Spoken:

Just one island in an ugly string

Of prehistoric penal colonies

This island is a most remote inhabited spot on earth

Each family possesses a registered trademark

Which is chipped into the trunk of a tree

Sung:

Oh bring back the egg unbroken

The egg of the sooty nesting tern

And you will be made king of this island now

The women have gone on up the cliffside

They're gathering eggs of their own

We'll have them at the celebration when the king is chosen now

Jump off the cliff into the ocean

You grab an egg, you swim back,

Holding it aloft

You hold it high above the roughest

of the shark-infested water now, oh my love

You bring the egg unbroken back, you are the king

You are the King

Oh bring the egg unbroken back, you are the king

Oh, we'll be thinking of the ocean when the king brings back unbroken

The egg of the sooty nesting tern

Some well-known, lost, but ancient wisdom

the point and purpose which was mysterious, or even vague

It says the truth is worse than you could possibly imagine

And we islanders, we'll be thinking of escape

We'll be thinking, we'll be thinking

We'll be thinking of escape

We'll be thinking, we'll be thinking

We'll be thinking of escape