KRIS KRISTOFFERSON - Rescue Mission lyrics

The Captain touched his swagger stick up to his golden eye

And boogied through the vestibule while bidding us goodbye

The enemy surrounds us and our spirit's almost gone

The devil take the calvary that sold us for a song.

(There's Chi-Chi's on the starboard lads and Chi-Chi's in the stern

And hashish in the hookah pipe and bonny grass to burn

Our mission is a secret we're fool enough to try

And we'll sail the bloody ocean boys or drinik the bastard dry.)

If I'd've been a carpenter the swearthy sergeant said

I'd never seen this ugly thing that hangs above my head

The hell with all your heroes and the wounds they hope to show

I'm just a simple soldier son with one more year to go.

(The Albatros was tiring and the Cook was in a strew

The fifty little cabin boy was whizzing in my shoe

The Captain's wife was aging and the first mate heard her scream

When Tommy slipped tabasco in the Captain's vaseline.)

Our time will soon be gone he said it's all we've left to lose

We've shot out ammunition and we're all but out of booze

So here's to Irma Donegal here's to Nellie Blye

And here's to my old friends he said and kissed his ass goodbye.

(Give off give off you sorry lot give off the Captain cried

We've lost our bloody anchor and we're drifting with the tide

The swollen surf is pounding like a thousand cannons roar

And I shake the hand of any man who guides us into shore.)

We're saved we're saved the soldiers said we're saved the soldiers cried

And soldiers climbed aboard while sailors left from either side

(Some swabbies hit the minefield and the rifles got the rest)

And somewhere there's a schooner sinking slowly in the west...