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ripples

by puppeteer

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about

A song about the children of those who fled persecution in Europe finding themselves persecutors of Native Peoples they encountered in the Americas (and later, some of them, slave owners of Africans).  A song about the social consequences of not abolishing one's oppression (though who could blame them? escape is just as valid an option, and who reformed feudalism?), namely the acquisition of numerous social and psychological properties of the system one attempts to flee from.  A song about lessons unlearned.  A song about the burden and shadow of the past in the present that can never be run from or that never erases itself. But the most important question is not this ideological drivel, but DOES IT SOUND NICE?

Song written in 1986 but recorded here anew in 2021

The image is a painting called The Indian and the Lily by the great American painter George de Forest Brush (1855-1941). He lived with several tribes for a period of a year and painted beautiful works based on his recollections.

lyrics

RIPPLES

1
-
Father, I need to learn
Why eagles fly away, never return
Son, the eagles know
That when the land is cursed, it's time to go
Father, it's not too clear
What curse should fall on us
After these thousand years
Son, the Shadow falls
The mountains ring with death; hear the bugle calls

Oh, but the Great Spirits watch us and judge
From the Great Plains they store with our love
Without trace the white man will deface
All the hills and fields to replace
With his fear of the wide open space
He will offer us sickness and war
'Til their souls have been moved to deplore
For their spirits to teach them again
How the earth came to live with its men
And how men come to live with them

2
-
Diane, how high we sit
Like Gods that watch below, to treasure it
Daniel, see those motorways
Twist smoke upon the green, cut earth like cake
Diane, why do I think
That each time we seem to have less earth to drink
Daniel, it's ours to steal
The earth returns in full for each joy we feel

We yearn ever outward and ever beyond
Past the foot marks we left by the pond
Past the skin that we peeled when we both
First tasted our days of full growth
Ever outward we lose sight of here
Lose the touch of the contact we fear
Is that not why the elders marched on
Never clinging to Truths that could save
Like the white men who came from the waves
Their self-oppressed souls to escape,
Never face

credits

released May 10, 2020
Song written by puppeteer. All instruments and voice played by puppeteer.

song copyright with US Copyright Office, music performing and broadcasting rights managed by BMI, published digitally globally by CD Baby.

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all rights reserved

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puppeteer Chicago, Illinois

who is puppeteer? i grew up of American parents in Paris and London. i became a psychologist by career, remaining a music obsessive, writing songs when i could on bits of paper. raising a family prevented creative outlet of that nature. now, as a divorced skeleton, i spend time when i can writing and recording for this collection of songs, entitled Songs of Love and Earth. ... more

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