My Country 'Tis of Thy People You're Dying

Buffy Sainte-MarieBuffy Sainte-Ma… 

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Buffy Sainte-Marie

Buffy Sainte-Marie, OC (born February 20, 1941) is a Canadian Cree singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her work has focused on issues of Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Her singing and writing repertoire includes subjects of love, war, religion, and mysticism. She recorded one country album, I'm Gonna Be a Country Girl Again, in Nashville, and her Academy Award-winning "Up Where We Belong" is considered "pure pop." more »

Year:

2017

5:35

1,161 Views

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Now that your big eyes are finally opened
Now that you're wondering, how must they feel?
Meaning them that you've chased across Canada's movie screens
Now that you're wondering, how can it be real?
That the ones you've called colorful, noble and proud
In your school propaganda
They starve in their splendor
You asked for our comment, I simply will render
My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

Now that the longhouses breed superstition
You force us to send our children away
To your schools where they're taught to despise their traditions
Forbid them their languages
Then further say that
Canadian history really began
When explorers set sail out of Europe
And stress that the nations of leeches who conquered these lands
Were the biggest, and bravest, and boldest, and best

And yet where in your history books is the tale
Of the genocide basic to this country's birth?
Of the preachers who lied? 
And the people who died?
How a nation of patriots returned to their earth?
Where does it tell of the starvation hell?
As the children were herded, and raped and converted?
And how do we rescue the missing and murdered?
My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

A few of the conquered have somehow survived
Their blood runs the redder though genes have been paled
From Arctic Inuvik to Niagara Falls
The wounded, the losers, the robbed sing their tale
From Vancouver Island to the Labrador Sea
The white nation fattened while others grew lean
Oh the tricked and evicted they know what I mean
My country 'tis of thy people you're dying
The past it just crumbled
the future just threatens
Our life blood is shut up in your papers and banks
And now here you come, bill of sale in your hand
And surprise in your eyes, that we're lacking in thanks
For the blessings of civilization you brought us
The lessons you've taught us 
The ruin you've wrought us
Oh see what our trust in O Canada got us
My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

Now that the pride of the sires needs charity
Now that we're harmless and safe behind laws
Now that my life's to be known as your heritage
Now that even the graves have been robbed
Now that our own chosen way is your novelty
Hands on our hearts we salute you your victory
Choke on your true white and scarlet hypocrisy
Pitying your blindness
Oh why can't you see 
That the eagles of war whose wings lend you glory
Are never no more than buzzards and crows
Pushed some wrens from their nest
Stole their eggs; changed their story
The mockingbird sings it 
It's all that she knows
Aw what could I do? 
Say a powerful few
With a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye
Can't you see that their poverty's profiting you?
My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

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