Blue Wing (by Tom Russell)

[ConsAreLiars]

There's a lot of reality/truth in these lines and this song:

Lyrics from:http://www.mp3lyrics.org/t/tom-russell/blue/ but edited to add the chorus text in each repeat.

Tom Russell Blue Wing Lyrics:

He had a blue wing tattooed on his shoulder
Well it might have been a blue bird I don't know
But he'd get stone drunk and talk about Alaska
The salmon boats and 45 below

He said he got that blue wing up in Walla Walla
And his cellmate there was Little Willy John
And Willy he was once a great blues singer
And Wing and Willy wrote 'em up a song. They said...

CHORUS:
It's dark in here; can't see the sky
But I look at this blue wing and I close my eyes
And I fly away beyond these walls
Up above the clouds where the rain don't fall
On a poor man's dream.

They paroled Blue Wing in August, of 1963
He moved north picking apples to the town of Wenatchee
Then winter finally caught him in a run down trailer park
On the south side of Seattle where the days grow gray and dark

And he drank and he dreamt of visions
when the salmon still ran free
And his fathers' fathers crossed that wild old Bering Sea
And the land belonged to everyone and
there were old songs yet to sing
Now it's narrowed down to a cheap hotel and a tattooed prison wing

CHORUS:
It's dark in here; can't see the sky
But I look at this blue wing and I close my eyes
And I fly away beyond these walls
Up above the clouds where the rain don't fall
On a poor man's dream.

Well he drank his way to LA, and that's where he died
And no one knew his Christian name and
there was no one there to cry
But I dreamt there was a funeral, a preacher and a cheap pine box
And half way through the service, Blue
Wing began to talk. He said...

CHORUS:
It's dark in here; can't see the sky
But I look at this blue wing and I close my eyes
And I fly away beyond these walls
Up above the clouds where the rain don't fall
On a poor man's dream.

Hey hey, On a poor man's dream
Hey hey, On a poor man's dream.

The best youtube recording is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG1QokdY4NA

(edit out some errors)

[pa28]

1. Good one.

I'll have to check out more of his stuff.

[ConsAreLiars]

3. There is a very precise truth in this song, about Blue Wing and those

who, like him, have seen everything that made them whole stripped away and destroyed.

I sort of knew all this for a very long time, but one rather tiny encounter made it real and personal. A Journal entry from a couple years ago. From http://journals.democraticunderground.com/ConsAreLiars/5 :

Bear
Posted by ConsAreLiars in General Discussion
Thu Jan 31st 2008, 10:14 PM
A few years ago I was taking a smoke break outside my workplace. A couple guys were walking past and stopped to ask for a smoke. Sure, of course. Maybe some spare change also.

We chatted a bit, introduced ourselves. The big guy said his name was Bear. (Sorry, I forgot the name of his companion who remained in the background.) I first heard "Barry" and asked if that was accurate. He said "No, Bear." I said that fit him perfectly. He was a Native American and a hairy giant, so the name did fit quite well. He said something very complimentary to me. I don't recall the words, but it was just to the effect that we had talked simply as one human to another, something he valued.

He immediately became a man I would always think of as a friend, and a teacher. A couple years later in a conversation with my SO who worked with the city's homeless population I learned he had died. OD probably. Genocide leaves its marks on the survivors. But one thing is sure. We, we the people, lost more with his death than any stock market index will ever measure.

So. I mourn tonight, and offer this brief memory and a few tears as a tribute.

(edit a small bit to fix punctuation and syntax)

[pa28]

6. Anyone in the NW or Alaska probably knows something about this.

Native Americans seem to be the worst robbed and the most unknown. You don't have to spend too much time in a place like the Warm Springs reservation in Oregon to find there is quite a bit of alienation, addiction, extreme poverty and suffering going on completely under the radar.

This song captured it well I thought.

[ConsAreLiars]

9. NorthWest Indian News is worth watching.

I found it first on Free Speech TV on Dish Network, but there are other sources: http://www.nwin.tv/Network.html

Earlier episodes can be streamed from: http://www.nwin.tv/Episodes.html

[ConsAreLiars]

10. Missed the edit window to add to the previous reply, but another

and more updated source for streaming NWIN video is FSTV: http://www.freespeech.org/browse/series?tid=1465

(edit typo)

[northofdenali]

2. Is he Alaskan?

Just asking, becuase this is a VERY alaskan song.

Dynamite; will buy.

[ConsAreLiars]

4. Russell was "Born in LA." But the truth in that song goes beyond

geographic boundaries. Many whole cultures have been reduced to rubble by outsiders, and the victims damaged and disabled. Their wounds get shown to the dumbass dittohead followers of those who command the conquering tribes as proof of the defectiveness of who had been brutalized, maimed and robbed.

[northofdenali]

5. Was wondering - becuase he speaks so well of the Northwest.

Most of our Native singers/songwriters are discounted and marginalized. When he speaks of his Alaska time it rings true. Possibly Southeast (Tklinkit, Haida). I love my state, and I love it's people, and it's people who really know it are Native Alaskans.

That's why I asked.

[ConsAreLiars]

7. That is what struck me.

The lyrics got all the way up to "true." Bear (previous post) made what I sorta knew real.

[ConsAreLiars]

8. Kick, for a few more eyes/ears and to draw attention to one stanza.

And he drank and he dreamt of visions
when the salmon still ran free
And his fathers' fathers crossed that wild old Bering Sea
And the land belonged to everyone and
there were old songs yet to sing
Now it's narrowed down to a cheap hotel and a tattooed prison wing

For me, at least, that sort of characterizes not only what has been lost and done to those who lived here before, but what is now being being lost and done to those who live here now.