When our fathers came to this golden land
there was nothing but forests and rivers and sand
and a few million Indians runnin' around.
Now look what we've made of the little they found:
there's cities of silver that shine on the night
Churches of splendor and halls of delight
and only an echo of Indian drums.
Who can deny how far we have come?
The slaveships, they came with the whip & the rank.
and a million bleak people with scars on their backs
Picked cotton, drew water and slept in the cold.
With a Bible for comfort they wore happy, I'm told.
The laws they were passed, slavery went.
Our land's integrated, at least six percent:
In the sharecropper's shack and the big city slum,
Who can deny how far we have come?
The immigrants came from the green Irish shore,
from Poland and Russia, ten million & more,
Germany, Italy, all the world 'round,
To settle our ghettos and immigrant towns.
their brains and their bodies they put to the wheel
to build our great fact'ries and towers of steel,
to march to our battles and carry our guns.
Who can deny how far we have come?
Well, all through the Andes they've heard of our name
On the factory wall, in the palace of shame.
They drink Coca Cola and the dimes that they spend
go straight to the pockets of our businessmen
To pay for our Fords and our split-level homes
Our hi-fi's & records and six percent loans,
protecting our profits with dictators' guns
who can deny how far we have come?
In Asia & Africa they're learnin' too
How free enterprise can do wonders for you.
South Africa's prisons are burstin' with men,
Barbed wire keeps the Vietnamese in.
Where elections are daydreams that never got far
American weapons are there standin' guard
We're ready to fight for the lands that we run.
Who can deny how far we have come?
Our fears they are many 'though they're seldom said.
They're bleak & they're yellow, they're brown and they're red.
They see through the legend, they smell the decay,
They're learnin' to fight the American way.
And we in our armchairs are quick to condemn.
Our bankbooks are fallin', our profits might end
the breakin' of chains is our funeral hum.
who can deny how far we have come
When our fathers came to this golden land
there was nothing but forests and rivers and sand
and a few million Indians runnin' around.
Now look what we've made of the little they found:
there's cities of silver that shine on the night
Churches of splendor and halls of delight
and only an echo of Indian drums.
Who can deny how far we have come?
there was nothing but forests and rivers and sand
and a few million Indians runnin' around.
Now look what we've made of the little they found:
there's cities of silver that shine on the night
Churches of splendor and halls of delight
and only an echo of Indian drums.
Who can deny how far we have come?
The slaveships, they came with the whip & the rank.
and a million bleak people with scars on their backs
Picked cotton, drew water and slept in the cold.
With a Bible for comfort they wore happy, I'm told.
The laws they were passed, slavery went.
Our land's integrated, at least six percent:
In the sharecropper's shack and the big city slum,
Who can deny how far we have come?
The immigrants came from the green Irish shore,
from Poland and Russia, ten million & more,
Germany, Italy, all the world 'round,
To settle our ghettos and immigrant towns.
their brains and their bodies they put to the wheel
to build our great fact'ries and towers of steel,
to march to our battles and carry our guns.
Who can deny how far we have come?
Well, all through the Andes they've heard of our name
On the factory wall, in the palace of shame.
They drink Coca Cola and the dimes that they spend
go straight to the pockets of our businessmen
To pay for our Fords and our split-level homes
Our hi-fi's & records and six percent loans,
protecting our profits with dictators' guns
who can deny how far we have come?
In Asia & Africa they're learnin' too
How free enterprise can do wonders for you.
South Africa's prisons are burstin' with men,
Barbed wire keeps the Vietnamese in.
Where elections are daydreams that never got far
American weapons are there standin' guard
We're ready to fight for the lands that we run.
Who can deny how far we have come?
Our fears they are many 'though they're seldom said.
They're bleak & they're yellow, they're brown and they're red.
They see through the legend, they smell the decay,
They're learnin' to fight the American way.
And we in our armchairs are quick to condemn.
Our bankbooks are fallin', our profits might end
the breakin' of chains is our funeral hum.
who can deny how far we have come
When our fathers came to this golden land
there was nothing but forests and rivers and sand
and a few million Indians runnin' around.
Now look what we've made of the little they found:
there's cities of silver that shine on the night
Churches of splendor and halls of delight
and only an echo of Indian drums.
Who can deny how far we have come?
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da Broadside #65 dicembre 1965
Parole e musica di Bill Frederick, sul quale poche informazioni sono reperibili in Rete.
Nei primi anni 60 era un giovane studente in chimica ed obiettore di coscienza al servizio militare in Vietnam.
Contribuì alcune sue canzoni su Broadside Magazine. Si veda anche Just Another Day
Questa fu pubblicata sul # 61 del 15 agosto 1965.
Nel 1967 le canzoni di Bill Frederick vennero raccolte nel disco intitolato “Hey, Hey… LBJ! Songs of the U.S. Anti-War Movement”
Una completa storia degli Stati Uniti, dallo sterminio dei nativi all'imperialismo.