With appreciation to the lyrics of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken's music, we take you down to the bottom of the ocean floor, where a little mermaid struggles to swim though viscous mire, as the sound of a steel drum calypso can be heard, and a crab begins to sing...
(Click here to open music player. Click "OK" and then sing along after the 4-bar intro!)
The seaweed is always cleaner
In somebody else's lake.
Your dream to swim on the surface
Is nightmare though when you wake.
Just look at the world float nigh you
Where once you had found your food.
A beautiful, pristine bayou
Is now covered up with crude.
On top the sea
On top the sea
Darling they soiled it
See where they oiled it
All from BP.
There on the shore they work all day
As through the Gulf they clean away.
Vision is dimmin'
Where we are swimmin'
On top the sea.
Out here all the fish unhappy
Where always they swam in peace.
The fish underneath not smilin'
Because now they swim in grease.
But fish on the land is lucky.
I tell you just what I mean:
Though it is a bowl they live in,
The water at least is clean.
On top the sea
On top the sea
All of us coated,
Poisoned and bloated
By mercury.
We what the land folks once would cook,
On top the sea we off the hook -
We got no taste now,
Fish are a waste now
On top the sea.
On top the sea
Eco-disaster
Spreading much faster
In misery.
Nobody listens to our pleas.
Now oil has reached Florida Keys.
It's bad below, too,
Nowhere to go to
On top the sea.
The kelp cry for help.
The cod feeling odd.
The carp play the harp.
They all looking pale.
The bass saying Mass.
The eel cannot feel.
The fluke quickly puke its soul.
(Yeah)
The ray lose his way.
The whale start to fail.
The trout checkin' out.
Someone must face jail.
The smelt and the sprat
They both have gone splat.
The pike has take its toll.
On top the sea
On top the sea
Sludge fill the water
Lead clams to slaughter
'Fore you count three.
No one hang their head in shame
No one even take the blame.
Nowhere to dive now
Or stay alive now
On top the sea.
On top the sea.
On top the sea.
Transoceanic
Starting this panic
(One of Big Three.)
All of the fish they start to curse.
Still, Halliburton they might be worse.
Each little cod now
Praying to God now.
On top the sea.
Each little porpoise
Now just a corpus.
On top the sea.
All of the lobsters
Drowned by these mobsters.
Look what they gave us,
Somebody save us!
We out of luck here
Caught in the muck here
On top the sea.