The Ballad of the Kobayashi Maru (set to the tune of “A Pirate’s Life For Me“)

A class III neutronic fuel carrier ship,

the Kobayashi Maru.

300 passengers, 81 crew,

on Kobayashi Maru.

One fine ship was the Kobayashi Maru!

They hit a space mine in the Neutral Zone,

the Kobayashi Maru.

Their life-support failing, oh what could they do,

on Kobayashi Maru?

No way out for the Kobayashi Maru!

With confident cockiness Kirk came to help

the Kobayashi Maru,

but warbirds decloaked and they thought they were through

on Kobayashi Maru.

Things looked doomed for the Kobayashi Maru!

Yet Kirk killed the Klingons that were klinging on

the Kobayashi Maru.

How he had done it, no one had a clue,

on Kobayashi Maru.

James T. Kirk saved the Kobayashi Maru!

If you face a problem that has no way out,

“a Kobayashi Maru,”

recall the cadet who once tried something new

with Kobayashi Maru.

Captain Kirk saved the Kobayashi Maru!

The Kobayashi Maru of Star Trek fame may have been named after Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the Japanese commander at Iwo Jima in World War II. He knew he could never win the island battle (it was a no-win scenario,) but he hoped to inflict casualties so great among the Americans that they would reconsider any planned invasion of his homeland.