Here are the lyrics from the liner notes of the 1979 Billy Edd Wheeler album, Wild Mountain Flowers:

There's a high flying bird up in the sky
And I wonder if that bird looks down as he flies by
Riding on the air so easy in the sky

Sun comes along ... lights up the day
And when he gets tired he slides on over the way
East to the West he gets gone every day

Chorus:
But Lord look at me here
Rooted like a tree here
I got the sit down, can't cry
Oh, Lord I'm gonna die blues

I used to have an old man ... he worked in the mines
He never saw the sunlight but oh Lord he kept on a-tryin
Then one day my daddy, he up and died

My old man up and died
My daddy up and died
He had to fly away
And the only way to fly was to die

Repeat first stanza

Chorus