The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #23967   Message #2904805
Posted By: Rob Naylor
11-May-10 - 06:51 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: songs of the oilfield
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: songs of the oilfield
We had a few on the seismic boats, but they were generally filthy (and I mean *filthy*) and often specific to the vessel in question.

The M/V "Rio Das Contas" was given the obvious re-name in one song.

We had one to the tune of "Okie From Muskogee" which started something like:

We don't smoke marijuana in the Gun Shack
We don't take no trips on Longva Three
The Party Chief's unconscious on the back deck
Because he gets his fucking beer for free

(bit of a parody of "Up Against The Wall You Redneck Mothers" really...and Norwegian vessels were "wet" until 1983. US crews couldn't believe it when they saw our beer fridges in the day room! Longva Three was a new vessel in our fleet that people tried to avoid getting transferred to)

The chorus is offensive these days....when we did manual work on the back deck we were referred to as "back deck n*gg**s, which the chorus references heavily.

I wrote one about our navigation system (Called Pulse-8, a sort of Loran-C derivative) which started:

The thing about this job I hate
Is working with this fucking Pulse-8

and finished:

So seismic companies be on your guard
The choice is limited, I know it's hard
But if you're after a post-plot that carries some weight
Don't trust your positioning to fucking Pulse-8

It was written with FEELING as I was a former Pulse-8 Engineer, but it's fairly meaningless unless you're familiar with specialist marine survey radio-navigation systems.