The Thresher
Words & Music:
Phil Ochs
Bm G
F# Bm Em A
F#
Bm G F# Bm Em A F#
In Portsmouth town on the
eastern shore where many a fine ship was born.
Bm G
F# Bm
The Thresher was built and the
Thresher was launched
Em A
F#
And the crew of the Thresher
was sworn.
Bm G
F# Bm
She was shaped like a
tear. She was built like a shark.
Em A F#
She was made to run fast and
free.
Bm
G
F#
Bm
And the builders shook their
hands and the builders shared their wine,
Em
A F#
And thought that they had mastered
the sea.
CHORUS:
Bm
F#
Em
F#
Yes, she'll always run silent
and she'll always run deep
Em
Bm
A
F#
Though the ocean has no pity;
though the waves will never weep.
Bm
They'll never weep.
And they marvelled at her
speed, marvelled at her depth,
Aarvelled at her deadly
design.
And they sailed to every land,
and they sailed to every port,
Just to see what faults they
could find.
Then they put her on the land
for nine months to stand
And they worked on her from
stem to stern.
But they could never see it
was their coffin to be
For the sea was waiting for
their return.
CHORUS:
On a cold Wednesday morn, they
put her her out to sea
When the waves they were nine
feet high.
And they dove beneath the
waves and they dove to their graves
And they never said a last
goodbye.
And its deeper and deeper and
deeper they dove
Just to see what their ship
could stand.
But the hull gave a moan and
the hull gave a groan
And they plunged to the
deepest darkest sand.
Now she lies in the depths of
the darkened ocean floor,
Covered by the waters cold and
still.
Oh, can't you see the
wrong? She was a death ship all
along.
Died before she had a chance
to kill.
CHORUS:
[Alternate final verse from
an early Broadside tape]
And it's 8000 fathoms of the
water above and over 100 men below.
And sealed in their tomb, is
the cause of their doom
That only the sea will ever
know.
Notes from the official
Phil Ochs lyrics site:
On the
morning of April 10, 1963, the USS Thresher (SSN 593) proceeded to conduct sea
trials about 200 miles off the coast of Cape Cod. At 9:13 a.m., the USS Skylark
(a surface vessel assigned to assist Thresher) received a signal, via
underwater telephone, indicating that the submarine was experiencing minor
difficulties, have positive up-angle, attempting to blow.
Shortly afterward, the Skylark received a series
of garbled, undecipherable message fragments from the Thresher. At 9:18 a.m.,
the SkylarkÕs sonar picked up the sounds of the submarine breaking apart. All
129 hands were lost -- 112 military and 17 civilian technicians.
Text from
http://www.csp.navy.mil/centennial/589-593.htm For further info see the NOVA
show Submarines, Secrets, and Spies for more Thresher and Scorpion (which
departed and never returned) info.