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 ♪ 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