Rite of Passage - Dougie MacLean

Take the young ones to the desert, teach them how the arrow flies

How to smell the beast upon the wind and run with mother nature’s loving lies

Show them how to balance what is wrong and what is right

And make their own directions through the longest, darkest night

Oh, you need that rite of passage before you can continue on

That brave self understanding you can lean your dreams upon

You may want for children, you may crave for man and wife

But you need that rite of passage to the summer of your life

Show the children to the master, put the tools into their hands

Show them how to work the grain and how to hold the ever moving sand

Place with them the knowledge of the far and of the near

And lead them through the waiting storms that will never ever clear

You need that rite of passage before you can continue on

That brave self understanding you can lean your dreams upon

You may want for children, you may crave for man and wife

But you need that rite of passage to the summer of your life

It’s a sad deluded vision this creature of our times

Its body now is broken, its smile it rarely has the chance to shine

It stands so high and mighty with its never ending needs

While somewhere in the beating heart the earth it vainly pleads

You need that rite of passage before you can continue on

That brave self understanding you may lean your dreams upon

You may want for children, you may crave for man and wife

But you need that rite of passage to the summer of your life