Street Roots • July 3-9, 2015
News
SAINTE-M ARIE, from page 4
Page 5
bow. I’ve never wanted to give people
anything ordinary. I’ve always wanted to
give people uniqueness. There was no point
in trying to be a copycat Judy Collins. That
wouldn’t have worked for me.
Since. I was a child, I have been interested
in anything that made noise like a mouth
bow or electronic squeaks or pots and pans
or any instrument that I saw. It is fun and
playful. That part comes easy to me.
A lot of people in this stage of our life of
contemporary issues are still buffaloed by
the old “coin game.” And some of us are
not.
This racketeering has been going on
since probably before the Old Testament. I
was going to say the Roman Empire, but
even longer than that. There is a kind of
racketeering that has come down through
the Middle East and Europe.
■ It’s not all there is in the world. There ate
a lot of alternative choices that you can
make. The first thing to do is to wake up.
Open your eyes.
S.Z.: Would you comment on your
involvement in the Idle No More movement?
B.S.M.: They are an extension of what we
have been doing for the last — well at least —
50 years of my career. I was talking about
genocide and protecting the environment
and aboriginal issues, Native American
issues even on my very first album.
The movement, Idle No More, these
things are continuations of a very long
Native American tradition to resist
corporate bullying.
S.Z.: Can wo talk for a moment about the
“silentyears”? Your music was blacklisted by
the administration at the time, likely because
of the power of your songs. A t that time, did
that dissuade or ignite you?
I didn’t have any thoughts. I was
too busy, and nobody tells you when you are
being blacklisted. I didn’t find out that was
happening until at least 20 — maybe more —
years went by. It didn’t faze me at all.
I just thought that in the; United States of
America, tastes had changed and people
wanted The Mamas & the Tapas now. I had
no idea that it¡'was any kind of political
administration’s silencing artists.
S.Z.: You’ve said that you sang “Now That
the Buffalo’s Gone” until you were sick of
people coming to see “the little Indian girl cry.
The change is going to have to come from
within us, the Indian people. ” Do you see that
change happening?
S.Z.: “Power in the Blood,” the title track to
your album, is your spin on an Alabama 3
song. (Alabama 3 gained acclaim for their
song “Woke Up This Morning,” which became
B.S.M.: Oh! Absolutely. Over the last 50
years? Are you kidding? I mean we have
Native American Ph.D.s in just about every
field you can think of. We have people
, working at the grass-roots level, as well as in
the theme song fo r H R O ’s series “The
^ O tta w a a n d W ashm gtonT D .C . We h a ve m a d ”
Sopranos.rfYou wrote new lyrics, turning the .
song inside out and reconfiguring it as an
antiwar song — much different from the kind
of call-tonuar tone of the original song.
I rewrote their words. I found out
when I was traveling on a train in Paris that
they were huge fans of mine. Our tour
manager said, “You ever heard of Alabama
3?” And I said, “Oh my god’.-‘Woke Up This
Morning’ is one of my favorite songs, and I
love ‘Power in the Blood.’” Well, it turns out
they were huge fans.
We did a long concert in Queen Elizabeth
H all in London, and they walked in on their
knees (laughing), and it was all (applying
English accent), “Buffy, you’re a fucking
legend.”
We became immediate friends, and after
the concert, we went over to their studio.
They asked me to sing backup on one of
their songs. We were talking about “Power
in the Blood,” which is really a very violent
song. “And when that call, it comes, I will be
ready for war ...” Yeah? Justice in the sword,
they said.
I told them it would make a great peace
song. They fell down on the floor, laughing,
got up again and said OK. I changed those
lyrics to real, contemporary issues because
their song was already 10 to 12 years old. I
contemporized it and made it a peace song
instead of an eye-for-an-eye song. As Gandhi
says, “An eye for an eye makes the whole
world blind.”
S.Z.: You open and close the album in a
spectacular way. “Carry it On” is joyous and
inspiring. It carries a message similar to “It’s
My Way.” You seem to be telling the listeners
that they have a duty to themselves, their
Buffy SainteMarie performs in the 1970s.
communities and the planet, or that’s what I
think. What does this song mean to you?
B.S.M.: Oh gosh, I think duty is a bit
strong of a word. I’m just pointing out that
we live in this incredible world and yet,
because of human boneheadedness, we are
under threat of shooting ourselves in the
foot.
It’s not something to be afraid of. IPs
something just to step up to. You know, it’s
like doing the dishes; you’ve got to do it all
the time or it piles up on you. I know that is
down home and folksy, but that’s kind of my
attitude to the world.
I’m not a combatant, at all. I’m really into
alternative ways of looking at things. It
comes naturally to me to do so and then to
try to pass that on to people who are being
advertised to death and conned in every
which way. Buy this, buy th a t Life is
simpler than that.
“Carry It On” kind of tells it. When I do
that song live, I recite that entire lyric
before we even do the song: “Look right
now and you will see/we’re only here by the
skin of our teeth as it is/so take heart and
take care of your link with life and/carry it
on ...” So people are really ready for i t
It isn’t money that makes the world go
around. I really believe th a t That is the
corporate hallucination by which we are
controlled. It’s not as if we have to get up in
arms and go and fight the world. No. You
don’t. No, no. Stay calm and decolonize.
S.Z.: That would make a great meme.
B.S.M.: I think it’s already out there.
S.Z.: You have done it all. In life, but also
in this album. Like you, the album defies
categorization. What were you thinking about
conceptually as the album came together?
B.S.M.: Nothing really. (Giggle) When we
went on the road after “Running for the
Drum” came out, I told my band that we
were going on the road for a two-year world
tour so they’d better have their passport
ready, and this is like year six.
We were already doing (many of these
songs) live, so it was real easy to put
together a studio recording.
S.Z.: You like electronic music. You liked it
before it was part of the modern musical
quiver. What attracts you to synthesized
sound?
B.S.M.: I always have, yes. Well yeah.
Even on my first album, I was playing mouth
incredible strides.
If you, as a non-Indian person, look at the
daily headlines and the email political
“shouting” that comes into your life, it’s new
for most people. It’s a very long time
coming. There has been a Native American
resistance for a very long time.
Idle No More is a true grassroots
movement, so it’s a true reflection of what
we do and how we do it. We’re not a
corporation. It’s not the same old corporate
sing song. It’s a true grassroots movement
- kind of like the Vietnam antiwar
movement was in the ’60s. Nobody designed
th a t Nobody put it together. It was a true,
student-led movement. So, on some days, a
lot of people are going to show up, and the
next day not so many people will show up,
and that has nothing to do with trends and
statistics and polls. No. It’s, who can do it?
That’s a very long human tradition: Who can
do it does it.
S.Z.: K om must know what a powerful
presence you are in the world. Does that ever
feel heavy?
B.S.M.: I don’t feel any responsibility for
the world. I pretty much just do what I want
to do. I’ve been doing this for a very long
time because I want to. I don’t feel a
responsibility. The church didn’t tell me to
do it. My mom didn’t tell me to do it. My
professor didn’t tell me to do it. No, I’m just
lucky enough to be able to have my inner
vision and my ability to pull things off. I’m
very fortunate in that way. It’s natural to
me.