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