Johnny Cash ‎– Bitter Tears - Ballads Of The American Indian

Introduction

This album came to my attention, I have already forgotten how I saw it. It is sixty years old now and this is the first time I have come across.

I grew up in racist environments and can't even remember any real non-white contact until I left secondary school, and I was never comfortable with the racist attitude of so many friends and family and I covered that and my own implicit racist bias here:

One of the things that still appals me is the fact that in so many countries the indigenous people are put on reservations, abused and segregated.

Although this is about the indigenous population of the USA, the same is true of Canada, Many African Countries, and the Antipodes.

I follow some people and groups and where I can offer support, but this is about this album which is now in my collection and is one of the most powerful musical statements that I have ever heard.

This is the Wikipedia article on the album

Facing censorship and an angry backlash from radio stations, DJs and fans for speaking out on behalf of Native people, Cash decided to fight back."He paid for a full-page ad that appeared in the August 22, 1964 issue of Billboard magazine, calling some DJs and programmers "gutless" for not playing the Ira Hayes song, and asking why they were afraid to do so. He left the question unanswered.

Cash began a campaign to support the Ira Hayes song, buying and sending out more than 1,000 copies to radio stations across America. By September 19, the song had reached number 3 in Billboard.

In 2010, the Western Writers of America chose "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.

"As Long As the Grass Shall Grow"

This opens the album, but the only song I knew of before I bought this was "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" from an album of my dad's (he introduced me to Johnny Cash) . This song starts off with the American government giving the Seneca tribe land (remember the Europeans came here and applying Manifest Destiny and Religion stole the land, the joke is that England is responsible for more Independence Days in the world than any other country) but this descends into a heartbreaking abuse of the Seneca tribe, and this song really made me wonder what I had missed and taught me much. It is six minutes long but is an essential listen, in fact, the whole album is.

"The Ballad of Ira Hayes"

A song I knew before I was a teenager. Another story in which I learned of another Indian tribe, the Pima who I believe were part of the Navajo nation, but please correct me if I am wrong.

This is a tragic tale of a good man being destroyed by abuse by the occupying poer in the USA. The chorus says a lot.

Call him drunken Ira Hayes

He won't answer anymore

Not the whiskey drinking Indian

Or the marine that went to war

"Custer"

This is quite an amusing putdown of General Custer but details what abusive bullies the American military were. Custer was incompetent thinking he could deal with the Lakota and Dakota warriors, but we know what happened and this line says a lot.

It's not called an Indian victory but a bloody massacre

"Talking Leaves"

This is the last song I will share and is almost magical because it took me a while to figure out what the talking leaves were. This is a conversation between father and son, about the recording of the Cherokee alphabet:

Sequoia's winters were sixteen silent tongue spirit clean

He walked at his father's side

Across the smoking battle ground where red and white men lay all around

So many here had died

The wind had scattered around snow white leaves upon the ground

Not leaves like leaves from trees

*****

Sequoia's hair by now was white his eyes began to lose their light

But he taught all who would believe

That the Indian's thoughts could be written down

Just as the white men's there on the ground and he left us these talking leaves

Conclusion

Thank you for reading and I hope you listen to the songs, and they may lead you to get the album like I did. As I say one of the most powerful musical pieces I have ever heard.