David Johansen Issues Mayday Call for U.S. in New ‘Sinking Ship’ Video

Punk legend David Johansen issues a mayday call to encourage people to vote in November in the new video for his cover of Gypsy’s (aka Winston Edward Peters) “Sinking Ship.” The New York Dolls frontman gets straight to the point in the clip directed by his daughter Leah Hennessey. The calypso rhythms belie the deep ramifications Johansen addresses in the song should the ship not right itself.

“He’s unhinged,” he says to open the visual. “He’ll try to kill us all.” That sets the tone for the protest song against the last four years under President Trump, whom he refers to as a “scoundrel,” and contrasts that under eight years with President Obama, which were “smooth and free.”

“Captain, this ship is sinking/Captain, these seas are rough/Lockin’ children up in cages/Dog whistlin’ your racists/How long can we go?/Shall we abandon ship?,” he sings on the chorus. “Or should we sit on it, and perish slow?/We don’t know, we don’t know/Captain, you tell me what to do.”

Brian Koonin arranged and added instruments to the song, with his wife and daughter adding vocals. Johansen’s wife, Mara Hennessey, also sang backup and Bill Halloman played all the horn parts.

Johansen reworked the lyrics of his version of the song to address current contentious climate. “It was an old calypso that was a favorite of mine and I thought was appropriate for now,” he tells Rolling Stone. “The original song Winston Peters wrote in 1986, trying to get a guy named Chambers out of office in Trinidad. As far as the lyrics, I made them applicable to this current situation.”