Lyrics

I am Lakota!  
Lakota!  
Looking at money man,  
Diggin' the deadly quotas,  
Out of balance,  
Out of hand  
We want the land!  
Lay down the reeking ore!  
Don't you hear the shrieking in the trees?  
Everywhere you touch the earth, she's sore  
Every time you skin her all things weep  
Your money mocks us  
Restitution, what good can it do?  
Kenneled in metered boxes  
Red dogs in debt to you  
  
I am Lakota!  
Lakota!  
Fighting among ourselves  
All we can say with one whole heart  
Is we won't sell,  
No we'll never sell  
We want the land!  
The lonely coyote calls  
In the woodlands, footprints of the deer  
In the barrooms, poor drunk bastard falls  
In the courtrooms, deaf ears, sixty years  
You think we're sleeping--but  
Quietly like rattlesnakes and stars  
We have seen the trampled rainbows  
In the smoke of cars  
  
[Chorus]  
I am Lakota  
Brave  
Sun pity me  
I am Lakota  
Broken  
Moon pity me  
I am Lakota  
Grave  
Shadows stretching  
Lakota  
Oh pity me  
I am Lakota  
Weak  
Grass pity me  
I am Lakota  
Faithful  
Rocks pity me  
I am Lakota  
Meek  
Standing water  
Lakota  
Oh pity me  
  
I am Lakota!  
Lakota!  
Standing on sacred land  
We never sold these Black Hills  
To the missile-heads,  
To the power plants  
We want the land!  
The bullet and the fence, broke Lakota  
The black coats and the booze, broke Lakota  
Courts that circumvent, choke Lakota  
Nothing left to lose  
Tell me grandfather  
You spoke the fur and feather tongues,  
Do you hear the whimpering waters  
When the tractors come?  
  
[Chorus]  
  
Sun pity me  
Mother earth  
Mother  
Moon pity me  
Father sky  
Father  
Shadows  
Stretching on the forest floor  
Mother earth  
Oh pity me  
Father sky  
Father  
Grass pity me  
Mother earth  
Mother  
Rocks pity me  
Father sky  
Father  
Water  
Standing in a waken manner  
Mother earth  
Oh pity me

Song details

Artist: Joni Mitchell