Plains Song

from In The Ruins They've Left Us, We'll Plant Gardens Still by Wooden Shoe Ramblers

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about

This song was written during the campaign against the Dakota Access Pipeline, when many dear comrades were away both at the camps on the Standing Rock reservation and at the less widely-known Mississippi Stand camp in Iowa. R grew up in Iowa; hiking there, learning its plant medicines, and feeling a deep attachment to what precious little remains of its landscape, from prairies to wetlands and woodlands. Sitting with the knowledge that the pipeline was being positioned to ravage it from river to river - a landscape already largely destroyed by industrial monoculture, frac sand mining, and other "resource" extraction projects - and knowing the urgent need to not only fight back, but to win those fights, is what produced this song.

lyrics

That old black snake has been crawling across the plains
And these two winding rivers stand in its way
Already frack-laced and holding fields washed away
With soil, and with hog shit, ammonia and blame

And what will they say when they speak our names
In these years still unfolding, our children now babes?
When the well pads still slave, in the Bakken, from the grave
While the oil keeps on flowing to the jangling of chains

Come mother, come father, and stand with me now
As we bury our grievances in this dark ground
Come brother, come sister, let's dig in our heels
And from Alberta down to Texas we'll bankrupt their oil fields

Come friends and come comrades, we've got cultures to kill
And in the ruins that they've left us, we'll plant gardens still.

credits

from In The Ruins They've Left Us, We'll Plant Gardens Still, released December 23, 2020
Vocals, Guitar, and Songwriting: R Young
Mandolin: Emmett Doyle
Harmonium: Sam Adams

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Wooden Shoe Ramblers Minneapolis, Minnesota

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