I can’t believe I had to think so long to respond to this week’s Sunday Song Lyrics Challenge.
But I read a post today by one of my favorite Bloggers
(Marilyn Armstrong https://teepee12.com/2016/11/29/standing-with-standing-rock/)
And it triggered the landslide memory of this song from 1971. I remember its profound impact on me when I was just a pup, a budding Flower Child. I had been focused on racial injustice and Civil Right for Blacks, and had already served in VISTA in the Deep South. But I’d truly never even known about our treatment of Native Americans.
This song “blew my mind” as we said back then, and taught me a lot, and inspired me to action!
Indian Reservation by Paul Revere & the Raiders
They took the whole Cherokee nation
Put us on this reservation
Took away our ways of life
The tomahawk and the bow and knife
Took away our native tongue
And taught their English to our young
And all the beads we made by hand
Are nowadays made in Japan
Put us on this reservation
Took away our ways of life
The tomahawk and the bow and knife
Took away our native tongue
And taught their English to our young
And all the beads we made by hand
Are nowadays made in Japan
Cherokee people
Cherokee tribe
So proud to live
So proud to die
Cherokee tribe
So proud to live
So proud to die
They took the whole Indian nation
Locked us on this reservation
Though I wear a shirt and tie
I’m still part redman deep inside
Locked us on this reservation
Though I wear a shirt and tie
I’m still part redman deep inside
Cherokee people
Cherokee tribe
So proud to live
So proud to die
Cherokee tribe
So proud to live
So proud to die
But maybe someday when they learn
Cherokee nation will return, will return
Will return, will return, will return
Cherokee nation will return, will return
Will return, will return, will return
Lyrics from Google Music
Songwriters: John Loudermilk / John D Loudermilk
Indian Reservation lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
https://helenespinosa.wordpress.com/2016/11/26/song-lyric-sunday-theme-for-112716/
