American Ghost Dance

Album: Freaky Styley (1985)
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  • Oh give me a home
    Where the buffalo roam
    And the death of a race is a game
    Where seldom is heard

    A peaceable word
    From the white trash
    Who killed as they came
    Though these words dig deep
    They offer no relief
    God save the queen
    I am an Indian chief

    There is a secret I keep
    It's called the talking leaf
    And you better believe
    That he speaks his beliefs
    Like a rock that bleeds
    A sea of grief

    My talking leaf speaks of
    A wounded knee creek
    American ghost dance
    A new man who is with old ways
    He walks the streets of life

    But he's in chains
    I'm alive he cried
    I can feel the flame
    Burning red inside
    I am an Indian brave
    There is a memory

    That lives in my blood
    Of the brand you laid
    On all you touched
    But the burning flame
    Turns to burning pain
    Genuine genocide

    And that's truly insane
    So like a wild hurricane
    I will dance on the grave
    Of my race that died
    When it should have been saved
    American ghost dance Writer/s: ANTHONY KIEDIS, CLIFF MARTINEZ, MICHAEL PETER BALZARY
    Publisher: Hipgnosis Songs Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 4

  • Biscuit from D.c., United StatesThe Ghost Dance wasn't performed thousands of years ago. It originated in the west by another man, I think in Nevada or that area, in the late 1800's, and was adopted by we, the Lakota and is significant when Wounded Knee occured in 1890.
  • Louise from Durhama beast of a song! fantasic work. xx especially the very start.
  • Daniel from Victoria, Canadathanks for the facts champ but this song obviously has more then singing bass and horns you can easily hear drums and guitar in the whole thing it just hitting like palm muted strings and random things in the verse and can be quite easily be heard in the corus
  • Kevin from Canada, CanadaThe ghost dance was banned by the MAericans and participants in it were massacred. In South Dakota hundreds of women and children and dance participants were slayed for danceing. Its was a movement preached by a leader called The prophet. He claimed dancer who wore a special shirt would be impervious to the soldiers bullets. In spite of thebest attempts by the Americans. Native Americans today dance. It was not lost or forgotten. It went underground for years> The past thirty years have seen the dance culture return. Societies of dancers. Its just as real today as when they were performed by our anscestors thousands of years ago.
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