Verse 1
We stacked those cases by the steel bulkhead,
Summer sun beat down on every thread.
Plastic bottles sweatin’ through the afternoon,
Never thought we’d be singin’ this tune.
Captain cracked one open, took a slow first sip,
Looked across the mess room with a curled-up lip.
Said, “Something ain’t right…” I said, “I taste it too.”
Sometimes your tongue knows more than the lab can prove.
Pre-Chorus
Ran the meters one by one,
Every number said we’re done.
Chorus
The pH was six, TDS one-two-seven,
Salt at sixty-six, looked like water sent from heaven.
Iron read zero, conductivity was fine,
Every gauge kept tellin’ us everything aligned.
But there’s some things a meter just can’t justify,
Sometimes the truth is simple…
The taste don’t lie.
Verse 2
Hardness came back low just like a mountain spring,
Every little strip said the same old thing.
No red flags waving in the chemistry,
But that bottle still didn’t taste right to me.
You can test for iron, salt, and pH,
Count dissolved solids every single day.
But heat leaves fingerprints no gauge can ever see,
And that’s enough for the sailor in me.
Bridge
I’ve learned through broken engines and stormy seas,
The smartest man still trusts what he believes.
When your gut and your senses both agree,
That’s another kind of engineering.
Final Chorus
The pH was six, TDS one-two-seven,
Salt at sixty-six, looked like water sent from heaven.
Iron read zero, conductivity was fine,
Every instrument swore we were inside the line.
But when the Captain looked at me eye to eye,
We both knew the answer…
The taste don’t lie.
Outro
So we’ll load fresh water, let the old cases go,
Some lessons aren’t written where the numbers show.
You can trust the science, and still be wise…
‘Cause every now and then…
The taste… don’t… lie.
