Words & Music by: Michelle Shocked
From the Album "Arkansas Traveler"
1992 Mercury
[Intro]
C D G
C D G
[Verse 1]
D
I thought I knew what I was doing
D
I was wrong
D
Mistakes I've made and lived to tell
C G D C D G
I tell them in a song
[Verse 2]
D
I knew a river wide and deep
D
Her banks were very tall
D
At one end was a mountain stream
C G D
The other was a waterfall, boys
C G D
The other was a waterfall
[Verse 3]
D
I asked the old man by the river
D
He did not recall
D
The last attempt to ride a barrel
C G D C G D
Over the waterfall
[Verse 4]
D
The ferry boatman, he did tell me
D
That the chance was very small
D
None survived who went alive
C G D
Over the waterfall, boys
C G D
Over the waterfall
[Verse 5]
D
So I built myself an oaken barrel
D
And inside I did crawl
D
I broke the record but I broke my back
C G D C G D
Going over the waterfall
[Outro]
D
And it's been my luck to live to tell
The only tale I can
It don't hurt you when you fall
C G D C G D
Only when you land, boys
C G D
Only when you land
C G D
C G D