Lyrics to the songs in The Heart of the Appaloosa

The Heart of the Appaloosa

From the land of shooting waters to the peaks of the Coeur d'Alene
Thimbleberries in the forest, elk grazing on the plain
The People of the Coyote made their camp along the streams
Of the green Wallowa Valley when fences had no name.

And they bred a strain of horses, the treasure of the tribe
Who could toe-dance on a ridge or gallop up a mountainside
Who could haul the hunter's burden, turn a buffalo stampede
The horse that wore the spotted coat was born with matchless speed.

CHORUS:
Thunder Rolling in the Mountains
Lead the People across the Great Divide
There's blood on the snow in the hills of Idaho
But the heart of the Appaloosa never died.

In the winter came the crowned ones near frozen in the cold
Bringing firearms and spyglasses and a book that saves the soul
The people gave them welcome, nursed them till their strenght returned
And studied the talking paper, its mysteries to learn.

In the shadow of the mission sprang up farms and squatter towns
The plain was lined with fences, the plow blade split the ground
In the shallows of the Clearwater gold glittered in the pan
And the word would come from Washington:  remove the Indian.

CHORUS

The chief spoke to the People in his anger and his pain
"I am no more Chief Joseph.  Rolling Thunder is my name.
They condemn us to a wasteland of barren soil and stone
We shall fight them if we must, but we will find another home."

They fled into the Bitterroot, an army at their heels
They fought at White Bird Canyon, they fought at Misery Hill
Till the colonel saw his strategy and sent the order down
To kill the Appaloosa wherever it be found.

CHORUS

Twelve hundred miles retreating, three times over the Divide
The horse their only safety, their only ally
Three thousand Appaloosas perishod with the tribe
The people and the horses dying side by side.

Thunder Rolling in the Mountains said, "my heart is sick and sad.
Our children now are freezing.  The old chiefs are dead.
The hunger take our spirit.  Our wounds are deep and sore.
From where the sun now stands I shal fight no more."

CHORUS

They were sent to Oklahoma, malaria ran rife
But more died of broken hearts far from the land that gave them life
And the man once called Joseph at death was heard to say
"We have given up our horses.  They have gone away."

But sometimes without warning from a dull domestic herd
A spotted horse of spirit wondrous will emerge
Strong it is and fearless and nimble on a hill
Listening for thunder, the Appaloosa's living still.

CHORUS

Talking Wheelchair Blues

I went for a jog in the city air
I met a woman in a wheelchair
I said "I'm sorry to see you're handicapped."
She says "What makes you think a thing like that?"

	And she looks at me real steady
	And she says, "You want to drag?"

So she starts to roll and I start to run
And she beat the pants off my aching buns
You know going uphill I'd hit my stride
But coming down she'd sail on by!

	When I finally caught up with her
	She says "Not bad for somebody ablebodied.
	You know, with adequate care and supervision
	You could be taught simple tasks.
	So how about something to eat?"

I said that'd suit me fine
"We're near a favorite place of mine."
So we mosied on over there
But the only way in was up a flight of stairs.

	"Gee, I never noticed that," says I.
	"No problem," the maitre d' replies.
	"There's a service elevator around the back."

So we made it upstairs on the elevator
With the garbage, flies, and last week's potatoes
I said "I'd like a table for my friend and me."
He says "I'll try to find one out of the way."

Then he whispers, "Uh, is she gonna be sick,
I mean, pee on the floor or throw some kind of fit?"
I said "No, I don't think so,
I think she once had polio.

	But that was twenty years ago.
	You see, the fact of the matter is,
	If the truth be told,
	She can't walk.

So he points to a table, she wheels her chair
Some people look down and others stare
And a mother grabs her little girl
Says "Keep away, honey, that woman's ill."

	We felt right welcome.

Then a fella walks up and starts to babble
About the devil and the holy bible
Says "Woman, though marked with flesh's sin,
Pray to Jesus, you'll walk again!"

Then the waiter says "What can I get for you?"
I said "I'll have your best imported brew."
And he says "What about her?"
I say "Who?" He says "Her."

"Oh, you mean my friend here."
He says "Yeah."  I say "What about her?"
"Well, what does she want?"
"Well, why don't you ask her?"

	Then he apologizes.
	Says he never waited on a cripple before.
	We immediately nominated him for Secretary of the Interior.

Well, she talked to the manager when we were through

She says "There're some things you could do
To make it easier for folks in wheelchairs."
He says "Oh, it's not necessary.

	Handicapped never come here anyway."

Well, I said goodnight to my newfound friend
I said, "I'm beginning to understand
A little bit of how it feels
To roll through life on a set of wheels."

She says "Don't feel sorry, don't feel sad,
I take the good along with the bad
I was arrested once at a protest demo
And the police had to let me go.

	See, we were protesting the fact
	That public buildings weren't wheelchair accessible.
	Turned out the jail was the same way.
	Anyway, I look at it this way--
	In fifty years you'll be in worse shape than I am now.
	See, we're all the same, this human race.
	Some of us are called disabled.  And the rest--
	Well, the rest of you are just temporarily able-bodied."

Willie's Song

Lately you been traveling more than you are here
As your dreams describe a circle growing year by year
The postcard you send from Vancouver or South Bend
Recalls the friend too long away.

CHORUS:
May the rain run off your shoulder when you're caught in a storm
When the frost comes a-calling may it find you safe and warm
May your place be set, may your promises be kept,
May you never forget you are loved.

It was storming in Seattle when your car wouldn't start
Sunny in Salinas, where you nearly broke your heart
It was snowing in St. Paul but the people filled the hall
And you sent them all home singing through the cold.

CHORUS

Night falls hard in a faraway place
When you never knew the name and you can't recall the face
Your timing's off, you're tired, you can't imagine why they hired you
We are there in the silence by your side.

CHORUS

Face at the Window

In the stillness of the alley waits a man with an open blade
And he hurts the woman badly and within her plants his seed
She can't shake the dirt and horror as the seed takes root and grows
But the law now claims her body, the doctor's door is closed
She goes back to another alley to a leering butcher's blade
And the deal is dark and bloody in the crime the law has made.

CHORUS:
And the face at the window never blinks never turns away
When you wake in the night to a flashing light
When you burn on judgment day
They have spoke aloud your daydreams
They have listened to your plans
They have watched you dance in the rainstorm
They have seen you ride the wind.

Walking slowly home at night a man touching a man
And the car looks kind of familiar and it's coming round again
You got no chance in that deadly dance when they cut you to the bone
There's a bleeding gash from the broken glass and you hear somebody moan
And maybe somebody calls the cops and they take their own sweet time
And they say it's just a couple of fags again and maybe your friend is dying.

CHORUS

And your lover comes to you softly and you touch and you feel no shame
And you steal away from the city and lightning fills your veins
In an air-conditioned office the committee discusses your case
They know the words you whispered they felt the flush upon your face.
They have files on every fantasy, who's on top and who's below
You have crossed into the shadow place where outlaws freely roam.

CHORUS

You can drink the lies of paradise while the books on the shelves disappear
You can make a comfortable living, you can swear it can't happen here
And maybe they'll come for the unionists and maybe they'll come for the Jews
And maybe they'll come for the heretics but they'll never come for you
When you hear the step in the hallway, when you taste the iron fear
Don't you go shouting out for justice 'cause there's no one left to hear.

CHORUS

Peace Is

CHORUS:
Peace is the bread we break
Love is the river rolling
Life is a chance we take
When we make this earth our home
Gonna make this earth our home.

Feel the cool breeze blowing through the smoke and the heat
Hear the gentle voices and the marching feet
Singing call back the fire, draw the missiles down
And we'll call this earth our home.

CHORUS

We have known the atom, the power and pain
We've seen people fall beneath the killing rain
If the mind still reasons and the soul remains
It shall never be again.

CHORUS

Peace grows from a tiny seed
As the acorn grows into the tallest tree
Many years ago I heard a soldier say
When people want peace, better get out of the way.

CHORUS

Annie

Annie's up at seven on a work day
Brewing up a cup of peppermint tea
Gathering her papers and lesson plans
She grabs her keys
Teaching arithmetic and Africa
Geology and girl's basketball
All the kids in her class
Will tell you she's the best
But she's heard other teachers in the hall saying

CHORUS:
"What are we going to do about Annie?
Pretty girl like her shouldn't be alone
If she took our advice, dressed up real nice
She'd find a man to take her home."

Mondays come with questions of couples 
Where and with whom did you go?
Avoiding the personal pronoun
She hopes it doesn't show
Shopping with her lover in the city
Two women holding hands don't get a stare
If the kids at school knew, what would they do
Would they hate her?  Why should they care?  Tell me

CHORUS

Never getting too close to a student
Never letting out too much of her life
Keeping her delights and disappointments
Tucked out of sight
Annie takes herself to the Christmas party
The principal whispers with a smile
"You're vivacious and bright, if you play your cards right
There're some men here tonight worth your while" thinking

CHORUS

Work that you love is hard to come by
The kids she could never bear to lose
So she makes conversations out of silences
And half-truths
But at night by the fire with her lover
She looks out at the wind-driven snow
And imagines the day when she'll look in their faces
And tell everybody she konws--she'll tell 'em

LAST CHORUS:
Don't you worry about Annie
She don't lie awake and pine
Got love to fill her heart, flowers growing in the garden
Annie's doing just fine.

Death in Disguise

All my life
Working at the factory
The pay looked mighty good to me
When my body was my own
Doctor won't look me in the eye
My youngest child asks why
I won't ever see her grown.

CHORUS:
Now I can feel the darkness
Growing wild inside me
Catching my soul by surprise
You know that you've made it
You got your home, your job, and some good times
Then they tell you it was death in disguise.

In the consultation room
They explain the x-ray slide
I stop the rising tide
Of self-pity and cold fear
Pale in the fluorescent light
I find no one left to fight
And remember all my careless years.

CHORUS

Half the town works there
So people fear the truth
There's no conclusive proof
There's any danger in those fumes
The company never saw my face
They've got another in my place
Another life to be consumed.

CHORUS

Dig a Hole in the Ground

You hear so many rumors sometimes you get confused
But I read it in Time Magazine and I heard it on the news
We'll see dramatic changes in the lifestyle we enjoy
If those megatons of atom bombs are actually employed.

The scenarios are scary, oh, but they don't worry me
Since I received a pamphlet from a federal agency
It's got diagrams and checklists and I read it front to back
And it told me what to do in case of nuclear attack:  Just

CHORUS:
Dig a hole in the ground, and climb right on down
Lay some boards on top of you and sprinkle dirt around
You won't have to be dead if you only plan ahead
You'll be glad you kept a shovel on hand!

Now you can't just go picking any old place to dig your hole
Got to take a ride to the countryside to the town where you are told
If your plates are odd-numbered please don't panic, you'll be fine
Just politely let those even-numbered cars go first in line

If you don't have a car, just hail a cab or ride your bike
You can climb aboard the Amtrak train, sit back, and enjoy the sights
You and thousands of your city friends will be welcomed cordially
By townfolk who will show you country hospitality--then

CHORUS

We're sure to give you notice up to seven days before
But it's wise to recognize the warning signs of nuclear war
If the temperature is rising in a flash of blinding light
Grab your toothbrush and a flashlight and shut the windows tight

If the wind is blowing wicked and there's buildings in the air
Blisters on you body, fire in your hair
If the tupperware is melting and your dinner plans are wrecked
Stay calm, it's time to put this foolproof plan into effect:  Just

CHORUS

No More Vietnams

The market place was bustlying in the morning
When the army and the ORDEN made their strike
Like a farmer killing chickens for the market
They cut down every living thing in sight.
They tore into the wombs of the women
The sunlight gleaming on their bayonets
And the fishermen downstream, though they never heard the screams
Hauled in a harvest of human carnage in their nets.

CHORUS:
Take down my name
I ain't alone, I ain't ashamed
And I say U.S.A. out of El Salvador!
You can tell the Pentagon
We want no more Vietnams
We ain't marching into that jungle anymore.

She left her home in Ohio far behind her
She swore a sacred vow to help the poor
With three sisters she was raped and slowly tortured
Left in a shallow grave in El Salvador.
A doctor, he would grieve at all the suffering
He never asked his patient's party line
But he saved a rebel's life--the death squad came at night
Healing the sick his only crime.

CHORUS

Our taxes buy the bullets of the killers
Our helicopters darken southern skies
Our business wants new markets and cheap labor
Our papers rush to print C.I.A. lies
But take a message to the smiling politicians
Who like to talk so tough and act so brave
The rattling words of war, we've heard them all before
And we will answer them with peace and joy and rage.

CHORUS

Larry the Polar Bear

In nineteen thirty-who at a zoo in Los Angeles
a polar bear named Larry performed for the crowd, 
they'd cheer aloud
He'd go slipping and sliding, jumping and diving
The people would laugh.  They took his photograph. 
Larry was born at the zoo
He never knew as he grew older
anything colder
than Los Angeles
which is warmer than Alaska
where Larry's parents were born.

CHORUS:
Larry the polar bear
He'd never harm a hair on a child's head
He'd do tricks for them
at the Los Angeles zoo,
as he'd been taught to by his keeper Fran.

Fran would teach him new tricks
A funny pose
scratching his nose
He knew there'd be a fish at the end,
Fran was his friend.

One day she said "Larry, you'll be in the movies
with real movie stars and a few simple tricks
and lots of fish
to be filmed on location in Alaska."

and so they rehearsed for Larry's big scene,
He's supposed to be mean
and growl at a woman who was rescued by a man who scared him away
It was stupid
but fun to do.
The director would frown
and jump up and down
kind of like the chimps at the zoo.

CHORUS

At last came the day of the trip
They put Larry in a crate
twelve foot by eight
and he sailed aboard a steamship
The journey was long
and boring
Fran would visit
she'd talk to him
and bring him his favorite fish
then the noise and the rumbling stopped
and they lowered him down
set the crate on the frozen ground
and opened it

Fran said "Larry, we're here
It's time for your tricks."
And Larry appeared

He looked out at the gray Bering Sea
He squinted and puzzled
put his nose to the wind
and the scent of the seal made him tremble
He smelled the fox in its lair 
and the weasel and hare
felt lichen and snow 'neath his paws,
and he looked at the tundra and ice,
looked at the loon in the sky and he ran

slowly at first
kind of lumbering
he ran
gathering speed
gathering memories from within
old and dim
growing stronger
to run and to swim,
to dive and to float,
the cold at his throat
But warm inside
'neath the fur and hide
Ocean and ice all around him
He ran
He ran
He ran
and he swam away.