This song was first released on the Its About Time album. It is the only album it has been released on.





Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the sky on laughter silvered wings

Sunward Ive climbed and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things

Ive wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence

Hovering there Ive chased the shouting winds aloft

And flung my eager craft through footless halls of air



The higher we fly, the farther we go

The closer we are to each other

The darker the night, the brighter the star

In peace go my sisters and brothers



Up, up, the long delirious burning blue

Ive topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark nor even eagle flew

And while with silent lifting mind I trod

The high untresspassed sanctity of space

Put out my hand and touched the face of God



The higher we fly, the farther we go

The closer we are to each other

The darker the night, the brighter the star

In peace go my sisters and brothers



Words by Gillespie Magee Jr., John Denver and Joe Henry

Music by Lee Holdridge

Adopted from the Poem by John Gillespie Magee Jr.