Part Of The Problem 10

The famous massacre at Wounded Knee happened in the 19th century. This same place is an Indian reservation where, less than a hundred years later, the FBI caused a shoot-out with Leonard Peltier and others. Peltier was charged with the death of one of the government agents and taken from Canada to which he had escaped. He has been in prison for over 30 years, like many others, for political reasons. This is a part of the problem.
This turned out to be the longest song I've ever recorded. There aren't that many words, but I tried to encompass a whole era of history into a couple short verses. Maybe this was my idea to re-do Neil Young's "Cortez the killer" for North America. A story that needed attention.
During that same era of history wherein the first Wounded Knee massacre took place, there was a great labor struggle in the cities as well. Chicago's anarchists and socialists were organizing to strike for the 8-hour work day. Some contented themselves with this and hopes of higher wages and safer working conditions. Others advocated taking over factories, throwing out their employers by force and taking the means of production for the working class. Businessmen that owned the factories also had interests in the railroads to ship their raw materials and products. This connecting line, a train of thought so to speak, made me realize that the Indians were being pushed off their land by the same forces who were keeping the immigrants and the poor enslaved in the factories. This is another part of the problem. Marshall Fields was a motherfucker and I've never said that and meant it as a compliment. Evil white men who worship money like JP Morgan. We've heard their names, we should know what they did to the country.
Albert Parsons gets a name-check in this song. He and other anarchists were framed for the bombing in Chicago's Haymarket in 1886. He escaped to Wisconsin to avoid arrest but later turned himself in to die at the gallows with three others in 1887.
This, one of the last songs written for Bad Folk and recorded, leads to the next project I've recorded more recently. A folk-opera of sorts about Lucy Parsons, wife to Albert Parsons and leader in the struggle for worker's movements throughout her life.


WOUNDED KNEES (lyrics by Tim Rakel)

out on the plains, the ghosts of buffalo
echo like thunderstorms, storms that no one hears
Black Hills cleared to make way
for the thunder of the white man's train
and out on the plains
the ghosts of buffalo echo like thunderstorms
a nation and all it's people are left with bloody hands
a nation of people are left with two wounded knees

out on the plains, the storms still echo
from cold Chicago and through the Dakota fields
when they lose control, all they see is red
the immigrants every time
and the ones who were always here
and out on the haunted plains
and through the martial fields
the innocent flee north
stumbling with two wounded knees
a nation and all it's people are left with Parson's blood
the nation of Peltier are left with two wounded knees