it's sad, but it's true, things got worse for the seas
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'Cause I ain't even mentioned Amoco Cadiz
|
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Amoco Cadiz, between England and France
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The big super tanker out there taking it's chance
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With its one-hundred-thousand black tons of the slime
|
Amoco Cadiz spilled the most of all time
|
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Yes, ya' know it's oil, oil
|
Man, it's creepin' in the sea
|
Oil, oil
|
Oh, don't buy it at the station, you can have it now for free
|
Just come on down to the shoreline where the water used to be
|
|
Now down in the Gulf east of Mexico Way
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There's something gone wrong, so the papers all say
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A Mexican oil well is leaking it's goo
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They say it's the worse that things have ever come to
|
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Yes it's gallons of sludge, sixty-million and more
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It's cruising and oozing towards many a shore
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Yes, things have got bad but they will probably get worse
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If you can't drink the oil, oh, you might, you might die of thirst
|
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Because it's oil, it's oil
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And it's creeping in the sea
|
Oil, oil
|
Don't buy it at the station, you can have it now for free
|
Just come on down to the shoreline where the water used to be
|
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-----------------
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The Oil Song
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Steve Forbert |