All My Children of the Sun

All my children of the sun

The navigator said to the engineer
I think our radio's dead
I can hear but I can't send
And there's bad weather up ahead

The pilot said to the co-pilot
Our right engine's gone
But if we can make it over these mountains
Perhaps I can set her down

All my children of the sun

Five hundred miles from nowhere
We belly landed on a river
We bid a quick goodbye
To that ship of silver

Twenty-five piled out the window
Twenty reached the shore
We turned to see our metal bird
Sink to rise no more

All my children of the sun

We found some floating logs
We found some sharp stones
We cut some vines and made a raft
It was our only hope

The navigator said he thought there was
A town somewhere downstream
So now each man tried his best
To paddle as a team

All except one young guy
Who kept arguing with the navigator
He said he'd read about a waterfall
We would come to sooner or later

At a river's bend he persuaded us
To bring our raft to beach
But a search party found the river smooth
As far as eye could reach

All my children of the sun

Once again he persuaded us to stop
We cursed at the delay
Once again we found the river
Flowing on the same old way

We said, "Shut up your arguing
You give us all a pain
Why don't you pitch in and do your part
Be constructive for a change?"

All my children of the sun

Still egghead kept on talking
In the same long winded way
We said, "If you won't paddle
Get the hell out of our way"

We told him to go sit
Far back at the stern
Then we strained to paddle harder
And then the river made a turn

All my children of the sun

One paddler heard sound of tapping
And what he saw, when he did turn
Was egghead with a sharp stone
Cutting the vines that bound the stern

With a cry of rage the paddler
Leaped up to his feet
He swung his long pole
Knocked egghead into the deep

But now the logs were splaying out
The raft had come unbound
Like mad we paddled for the shore
Before we all would drown

All my children of the sun

A search party went out to find more vines
To tie the raft up tight
In twenty minutes they returned
Their faces pale with fright

They said a quarter mile down the river
We found a waterfall
It's over a hundred feet in height
It could have killed us all

All my children of the sun

And that is why on the banks
Of a far off wilderness stream
Which none of us, none of us
Will ever see again

There stands a cross for someone
Hardly older than a boy
Who we thought was only
Trying to destroy

All my children of the sun