Song 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 asked for our comment, I simply will render
My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

Now that the long houses 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 American history really began
When Columbus set sail out of Europe and stress
That the nations of leeches who conquered this land
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?
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?
Or of brave Unlce Sam in Alaska this year?
My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

Hear how the bargain was made for West
With her shivering children in zero degrees

Blankets for your land, so the treaties attest

Oh well, blankets for land, that's 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 say, "It's better this way"

But a few of the conquered have somehow survived
And 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 other 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 life blood is 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 brought us
The lessons you've taught us

The ruin you've wrought us
Oh see what our trust in America got 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 your novelty

Hands on our hearts
We salute you your victory
Choke on your blue white and scarlet hypocrisy

Pitying your blindness how you never see
That the eagles of war whose wings lent you glory
Were 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

"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 how their poverty's profiting you?
My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

Buffy Sainte Marie

The duration of My Country 'Tis of Thy People You're Dying is 6:47 minutes and seconds.