The Oil Song
Steve Forbert

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 water 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Their charts were outdated but they, they tried to get by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


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Lyrics by Steve Forbert

  "Grand Central Station, March 18, 1977"   "January 23-30, 1978"   A Big Comeuppance   All I Asked Of You   All I Need To Do   Baby   Baby, Don't   Baby, I Know   Big City Cat   Big New World   Born Too Late   Breaking Through   Building Me A Fire   Can't We Get Together?   Dear Lord   Devil (Here She Comes Now)   Devil (Here She Comes Now) (Americana Version)   Don't Look Down, Pollyanna   Don't Stop   Dream, Dream   Evergreen Boy   Gambling Barroom Blues   Get That Vagabond Feeling   Goin' down to Laurel   Good Planets Are Hard to Find   Grand Central Station, March 18, 1977   Hang On Again Till The Sun Shines   Hope, Faith and Love   House of Cards   I Blinked Once   I Don't Know   I Don’t Know If You Know It   I Know What I Know   I Will Be There (When Your Train Comes in the Stat...   I Will Sing Your Praise   I'm in Love   I'm In Love With You   If I Want You Now   In Love With You   In the Jailhouse Now #1   It Doesn't Matter Much   It Isn't Gonna Be That Way   It Sure Was Better Back Then   It's Been a Long Time   January 23-30, 1978   Lay Down Your Weary Tune Again   Leaving Blues   Listen to the Mockingbird   Lonesome Cowboy Bill's Song   Make It All so Real   Man, I Miss That Girl   Metal Marie   Mexico   Middle Age   My Blue Eyed Jane   My Carolina Sunshine Girl   My Seaside Brown-Eyed Girl   New Working Day   No Use Running from the Blues   Now You Come Back   Oh, Camille   On the Streets of This Town   One Short Year Gone By   Open House   Over With You   Planet Earth Song   Poor Boy   Responsibility   Rollin’ Home To Someone You Love   Romeo's Tune   Sadly Sorta Like a Soap Opera   Samson and Delilah's Beauty Shop   Say Goodbye to Little Jo   Schoolgirl   Search Your Heart   Send In The Clowns   Settle Down   Shaky Ground   She's Living In a Dream World   Simply Must Move On   Simply Spalding Gray   Sing It Again, My Friend   Smoky Windows   Some Will Rake the Coals   Something Special   Song for Katrina   Song for the South   Steve Forbert's Midsummer Night's Toast   Steve Forbert's Moon River   Stolen Identity   Strange   Strange Names   Sugarcane Plum Fairy   Suspicion   Sweet Love That You Give (Sure Goes a Long, Long W...   That'll Be Alright   The American in Me   The Baghdad Dream   The Coo Coo Bird   The Sweet Love That You Give   The Sweet Love That You Give (Sure Goes a Long, Lo...   The Sweet Love That You Give Me (Sure Goes a Long,...   The Weekend   Thinkin'   Thirty More Years   Thirty Thousand Men   This Land Is Your Land   Time Seemed So Free   Tonight I Feel So Far Away from Home   Wait   Welcome The Rolling Stones   What Kinda Guy?   Whatever, Man (Americana Version)   When I Get To California   When I Get To California (Americana Version)   When the Sun Shines   When You Walk in the Room   Who'll Watch The Sun Set?   Why Should I Be Lonely   Witch Blues   Witch Blues [Alternate Take]   Write Me A Raincheck   Ya Ya (Next to Me)   You Cannot Win 'Em All   You Cannot Win If You Do Not Play   You Cannot Win If You Do Not Play [Live][#]   You're Meant For Me   You’d See The Things That I See

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