USS Oklahoma Lyrics

1930 hours, glasses filled with beer or gin

In the officer's club in the Navy Yard for a short-range battle practice win

Shouts of celebration and a warm Pacific breeze

And finally crawling into cars to steal some rest and be at ease

Morning awful blue and awful bright

In 24 years was never quite so heavy in his head, so he boards his ship and he heads for bed

As he enters starboard side, the speakers crackle in their cry:

'Air attack, all unengaged personnel seek cover

No shit fellows, this is the real thing.'

He's starting down to third deck when the first torpedo strikes

This is no drill, this is the time to claw to ladders, light, and life

All hands man your battle stations, but the floor is turning steep

And slick with oil, six strikes, six minutes

Shaking like a wounded boar

429 aboard her as she sank into the black

A shivering ship of war beneath relentless air attack

And all I'll do and all I've done has a wire running right back to

December 7, 1941

As panic swells he clamors to a porthole left ajar

The only door, the only chance to escape the sinking tomb he's on

With all his failing might he swims as men around him drown

And fall to pieces cut by shrapnel, strafed by fire streaming down

When he surfaces in shallows and his body forces breath

He hears the sound of separation, oil, water, smoke and death

A ship that fought its damndest while strangled to stay dry

A harbor filled with sailors wary of an open sky

429 aboard her as she sank into the black

A shivering ship of war beneath relentless air attack

And all I'll do and all I've done has a wire running right back to

December 7, 1941