A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships are larger, with better arms and armor, than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a nation's naval power from about 1875 up until World War II. With the rise of air power, guided missiles, and guided bombs, large guns were no longer deemed necessary to establish naval superiority and as a result battleships faded from use.
Battleship design evolved to incorporate and adapt technological advances to maintain an edge. The word battleship was coined around 1794 and is a contraction of the phrase line-of-battle ship, the dominant wooden warship during the Age of Sail. The term came into formal use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ironclad warship, now referred to by historians as pre-dreadnought battleships. In 1906, the commissioning of HMS Dreadnought heralded a revolution in battleship design. Following battleship designs, influenced by HMS Dreadnought, were referred to as "dreadnoughts".
Three miles off the coast of Beirut
New Jersey's guns get ready to shoot
Take a walk down the firing room
Fire one it's shakedown cruise
Battle ship Battle ship
See the sailor boys dressed in blue
Cheer the change to make the news
Send the shell down the spiral groove
Bombs away it's a shakedown cruise
Yeah
Battle ship battle ship
(Repeat all)
I can't eat, I can't sleep
I'm looking up at the satellites
Where did we go wrong this time, whoa
Did you think this through
Do you have the facts
Oh I'm betting on a fight another heart attack
All translation is lost
I'm so exhausted, I'm coming undone
Sinking like a battleship
Am I ever gonna get through this
We're standing on a fault line
Oh this happens all the time
Well I can't think
I'm losing sleep
I'm staring up at the stars tonight
Where did we go wrong this time, whoa
Sinking like a battleship
Am I ever gonna get through this
We're standing on a fault line
Oh this happens all the time
We're sinking like a battleship
We're sinking like a stone
We're barely hanging on
We're sinking like a stone
We're barely hanging on
Sinking like a battleship
Am I ever gonna get through this
We're standing on a fault line
Oh this happens all the time
We're sinking like a battleship
I swear this time is real. I swear this time is real.
Stood back and took some copious notes
observation lent some truth
evaluated where I stand.
Dove into the midst of what I would never want to be.
I'd rather drown than breathe
in what the world expects from me.
And I swear this time is real. I know this time is real.
Look over the other side of the fence...
of this thing called life.
Let me show you how it's done...
All resistance. Hesitance checked at the door.
No "just one more time."
Leave all that behind.
Full steam ahead.
No hesitance. All resistance, dedicated life.
Steamroll this life.
Pave the way through your
old ways, force the mind
into another path.
Just once this time.
Just once this life.
With nothing in vain.
I took the road less traveled upon
Sorted out what didn't belong.
Running through this life.
Sorted out what didn't belong.
No party line to string me along.
Running through this life.
Stretched this life apart.
Running through this life.
I took the road less traveled upon.
30 years and going strong.
I'm ready to gloom, I'm ready to go
Got Madonna blaring out the stereo
And wonderbread says he's beautiful
I wonder why I drive to this waxwork show.
'Cause I'm a mystic, I'm a superqueen,
I use up all my gasoline.
I'm a walking cemetery
So many dead things inside of me.
Scene doors open to the doe-eyed boys
Pincushions fluffed with steroids
These Hollywood-made androids
They've got some steel but do they got a voice.
Jealous mind makes jealous things come true.
Think Alexander the Great is coming through
So I better head to the bathroom
Before I meet the ensuing doom.
And when I look in the mirror
I know I'm not alone.
I've got an army of me
But I have no control
And I'm stuck at this party
With a thirty year-old
He makes stars
Just flame me, flame me, flame me.
There's a battleship inside of me
It creaks and moans in apology
For all the sick shit done in vanity
For this cult of masculinity.
But I'm a mystic, I'm a superqueen
I use up all my gasoline.
I'm a walking cemetery
So many dead men inside of me.
Can somebody tell me why the
Butch hate the belles?
When we've got plenty of Baptists
Coveting our souls to hell.
Too many wars, too many gay etiquette laws
Find your cause.
Stop throwing their mud
Indoors.
I'm ready to gloom, I'm ready to go
Got Madonna blaring out the stereo
And wonderbread says he's beautiful
I wonder why I drive to this waxwork show.
'Cause I'm a mystic, I'm a superqueen,
I use up all my gasoline.
I'm a walking cemetery