I slept through the Nineteen Sixties
I heard Dory Previn say
But me I caught me the great white bird
To the shores of African

Where I lost my adolescent heart
To the sound of a talking drum
Yeah, east of Woodstock, west of Viet Nam

And on the roads outside Oshogbo
Lord I fell down on my knees
There were female spirits in old mud huts
Iron bells ringing up in the trees

And an eighty year old white priest
She made Juju all night long
Yeah, east of Woodstock, west of Viet Nam

Raise high the roof beams carpenter boy
Yeah, we're coming through the rye
In the cinema I saw the man on the moon
I laughed so hard I cried

It was somewhere in those rainy seasons
That I learned to carve my song
Yeah, east of Woodstock, west of Viet Nam

Oh Africa, Mother Africa
You lay heavy on my breast
You old cradle of civilization
Heart of darkness blood and death

Though we had to play you running scared
When the crocodile ate the sun
Yeah, east of Woodstock, west of Viet Nam

Well, I think it's going to rain tonight
I can smell it coming off the sea
As I sit here reading old Graham Greene
I taste Africa on every page

Then I close my eyes and see those red clay roads
And it's sundown and boys I'm gone
Yeah, east of Woodstock, west of Viet Nam

Raise high the roof beams carpenter boy
Yeah, we're coming through the rye
It was a movable feast of war and memory
A dark old lullaby

It was the smoke of a thousand camp fires
It was the wrong end of a gun
Yeah, east of Woodstock, west of Viet Nam

Yeah, east of Woodstock, west of Viet Nam