All My Children Of The Sun
Composer(s): Pete Seeger
Performer(s): Pete Seeger



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 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 bellylanded 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 tried to do 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 craft 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 go your part
Be constructive for a change?
All my children of the sun

Still egghead kept on talking
In the same longwinded 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 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 river
We DID find a waterfall
It's over a hundred feet in height
It would 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