Bacon
Ryan was an old sage chief.
He wore a regal hat. I found him in a gas station
painted on one of those giveaway glasses.
Said to
Indians of
Oklahoma, you can collect
the entire set.
Hunting horse, sequoia, dull knife,
I don't have them all yet.
As I drive across this wild ground
for what wisdom I can find,
I thought of those gas station drinking
glasses and a chief called
Bacon
Ryan.
Chief
Seattle stared into the yellow eyes of
the mission padre and then spit
on the ground and said your religion was
written on tablets of stone by the iron
finger of an angry
God our religion is the tradition
of our ancestors in the
dreams of our old men given to them in
the solemn hours of the night by the
great spirit.
Our religion is in the visions
of our leaders and it is written
in the hearts of our people.
The mission father wrote off to preach the
Ten
Commandments to those who had
stopped listening with their hearts.
Come gather round me, people,
a story I will tell
About a brave young
Indian you should remember well
From the land of the
Pima
Indian, a proud and a noble band
who farmed the
Phoenix
Valley down in
Arizona land.
Down their ditches for a thousand years
the water grew our people's crops
till the white man stole their water right
s and the rippling waters stopped.
Now
Ira's folks was hungry,
but their land grew crops of weeds
But when war came,
Ira volunteered,
forgot the white man's deeds
Call him
Junkin'
Ira
Hayes, he won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin'
Indian, or the
Marine that went to war
They battled up
Iwo
Jima
Hill, 119 men, but only 27
lived to walk back down again.
And when the smoke had cleared and old glory raised,
among the men that held it high was
the
Indian
Ira
Hayes.
Ira
Hayes returned a hero
He was celebrated
throughout the land
Oh he was wined and
speeched and honored
And everybody held his hand
But he was just a
Pima
Indian
No water, no home, no chance
Yeah, back home no one cared what
Ira done
Hell, when do the
Indians dance?
Call him
Drunken
Ira
Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey -drinkin'
Indian
The
Marine that went to war
Then
Ira started drinking hard and jail
was often his home
They let him raise the flag and lower it
there like you'd throw a dog a bone
He died drunk one
Sunday morning alone in the
land he'd fought to save
Two inches of water in a
lonely ditch was a grave for
Ira
Hayes
Call him
Drunken
Ira
Hayes, he won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinking
Indian, but the
Marine that went to war
Call him
Drunken
Ira
Hayes, he won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinking
Indian, but the
Marine that went to war
Yeah, call him drunken
Ira
Hayes
But his land is just as dry
An d his ghost is lying thirsty
In the ditch where
Ira died