Iron Mike

On a starry black night
 At the base of Mount Hogen
 Beyond Horsetail Creek
 And Anderson bay
 From the port of Valdez
 Sailed a ship bound for Long Beach
 Over one million barrels of crude stowed away
 To the left of the wheel
 In the bridge on the upper deck
 Under the compass was he
 Navigation computer
 The captain and fisherman's friend
 Who could steer perfectly
 They called him Iron Mike
 In the dead of the night
 He steered the way through the darkness
 Iron Mike, didn't see the red light on the reef
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 Now the skipper had twenty years sailing with Exxon
 He'd been known to throw back one or two
 Yet no one thought twice when he set auto-pilot
 And retired below with the crew
 From the 2 AM stillness
 Came the cry of the third mate
 Someone better go wake up the chief
 Yet by then, it was too late
 The starboard tanks had twelve-foot gashes cut out by Bligh Reef
 Iron Mike
 In the dead of the night
 He steered the way through the darkness
 Iron Mike, didn't see the red light on the reef, on the reef
 The forget-me-knots cried and the salmon all died
 And the fishermen wore black arm bands
 And the spokesmen from Exxon
 Said no major damage
 Though six million gallons remain in the sands
 And from Rocky Point down
 To Mount Freemantle you can still see
 The black film on the soil
 And the echos rebound
 Throughout Prince William Sound
 Of the half frozen animals choking in oil
 Iron Mike
 In the dead of the night
 He steered the way through the darkness
 Iron Mike, didn't see the red light on the reef
 Who's at the helm of this ship of stayed
 We're in for some rough navigation
 We have the power, the hour is late
 Gotta get tough and clean up the nation
 On the first of the year
 South of Governor's Island
 In the waterway called Arthur Kill
 Black Rainbows of Exxon
 Like Grayed again flowed like hot fudge
 In a big Apple spill
 The detection machine had malfunctioed quite often
 Repair procedures so hard to enforce
 And down on Paul's Island
 The cleanup begins and the horror continues
 Till we chart our own course
 Iron Mike
 It's the dead of the night
 We can steer the way through the darkness
 Iron Mike, we must see the light for relief
 For relief
 For relief
 for relief