Once upon a time I made a lion roar -
he was sleeping in the sunbeams on the old zoo floor.
I had gone to see the park where my papa used to play,
it's called Villa Borghese and it's on the way
to East Africa.

Down on Grand Comoro Island, where I grew past four,
I could swim and fish and snorkel on the ocean floor,
and the wind laughed, and the wind laughed through the trees as if to say,
here's a child who'll want the world to go his way
in East Africa, in East Africa.

Suddenly for me the world turned upside down -
far from my friends the lions and the dolphins came this awful sound.

Dark shadows, sounds of thunder raging over me,
came this monster called 'A-dre-no-leu-ko-dys-tro-phy'
Where's my East Africa?

Well they said, they said, they said (the ones who know it all)
they said from now on for you there will be no more standing tall,
so I took my parents' hands, I lifted my head to say
I'll just have to be a hero, there ain't no other way! No other way.
Back to East Africa
Back to East Africa
Back to East Africa
Come with me I'm going back, going back to East Africa.