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Their charts were outdated but they,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