SONG: Hellhole Submarine
HELLHOLE SUBMARINE
(Note: Sung to the melody of Paul McCartney and John Lennon’s “Yellow Submarine”)
In the dacha where I was born
lived a man who sailed the sea
When I turned 14 years old
they gagged and bound and shanghaied me
So we sailed into the sun
Till we crashed into a reef
Now we sink beneath the waves
And we sing in pain and grief:
We all die on a stupid submarine
stupid submarine
stupid submarine
We all die on this stupid submarine
stupid submarine
stupid submarine
All our friends from other ships
Won’t get close to us till it’s too late
While the whales and fish and sea
We completely contaminate
We all die on a stupid submarine
stupid submarine
stupid submarine
We all die on this stupid submarine
stupid submarine
stupid submarine
Oxygen is running out
and our food supply is far from clean
As the crew begins to pray:
(sounds of labored breathing)
We all die on a stupid submarine
stupid submarine
stupid submarine
So we blub inside the sub
which I wish I had never seen
We’re turning blue, we’re peeing green
in this hellhole submarine
(spoken) Submarine! (coughs)
We all die on this hellhole submarine
hellhole submarine
stupid submarine
Yes, we all die on a hellhole submarine
hellhole submarine
hellhole submarine
(spoken) Just the men!
We all die on this hellhole submarine
hellhole submarine…
(c)2005 David Lefkowitz
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NOTES & BACKSTORY:
[June 2023] This song was created for my radio show, Dave’s Gone By, as part of the recurring News Gone By segment, which poked fun at news and current events. Here’s how I introduced the song on its Aug. 11, 2005 debut. Note that the story is true, the song stuff, not so much:
“Harrowing news from Russia this week where a mini-submarine became trapped in metal debris at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The sub got tangled in the wires of an underwater monitoring station, leaving only a few days’ supply of oxygen available to the crew—an eerie echo of the Kursk disaster. Russian authorities kept the accident secret the first day. Then they tried to rescue the sub themselves the next day. They accepted help from England and other nations only as time began running out. Rear Admiral Vladimir Pepelyayev told Russian reporters that the crew were keeping their spirits up as best they could: playing cards, telling stories. In fact, before they were miraculously rescued, they actually were able to transmit, by Morse Code, the words and music to a song one of the sailors wrote about the situation. I happen to have it here. In tribute to that brave and saved crew of the AS-28, I’m gonna sing it now. I think it shows their resilience, their spunk, and their hilarious misery.”