Robbie Robertson Album

The sound is fading
The sound is fading away

These are the people of the longhouse
These are the people that you tried to break
These are the people of the pines
Who follow the code of Handsome Lake

He drank your poison, swallowed your fire
And lay with fever four long years
He received a vision so inspired
Three messengers with painted faces appeared

On the Allegheny river at a place called Burnt House
The code was shared for the very first time
By a Seneca chief, they call Handsome Lake
With a wounded heart and a sober mind

These are the people of the longhouse
These are the people that you tried to break
These are the people of the pines
Who follow the code of Handsome Lake

We are the people of the longhouse
We are the people that you couldn't break
We are the people of the sacred pipe
Who Follow the code of Handsome Lake

When the Dark Moon had come to live in your soul
Get in touch with your creator, you are not alone
These are the words that he had spoken two hundred years ago
And today they still ring true, like they're carved in stone
When Native life was hurled into the pit by way of the Canon, Rum, and Greed
Oh a great fire was burned, to let the smoke rise
And show the Six Nations the code was still alive

Way down deep in the bush
We Oh hi ne oh he oh we oh we we

These are the people of the longhouse
These are the people that you tried to break
These are the people of the pines
Who follow the code of Handsome Lake

We are the people of the longhouse
We are the people that you couldn't break
We are the people of the sacred pipe
Who Follow the code of Handsome Lake

Making a noise in this world
Making a noise in this world
You can bet your ass
I won't go quietly
Making a noise in this world

Everyone has a song
God gave us each a song
That's how we know who we are
Everyone has a song

We have come, heat the drum
The land trembles with dancing
We have come, bang the drum
The land trembles with dancing

Making a noise in this world
Making a noise in this world
You can bet your ass
I won't go quietly
Making a noise in this world

I don't want your promise
I don't want your whiskey
I don't want your blood on my hands
Only want what belongs to me

I think you thought I was gone
I think you thought I was dead
You won't admit that you was wrong
Ain't there some shit that should be said

Making a noise in this world
Making a noise in this world
You can bet your ass
I won't go quietly
Making a noise in this world

The Indian dancers stop and stare at him
Like he was bad weather
He keeps dancing
And knocks loose an eagle feather
The drums stop
This is the kind of silence that frightens white men

Making a noise in this world
Making a noise in this world
You can bet your ass
I won't go quietly
Making a noise in this world

Making a noise in this world
Making a noise in this world
You can bet your ass
I won't go quietly
Making a noise in this world

No Indians allowed
No Indians allowed

With eyes of fire
No one can see
The smoke from the sweet grass
Covers me

I am drawn
I am drawn to her
Like a moth to a flame
She leads me down
Unbound

I am lost
I am lost
Has anybody seen me?
I am lost

Oh, nothing is forgotten
Only left behind
Wherever I am
She leads me down
Unbound

No borders
No fences
No walls
No borders
No fences
Unbound

Oh, listen for the night chant
Oh, listen for the night chant

Like a moth to a flame
She leads me down
Unbound

No borders
No fences
Unbound
No borders
No fences
Unbound
Unbound

You know we have a million stories to tell
I'm just one of a million or more stories that could be told

Sacrifice your freedom
Sacrifice your prayer
Take away your language
Cut off all your hair
Sacrifice the loved ones
Who always stood by me
Stranded in the wasteland
Set my spirit free

My name is Leonard Peltier
I am a Lakota and Anishnabe
And I am living in the United States penitentiary
Which is the swiftest growing
Indian reservations in the country

I have been in prison since 1976
For an incident that took place on the Oglala-Lakota Nation
There was a shoot-out between members of the American Indian Movement
And The FBI and the local Sheriffs State Troopers
Two agents were killed and one Indian was murdered

Three of us were charged with the deaths of the FBI agents
My co-defendants were found not-guilty by reasons of self-defense
My case was separated and I was found guilty before a jury of non-Indian people
The prosecutor stated that they did not know who killed their agents
Nor did he know what participation Leonard Peltier may have played in it
But someone has to pay for the crime

There's a lot of nights that I lay in my cell
And I can't understand why this hell this hell and this terror
That I have been going through for twenty-one years hasn't ended

Sacrifice your freedom
Sacrifice your prayer
Take away your language
Cut off all your hair
Sacrifice the loved ones
Who always stood by me
Stranded in the wasteland
Set my spirit free

But yet I know in my heart that someone has to pay sacrifice
To make things better for our people
The sacrifice I have made when I really sit down to think about it
Is nothing compared to what our people a couple hundred years ago
Or fifty years ago or twenty-five years ago have made
Some gave their lives
Some had to stand there and watch their children die in their arms
So the sacrifice I have made is nothing compared to those

I've gone too far now to start backing down
I don't give up
Not 'til my people are free will I give up
And if I have to sacrifice some more
Then I sacrifice some more

Pay no mind to his messed up hair
Pay no mind to the clothes he wears
It's just the hours he's been keepin'
Ain't been doing too much sleeping
They dyed his hair and hid his feathers
And told him he was Latin
'Til he came chanting down the street
Like a cannibal in Manhattan

Rattlebone
Rattlebone
Shake it for the war chief
All night long
Rattlebone
Rattlebone
Sweet medicine
To each his own

One sky above
One earth below
One sky above us
One earth below

Rattlebone
Rattlebone
Shake it for the war chief
All night long
Rattlebone
Rattlebone
Sweet medicine
To each his own

Here's where we go off the map
Out past the power lines
Up that little side road without a sign
Hidden from the mainstream
The keepers of the ancient future
Keepers of the drum
They don't preserve it
They live it

Rattlebone
Rattlebone
Shake it for the war chief
All night long
Rattlebone
Rattlebone
Get down on your knees
And praise the dawn

Rattlebone
Rattlebone
Shake it for the war chief
All night long
Rattlebone
Rattlebone
Sweet medicine
To each his own

Wani wachiyelo Ate omakiyayo (Father help me I want to live) [sings this 3 times]
Atay nimichikun (Father you have done this)
Oshiya chichiyelo (Humbly have pity on me)
Wani wachiyelo Atay omakiyayo (Father help me I want to live) [sings this 2 times]
Wani wachiyelo Atay (Father I want to live)

Welcome to my country
Welcome to my home
You could stay forever
You won't leave it alone

Welcome to the bush
Take what you may need
Shove comes to push
Maybe I should leave

I can't let go of the painted desert
I can't let go of the old way
I can't let go of the homeland
It's in the blood, I can't let go

I can stand up through your destruction
My voice will tremble, my hands will shake
Yes I can stand up through your destruction
I won't break, I won't break

I can hear the voices
I can hear the voices come through the night

I can't let go of the painted desert
I can't let go of the old way
I can't let go of the homeland
It's in the blood, I can't let go

Sweat it out, sweat it out, sweat it out
Let it out, let it out, let it out
Sweat it out, sweat it out, sweat it out
Let it out, let it out, let it out
Get it out of my head

I can't let go of the painted desert
I can't let go of the old way
I can't let go of the ancient ways
It's in the blood, I can't let go
It's in the blood
It's in the blood, I can't let go

In circles we gather
Moonlight fires are kindled
Sending it back
We just make it go back

Beating hearts, beating hearts
Come as one, come as one
This is Indian country
This is Indian country

Together we dance
All the first nations
There's no chance
We ever gonna give up

Beating hearts, beating hearts
Come as one, come as one
This is Indian country
This is Indian country

(Intertribal)

Going home, going home
To a nation, six nations
To all the faces I did not know

Beating hearts, beating hearts
Come as one, come as one
This is Indian country
This is Indian country

Ongwehonwe - Intertribal
Haudenosaune

There was something strange
In the sky tonight
I was left standing
With three moons shining

Just on the outskirts of civilization
Just on the outskirts of civilization

Indians have always seen the lights
Since the beginning of time
They drew pictures on the rocks
Of our relatives from the sky

Just on the outskirts of civilization
Catch the light
Just on the outskirts of civilization
Just on the outskirts of civilization
Where the sun goes at night
Just on the outskirts of civilization
Catch the light, catch the light

I hear no longer, the song of the wind
I hear no longer, the cry of the bird
I see, no more, the white smoke rising
Only the low hum of the lights is still heard

Just on the outskirts of civilization
Just on the outskirts of civilization
Just on the outskirts of civilization
Just on the outskirts of civilization
Just on the outskirts of civilization
Just on the outskirts, just on the outskirts of civilization

[No lyrics]

[No lyrics]

Making a noise in this world
Making a noise in this world
You can bet your ass
I won't go quietly
Making a noise in this world

Everyone has a song
God gave us each a song
That's how we know who we are
Everyone has a song

We have come, heat the drum
The land trembles with dancing
We have come, bang the drum
The land trembles with dancing

Making a noise in this world
Making a noise in this world
You can bet your ass
I won't go quietly
Making a noise in this world

I don't want your promise
I don't want your whiskey
I don't want your blood on my hands
Only want what belongs to me

I think you thought I was gone
I think you thought I was dead
You won't admit that you was wrong
Ain't there some shit that should be said

Making a noise in this world
Making a noise in this world
You can bet your ass
I won't go quietly
Making a noise in this world

The Indian dancers stop and stare at him
Like he was bad weather
He keeps dancing
And knocks loose an eagle feather
The drums stop
This is the kind of silence that frightens white men

Making a noise in this world
Making a noise in this world
You can bet your ass
I won't go quietly
Making a noise in this world

Making a noise in this world
Making a noise in this world
You can bet your ass
I won't go quietly
Making a noise in this world

No Indians allowed
No Indians allowed

She walks alone down a sleazy backstreet
Around a corner, up an alley to a dead end
There under a small blue light
She enters an unmarked doorway
(A low heartbeat, a low pounding escapes into the night)
This is a place she goes to fulfill a very basic need
Something people have been doing since the dawn of man
To communicate without talking
If she needs something
She makes a gesture with her hand
And mouths what she wants
She wants to make a connection
A certain kind of connection
No this is not about something from the black market
This is about no questions
This is about smoke and sweat and beats
This is about no message

CHORUS:
Take your partner by the hand
He's a woman, she's a man
What's so hard to understand
Take your partner by the hand
Mona in the promised land
Take your partner by the hand
Keep it simple if you can
Take your partner by the hand

At the club they circle around some sex goddess like vultures
Flashbulbs popping
Like bees around their queen
She is completely indifferent to all the commotion
And orders some mango tango ice cream by sign language
She's approached by some wild-eyed poet drunk with love
I like her easy refusal, the way she shakes her head
She lives these days in the attic of an old dance hall
That's been shut down for years
And swears there's times when she can hear feet shuffling below
And can see the shadows swaying, moving to the music

CHORUS (first half)

Elevator going up
Fifth floor
Lady's handbags, shoes, leather accessories, and electronics
Wait a minute, where am I, on this elevator to nowhere
Going up, going down
Then like a hallucination
I saw her out of the corner of my eye
Studying some shoes very carefully
She definitely had a particular purpose for these shoes in mind
Then as quickly as she appeared, she disappeared
Back into the slash and burn of New York
Ah, stuck in traffic
Crosstown, the stress of not moving
She described it as like being locked in a car
With a madman behind the wheel
And the radio tuned to static

CHORUS