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I thought I knew what I was doing |
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I was wrong |
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Mistakes I've made and lived to tell |
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I tell them in a song |
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I knew a river wide and deep |
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Her banks were very tall |
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At one end was a mountain stream |
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The other was a waterfall, boys |
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The other was a waterfall |
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I asked the old man by the river |
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He did not recall |
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The last attempt to ride a barrel |
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Over the waterfall |
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The ferryboatman, he did tell me |
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That the chance was very small |
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None survived who went alive |
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Over the waterfall, boys |
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Over the waterfall |
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So I built myself an oaken barrel |
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And inside I did crawl |
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I broke the record but I broke my back |
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Going over the waterfall |
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And it's been my luck to live to tell |
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The only tale I can |
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It don't hurt you when you fall |
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Only when you land, boys |
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Only when you land |