War was cold in 1962;
The whole world was holding its breath
Uneasy peace could crumble any day:
Would skies rain down clouds of death?
The Cuban threat had the White House tense
And it seemed Khrushchev would not yield to sense
Soviet submarines, all in self-defense,
Patrolled the Atlantic coast

[Chorus:]
Vasiliy Arkhipov was just a simple man
He served Mother Russia the best that he could
When worlds hang in balance, as sometimes they can
It takes one like Vasiliy to tip back the scales for good

Vasiliy came from humble peasant stock
He'd fought 'gainst Japan, sweeping mines
That autumn day, he was stationed on a sub,
The F-Class B-59
The Navy fleet tried to roust them out,
And a depth-charge siege kept them tossed about.
Out of radio contact, they lurched in doubt:
Had war been declared at last?

[Chorus]

Savitsky was the captain in command.
He judged that the hour has struck
"We must launch now: the moment is at hand;
We've run out of time and luck."
Maslennikov felt he had to say
That the captain's right and it looks that way
And Vasiliy felt, with no small dismay,
The stir of a private ghost...

[Chorus]

Vasiliy had served aboard another sub,
The Hotel-Class K-19
An overheated reactor near meltdown--
Vassiliy remembered the scene.
He knew first-hand of that deadly glow
And just what it meant if they made it so
So he took a stand and he shouted, "No!
Some deeds we cannot undo.
This has gone too far: there's a world at stake
And this fateful call is not ours to make
We must surface now, for our children's sake."
...And the missiles never flew.

Vasiliy Arkhipov was just a simple man
He served Mother Russia the best that he could
When worlds hang in balance, as sometimes they can
It takes one like Vasiliy
One like Vasiliy
It takes one like Vasiliy to tip back the scales for good
За здорове! [Russian for "to (your) health!"]
Hey!