Let’s say that you are young and have never gone away
To chase any wayward taste under the sun
And to risk your life with a strawboater on
Yet say that you are tied to a nest of homey cares
Business, spouse and kids take up most your hours
My advice is to take to balloons
Sunday afternoons amid coffee and machines
I’d watch the condors soar from my verandah to the world
Higher, higher
In a filthy room of booze the Belle Epoque expires
Yet I’m sailing round the Tower in less than half an hour
And I’ve taught a Cuban beauty how to fly
See, I was never tamed by those cautionary tales
Like that one about waxen wings melting in the sun
Instead I dreamed of clippers in the clouds
A hero to the crowds, a nuisance to the men-at-arms
I’m bumbling above the boulevards in my beautiful Number Nine
Higher, higher
Only turkeys die before the day, so let go all
And sport in the air. Life is just a prank
For a prize when you’re way up here
