Buffy Sainte-Marie - My Country: 'Tis of Thy People You're Dying Lyrics

Now that your big eyes are finally opened
Now that you're wondering, How must they feel?
Meaning them that you've chased cross America'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've 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 toddlers away
To your schools where they're taught to despise their traditions
Forbid them their languages
Then further say that American history really began
When Columbus set sail out of Europe and stress
That the nation of leeches that's conquered this land
Are 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?
How the Bill of Rights failed?
How a nation of patriots returned to their earth?
And where will it tell of the Liberty Bell
As it rang with a thud over Kinzua mud?
And of brave Uncle Sam in Alaska this year?
My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

Hear how the bargain was made for the West
With her shivering children in zero degrees
Blankets for your land, so the treaties attest
Oh well, blankets for land, is a bargain indeed
And the blankets were those Uncle Sam had collected
From smallpox diseased dying soldiers that day
And the tribes were wiped out
And the history books censored
A hundred years of your statesmen have felt it's better this way
Yet a few of the conquered have somehow survived
Their blood runs the redder
Though genes have been paled
From the Grand Canyon's caverns
To Craven's sad hills
The wounded, the losers, the robbed sing their tale
From Los Angeles County to upstate New York
The white nation fattens while others grow 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 lifeblood shut up in your chemical tanks
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've brought us
The lessons you've taught us
The ruin you've wrought us
Oh, see what our trust in America's bought us?
My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

Now that the pride of the sires receives 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 a novelty
Hands on our hearts
We salute you your victory
Choke on your blue, white and scarlet hypocrisy
Pitying the blindness that you never see
That the eagles of war whose wings lent you glory
They were never no more than carrion crows
Pushed the wrens from their nest
Stole their eggs, changed their story
The mockingbird sings it
It's all that she knows
"Oh, what can I do?", say a powerless 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