My parents must have thought they had a crazy kid'Cause I was one of those kids who always knew what I wantedThey took me down to the airport to see all the planes departingWatching them fly, something inside of me was startingI was eight when I told them that I'd be a pilot
But I was too young and too shortAnd there were no female captainsAnd my dad said, "Be patient," he said, "Just see what happens"But I took my first lesson came down from the skyAnd told my father I'd fly for the rest of my life
And I got my first job flying for a morticianIn a tiny bonanza, just a corpse and meFive dollars an hour for flying dead bodiesI had to climb over their faces just to get to my seat
And suddenly the wheels lift offThe ground is falling backwardsI am suddenly alive
Suddenly I'm in the cockpitSuddenly everything's changedSuddenly I'm not too young or too shortAnd the passengers in the back don't complainSuddenly I'm flying company chartersSuddenly everything's highSuddenly there's nothing in between me and the sky
American Airlines had the prettiest planesSo I applied as a flight engineerBut the World War II pilots, they all complainedThey said, "Girls shouldn't be in the cockpit""Hey lady, hey baby, hey! Why don't you grab us a drink?"And the flight attendants weren't my friends back thenAnd they said, "Are you better than us, do you think?"
But I kept getting hiredAnd the World War II crew, they retiredAnd the girls all thought much higher of me1986, the first female American captain in history
Suddenly I'm in the cockpitSuddenly I've got my wingsSuddenly all of those pilots protestin' meWell, they can get their own drinksSuddenly there's no one saying "stay grounded"Looking down passing them bySuddenly there's nothing in between me and the sky
Suddenly I've got an all female crewThe news talked, it made headlines across the worldSuddenly it stoppedNo one saying, "You can't" or "You won't"Or "You know you're not anything 'cause you're a girl"
Suddenly I'm getting marriedAnd we're putting pins on the map where we've flownSuddenly I am a motherAnd suddenly shocked at how much they've grownSuddenly I'm wonderin' how my parents would feelSeeing me teaching men to be pilots'Cause suddenly I am a senior instructorAnd somehow I'm 51
Suddenly I'm flying Paris to DallasAcross the Atlantic and feeling calmWhen suddenly someone on air to air traffic says"At 8:46 there's been a terrorist action"And the one thing I loved more than anythingWas used as the bomb
Suddenly I'm in a hotelSuddenly something has diedSuddenly there's something in betweenMe and the sky