[ music: Robert Buck & Dennis Drew/lyric: Natalie Merchant ]



dance to the sun
a kiss to the earth
embrace a stone

come the small black book
come the brandy cask
one strange disease
the well worded paper
signed by the drunken
hands of thieves

and suddenly
they were told to leave

as the snake uncoiled on a road
the length was eighty miles
wagons' weary horses
lead the feverish exiles
barefoot in the early snow
on a ridge
where they beheld their home
coarse and barren
not the haven
promised by the Father

Jaksa Chula Harjo
Jaksa Chula Harjo
Jaksa Chula Harjo **

the Red Sticks first and
the Dancing Ghosts were
pierced with arms of fire
and the weeping widows
left could not avenge
so the Western Star manifest its will
drove them clear into the Pacific O

gone the way of flesh
turned pale and died
by your god's decree

for he hated me

** Cherokee name for Andrew Jackson
the 7th president of the U.S.A.