'Cause I was one of those kids who always knew what I wanted.
 They took me down to the airport to see all the planes departing,
 Watching them fly something inside of me was starting,
 I was eight when I told them that I'd be a pilot.
 
 But I was too young and too short,
 And there were no female captains,
 And my dad said, "be patient" he said, "just see what happens".
 But I took my first lesson came down from the sky,
 And told my father I'd fly for the rest of my life.
 
 And I got my first job flying for a mortician,
 In a tiny bonanza, just a corpse and me.
 Five dollars an hour for flying dead bodies,
 I had to climb over their faces just to get to my seat.
 
 And suddenly the wheels lift off
 The ground is falling backwards
 I am suddenly alive.
 
 Suddenly I'm in the cockpit,
 Suddenly everything's changed!
 Suddenly I'm not too young or too short,
 And the passengers in the back don't complain.
 Suddenly I'm flying company charters,
 Suddenly everything's high,
 Suddenly there's nothing in between me and the sky.
 
 American Airlines had the prettiest planes,
 So I applied as a flight engineer
 But the World War II pilots, they all complained.
 They 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 then,
 And they said, "Are you better than us, do you think?"
 
 But I kept getting hired,
 And the World War II crew, they retired.
 And the girls all thought much higher of me,
 1986 the first female American captain in history!
 
 Suddenly I'm in the cockpit,
 Suddenly I've got my wings!
 Suddenly all of those pilots protesting me,
 Well, they can get their own drinks!
 Suddenly there's no one saying, "Stay grounded,"
 Looking down passing them by,
 Suddenly there's nothing in between me and the sky.
 
 Suddenly I've got an all female crew,
 The news talked, it made headlines across the world,
 Suddenly it stopped,
 No 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 married,
 And we're putting pins on the map where we've flown.
 Suddenly I am a mother,
 And suddenly shocked at how much they've grown.
 Suddenly I'm wondering how my parents would feel
 Seeing me teaching men to be pilots.
 'Cause suddenly I am a senior instructor and somehow I'm 51.
 
 Suddenly I'm flying Paris to Dallas,
 Across the Atlantic and feeling calm,
 When 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 anything was used as the bomb.
 
 Suddenly I'm in a hotel,
 Suddenly something has died,
 Suddenly there's something in between me and the sky.

 

 

Beverley Bass was the first female captain at American Airlines (1986). Bass was the first woman in the world to captain a Boeing 777 ("Triple Seven") in an airline operation. On September 11, 2001, Bass was one of the pilots whose flights were redirected to Gander, Newfoundland following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.