Tuesday 25 October 2011

OCCUPY WALL STREET THEME SONG: BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE

NO NO KESHAGESH 


What is being fought on Wall Street.... the North American Native people have been in this struggle since the Europeans stopped by for a visit and refused to go home. So it is no surprise that Buffy Ste. Marie is back with an energizing contribution to our current battles, the one we all, as human beings, are involved in.

I cannot say enough about Buffy. She was singing for us in the 1960's, writing songs like "The Universal Soldier" and other wonderful material that helped fuel our souls for our actions of the time. Her contribution to the anti-Vietnam movement.

This ageless woman is just as beautiful as ever.  "Keshagesh" if I remember correctly, is a Cree word for "greedy guts". When I heard Buffy speak of what it means, I remember it was used usually with a note of fondness as to a child stuffing its face with candy or someone hogging something. Buffy had a dog she named Keshagesh as well, he used to eat his diner and everyone else's as well.

But here, Buffy takes the word to a whole new level. 

Enjoy! Oh, and dance while you are at it... when you are not just marveling at how wonderful this woman sounds, looks, acts. She surely is the pride of Native American artistic accomplishment.


I never saw so many business suits
Never knew a dollar sign could look so cute
Never knew a junkie with a money jones
They singing Who’s sellin’ Park Place?
Who’s buying Boardwalk?

These old men they make their dirty deals
Go in the back room and see what they can steal
Talk about your beautiful for spacious skies
It’s about uranium; it’s about the water rights

Got Mother Nature on a luncheon plate
They carve her up and call it real estate
Want all the resources and all of the land
They make a war over it; blow things up for it

The reservation out at Poverty Row
There’s something cooking and the lights are low
Somebody trying to save our mother earth
I’m gonna help ’em to save it and sing it and pray it, singing . . .

No, no Keshagesh, you can’t do that no more!

Old Columbus he was looking good
When he got lost in our neighborhood
Garden of Eden right before his eyes
Now it’s all spyware; now it’s all income tax

Old Brother Midas looking hungry today
What he can’t buy he’ll get some other way
Send in the troopers in the natives resist
Old, old story boys; that’s how ya do it, boys

Look at these people, Lord, they’re on a roll
Got to have it all; got to have complete control
Want all the resources and all of the land
They break the law for it; blow things up for it

While all our champions are off in the war
Their final rip-off here at home is on
Mister Greed, I think your time has come
I’m gonna sing it and pray it and live it and say it, singing . . .

No, no Keshagesh, you can’t do that no more!

– Buffy Sainte Marie
"No, No Keshagesh"
(from her 2009 album, Running for the Drum)

4 comments:

  1. Occupy Wall St is bigger than the "Summer of Love"!

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  2. Great post. Thanks for the background on her... didn't know that. It helped appreciate seeing/hearing her. Loved it.

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  3. I agree Genie. We were mere children back then and naive, more easily manipulated by social trends. Things have changed. One war is so many more, the world is so much worse.

    For one thing, we did not have all that Holohoax conditioning to deal with! We did not have nearly so much to deal with, or if we did, we were clueless. We were still young and optimistic... how naive we were.

    NOW Everyone has a grievance and almost every facet of the lives we knew back then is screwed and defiled. This is much more all encompassing because people are beginning to "get" just how everything is tied together and that whatever effects one thing has ripple effects all around....

    Much much bigger and more broad in scope... a good thing...

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  4. Then I was unaware of the Palestinian plight. I was a typically conditioned jewish sycophant. 9-11 changed that.

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