Door JIM PAGE
Loan me a minute, let me borrow your ear,
and I'll sing you a song about Leonard Peltier.
He is gone so long in a federal jail,
the innocent victim of a tangles tail.
In South Dakota where the fear has grown,
where de presidents watch from a mountain of stone,
and they say all people are free to roam,
there ain't no freedom in the Indian home.
Chorus:
How many have gone before
and tell me how many more
must be lost to the Indian wars.
The company spoke to the high command,
"We need the deed to the Indian land,
to dig for oil and uranium ore.
Maybe have to start a little Indian war."
The orders came from way on high,
and it was a job for the FBI.
"It won't be hard,all we'll have to do
is cause a little trouble and follow it through."
In Ogalla where the spirit did dwell,
it was a time they remember well.
There were women and children gathered there
when the wind blew a warning through the whispering air.
And Leonard Peltier was one of those
who came to the call when the time arose
and dangerous strangers were prowlin' around
bringing trouble to the reservation ground.
And that was when the agents made their play
in a gunshot battle on a deadly day,
and three men died in the hollow sand,
two FBI and an Indian Man.
Chorus:
Joe Stuntz was a man that died that day,
but the eyes of the law didn't see it that way,
All they cared about was their own kind,
Gonna get somebody for a capitol crime.
The charge was set for homicide,
but Leonard got away to the Canada side,
where he lived for a while in the northern town
till they came up and got him en brought him back down.
The judge and the jury, they both agreed,
two times murder in the first degree.
They pounded the gavel and they rang on the bell,
Two times life in a federal cell.
Citations came from Washington,
congratulations on a job well done.
Two agents gone is a mighty price
but if you want somethin'bad you gotta sacrifice.
Now Leonard Peltier is a captured man
with both legs taken so he cannot stand.
One more swallowed by the master plan
to get their hands on the Indian lands.
Chorus:
And so its been since days of old
when Custer died for a mountain of gold.
But times have changed and passed him by.
He's been replaced by the FBI.
Oh, it's all so easy to weep and moan
for a warfare fought so far from home.
You can preach of peace from a righteous stand
but there ain't no peace in the Indian land.
When Joe Stuntz was lowered down
the winds did blow with a mighty sound,
and the answer came in a driving rain,
"this man will not have died in vain".
Fot the hollow power of lock and key
ain't nothing to the power of the raging sea,
or the lightning strikes in the angry skies
that puts the power into people's eyes.
Oh, the weather is building to a mighty storm,
and the words in the wind that come to warn
are once more spoken to your ear,
only this time the name is Leonard Peltier.
SONG FOR
LEONARD P
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